Aim Audio Inspire & Essence

A new German manufacturer takes aim at the mic market, promising real innovation.

Berlin is, arguably, the spiritual home of the capacitor microphone. Although the first commercial models were made in the USA by Western Electric, it was German researchers and manufacturers who developed the “condenser mic” as we know it today, and German companies such as Neumann, Microtech Gefell, Sennheiser and Schoeps are still household names. (Well, they are in my house.) Yet although Neumann’s head office is still in Berlin, their factory was moved to Wedemark, near Hannover, in the early ’90s, and there has been no microphone manufacture on a large scale in the German capital for the last three decades — until now.

Aim Audio are a new company whose stated mission is to bring back volume mic manufacturing to Berlin. That in itself is a lofty ambition, but it’s not the only bold move that Aim are making. Rather than selling clones or copies of classic German models, they are intent on demonstrating that the capacitor mic is not yet a mature technology. Their debut products thus display a wealth of innovation, including some patented new developments.

Straight Outta Berlin

Aim Audio are entering the market with two microphones: the flagship multi‑pattern Inspire, and a more affordable fixed‑cardioid derivative called the Essence. Both incorporate a number of novel features, and the focus on innovation is also apparent in accessories such as the Orbit shockmount and the Sentry pop filter. In fact, a fairly large part of the price differential between the two models is accounted for by the fact that the Inspire is available only as part of the Inspire+ Pack, which includes the Orbit, the Sentry and a good‑quality Peli‑style hard plastic case. By contrast, the Essence comes with no accessories to speak of, though the Orbit can be bought separately.

Aim Audio’s custom Sentry pop filter attaches magnetically to the Orbit shockmount.This could be more significant than you’d expect, because both mics share a distinctive form factor that isn’t compatible with many third‑party shockmounts. In cross‑section, the body is a flattened ellipse that is too wide to fit easily into something like a Rycote InVision mount. So, unless you buy the Orbit separately, the only way to attach the Essence to a mic stand is to do so directly, using the threaded socket adjacent to the XLR connector on the base of the mic.

The Aim mics’ unusual dimensions aren’t just for show: they provide a large and relatively flat area at the front of the mic, which is fully exploited in the design of the Inspire. Following the lead of some AKG C414 variants, most settings on the Inspire and Essence are configured using buttons that light up to indicate their status. The one exception is the polar pattern on the Inspire, which is chosen using a five‑position thumbwheel. This is a sensible decision, to my mind, because it means you can see what pattern is selected without having to plug the mic in.

The upper group of four buttons on the Inspire engage features that are familiar from other mics: ‑10 or ‑20 dB pad settings, and a choice of two high‑pass filters. One is a steep rumble filter turning over at 80Hz, while the other is designed to offset the proximity effect, with a gentler slope and a higher corner frequency. The Essence is simpler, with just one pad and one filter option.

Back To Front

At the bottom of both the Inspire and Essence you’ll find a button bearing a logo that slightly resembles a human brain. This illuminates red when phantom power is applied, and is used to set the brightness of the LEDs; it’s also possible to turn them off completely if you so desire. But the really interesting controls are those located in the group above this. On the Inspire, this includes buttons labelled Front and Back, which flip the polar pattern by 180 degrees if you are in subcardioid, cardioid or hypercardioid mode. I was initially sceptical about how useful this would be, and then I remembered all the times I’ve had to remove mics from their mounts and put them back the other way around to get them pointing where I wanted! It also means that you can keep the controls visible and accessible when close miking something like a guitar cabinet.

The more affordable, cardioid‑only Essence retains the switchable output stage that is Aim Audio’s hallmark.The patented pièce de resistance of Aim’s design, however, is found in both the Inspire and the Essence, and is toggled using buttons labelled Transf and Elec. These switch between an old‑school, transformer‑balanced output stage and a modern transformerless electronically balanced circuit, whilst keeping the output level from the mic the same. And Aim haven’t used any old off‑the‑shelf transformer: they’ve developed their own custom toroidal design with a “nanocrystalline Vitroperm core”. That sounds like something out of Star Trek, but the toroidal shape does have advantages over the more usual rectangular transformer. On paper at least, it permits a given turns ratio to be achieved with less wire, thus decreasing the resistance of the coils and lowering thermal noise.

Finally, both mics also have an LED located in the upper middle of the front panel. This is described as a peak level indicator, although its purpose is more subtle than you might expect. Aim say that as the mic itself has generous internal headroom, it’s easily capable of putting out signal levels that will clip downstream devices. They also say that in their testing, they found that many such devices did not properly indicate momentary overs or brief clipping on transients. The purpose of the peak level LED, therefore, is not to protect the mic’s own circuitry, but to give the user a heads up that engaging the pad might help prevent their mic preamp or interface from clipping. It can illuminate orange or red, with red being approximately 6dB above orange, but in general its operation is somewhat programme‑dependent, so these don’t kick in at a precise voltage level or dBu measurement.

The Inspire’s ability to give visual feedback doesn’t end there. Switching the polar pattern in a large‑diaphragm capacitor mic involves changing the DC voltage that is applied to the capsule’s rear backplate. The new voltage takes time to stabilise, so it’s prudent to wait a little before using the new pattern. The Inspire lets you know exactly how long you need to wait, courtesy of an LED within the pattern wheel that flashes until the voltage has stabilised.

Powering all this from standard 48V phantom power has required some ingenious engineering from the Aim team. Phantom power does not supply enough current to drive the relay that switches between the two output stages, so the mics use a charge pump to build up a reservoir of stored power against the time when you might want to do so. In practical terms, this means that if you’ve only just plugged the mic in, or you’ve switched the output back and forth a couple of times, you need to wait a while before you can toggle the output stage.

Into Orbit

Germany’s reputation as an industrial powerhouse has taken a battering in recent years, but on the evidence of the Inspire and Essence, the Berliners still know how to build things to a high standard. Aim Audio have managed to create something that is simultaneously functional and striking in appearance, The metal shell feels rock solid and the semi‑gloss black finish is flawless, as is the fine mesh headbasket. I like the Inspire’s case, too, which prioritises offering real protection over looking fancy.

It’s clear that the Inspire and the Orbit have been designed as a system. On either side of the mic body, you’ll find two small recesses about halfway up. To fit the mic into the mount, you simply push it downwards until the matching protuberances on two sprung arms lock snugly into these holes. To remove it again, you grasp the mic in one hand and use the other to push downwards on the levers at the top of these arms. This is one of those modest innovations that makes a surprisingly big difference to usability. Getting the mic in and out of the mount is much quicker than it is with any other system I’ve tried, and the mic always fits into its mount in exactly the same, repeatable way.

Uniquely, the design of the Orbit allows the point of attachment to be moved freely along its perimeter.

The Orbit connects to the stand using a fairly conventional clutch that allows rotation in the up/down plane; on the review Orbit, this was a little prone to slipping. What’s really neat, though, is the universal joint that sits between this clutch and the mount itself. Loosen this by turning the outer ring, and you can rotate the entire mount in the left/right plane. Best of all, you can also slide the joint around the Orbit so that the attachment point is at either side rather than in the middle. This, in effect, adds a third plane of rotation, making for an immense degree of positional freedom.

A feature I haven’t seen elsewhere is the Resorber Ring. This attaches magnetically to the top of the Orbit mount once the mic is in place, and helps to damp any internal resonances within the shockmount that might be transferred to the mic. The Resorber Ring is needed only if you aren’t using the Sentry pop filter, which attaches in the same way and has an integral ring. “Made with coated stainless steel and acid‑etched hexagonal holes”, this is said to effectively block plosives without affecting high‑frequency response.

Numbers Up

At the price, it’s no surprise to discover that Aim Audio are not building their own capsules. During the development process, they apparently auditioned over 60 candidates from different suppliers, using a purpose‑built prototype housing that allowed them to be easily swapped. The one they chose in the end is based on the ubiquitous Neumann K67 design, but has been fine‑tuned by the manufacturer to meet Aim’s requirements.

The original K67 has a strongly rising high‑frequency response, which is compensated for in mics like the Neumann U87 and U67 by a de‑emphasis circuit in the electronics. As I understand it, Aim Audio’s tweaks to the design of the capsule are designed to eliminate the need for de‑emphasis, so at least in transformerless mode, what you hear at the output is what the capsule ‘hears’. The Essence’s capsule differs from that of the Inspire in not being metallised on the (unused) rear diaphragm.

The Inspire and Essence both have exemplary specifications, though it’s not clear which output stage these relate to. Self‑noise is a very low 8dBA for both models, but the Essence is significantly more sensitive, at 24.1mV/Pa to the Inspire’s 13.5. Supporting the rationale for the peak LED, both mics can accommodate sound pressure levels of 140dB even without the pad switched in — and even then, the distortion level reached is only 0.05%. Frequency response charts and polar pattern plots are not yet available at the time of writing.

Crowd Sourced

Aim Audio say that they refined the voicing of the Inspire and Essence through extensive listening tests with a group of 40 trusted artists, influencers and engineers. This sort of approach has obvious benefits, but perhaps also rules out the possibility of ending up with something very different or uniquely characterful. At any rate, that hasn’t happened here, and the sound of both mics falls squarely into the target area that most modern large‑diaphragm designs aim for. In other words, they are on the lean and bright side of neutral, but not excessively so, and they have a slightly ‘larger than life’ quality that tends to flatter most sources.

Once you’ve compensated for the difference in sensitivity, the Inspire in cardioid mode sounds indistinguishable from the Essence to my ears, and I successfully used them as a stereo pair for drum overheads without any weirdness becoming apparent. On‑axis, both models have a fair bit more going on up top than you get with something like a vintage U87, but are perhaps a little less prominent in the 5kHz region than something like a ‘brass ring’ C414. In cardioid mode, the focal point of the Inspire and Essence’s high‑frequency lift seems to be somewhere around 10kHz, which is high enough up the frequency spectrum to come across as airiness rather than harshness. It could exaggerate sibilance on some singers, but I don’t think it would be a problem in most cases.

As is often the case with multi‑pattern mics, the on‑axis tonality of the Inspire is somewhat pattern‑dependent. That 10kHz brightness becomes more apparent in the omni setting, and could perhaps get a little sharp on some sources. In figure‑8, however, 10kHz seems to be attenuated and such treble emphasis as there is gets shifted down by an octave. I’m often not a fan of the figure‑8 setting on multi‑pattern mics, but in this case, it’s very usable, and was actually my favourite Inspire pattern for most vocals. Switching to figure‑8 does, of course, increase proximity effect, and the second of the Inspire’s two filters makes a good start at compensating for this.

I have only positive things to report about Aim Audio’s shockmount and pop filter designs. The latter does its job very effectively, with no adverse sonic consequences that I could detect, whilst the mount is both extremely good at isolating the mic from stand‑borne vibration, and supremely versatile in terms of placement and orientation. The pads and the Inspire’s front/back modes also work as advertised, as does the output stage switching, though the sonic effect of this is often more subtle than you might expect. Whilst cheap or undersized transformers can certainly colour the sound, high‑quality designs such as that used here are pretty transparent. Since I had one of each mic available for testing, I was able to do side‑by‑side A/B comparisons, but even on loud sources such as drum kit the difference was often marginal. To try to bring it out more fully, I cranked up a Marshall amp and plonked the Inspire right in front; the peak LED duly lit, as it should, but even then, the contrast between the two modes was hardly night and day. As I got accustomed to the mics, I felt I could detect a thickening of the lower midrange in transformer‑balanced mode, but it’s never a radical alteration. Changing the input impedance setting on my Focusrite ISA preamp also made more of a tonal difference in this mode, as you’d expect.

The switchable output stage is, I feel, a much more worthwhile feature than the multiple ‘voicings’ built into some capacitor mics.

Aiming High

Aim Audio have spent more than four years refining the design of their mics and accessories, with an impressive unwillingness to compromise. In terms of basic tonality, they’re not attempting to reinvent the wheel. If you’ve used a good‑quality modern K67‑based mic before, the sound of the Inspire and Essence will feel comfortingly familiar — although the relatively low price of both mics might be a refreshing surprise! But in other respects, there’s genuine innovation on offer, and it makes a real difference to the usability and versatility of these mics. The switchable output stage is, I feel, a much more worthwhile feature than the multiple ‘voicings’ built into some capacitor mics; it’s often more subtle in practice, but where it makes a difference, it’s one you can’t easily emulate after the fact with EQ. The Orbit and the Sentry are two of the best devices of their type I’ve tested, and easily justify the cost differential between the Inspire+ Pack and the Essence. Add in the case and other Inspire‑only features such as switchable polar patterns, front/back modes and additional pad and filter settings, and you’re getting a lot of extra value for a relatively small difference in price.

Both mics also look good value when you consider the competition. The most obvious rival for the Inspire is probably Austrian Audio’s OC818, which likewise combines a classic design heritage with genuinely useful innovations. Both manufacturers can claim unique selling points: made in Vienna, Austrian Audio’s CKR‑12 capsule is used only in their mics, and represents an improved version of the classic AKG CK12, whilst Aim Audio’s patented dual output stage is found nowhere else. Both mics, to my mind, lose nothing in comparison with more expensive models from ‘boutique’ manufacturers, and if I was looking for a general‑purpose large‑diaphragm mic for home and studio use, I’d be very happy with either. They may be debut products, but the Inspire and the Essence have arrived fully formed and ready to disrupt one of the most competitive markets there is.