Electro-Voice and the Cardax

Over time, many of the vintage microphones have become famous and recognizable because they were photographed with well known artists. Some of them have even been informally renamed for the sake of being easily identified, like the Elvis mic, the Billie Holiday mic, etc. Others may not have had a famous patron, but they still got names to associate them with: Hammer, Birdcage, Pill mic, Roman Helmet, Spring mic, etc.

On that note, I want to introduce to you practically the only manufacturer who actually gave names to certain models they produced: Electro-Voice. EV was born in 1930, when Lou Burroughs and Al Kahn decided to abandon the servicing of radio receivers and decided to transfer their focus to audio products. At the time, microphones were an expensive commodity, and the quality of the ones available wasn’t that good. They started out making one per week, and before the decade was over, the company had grown from a two man business to a company with over 20 employees. To this day, Electro-Voice supplies audio equipment to groups and big events, like the Soccer World Cup in South Africa, and has endorsers such as Al Green, Devo, George Clinton, and Snoop Dogg.

The microphone you see at the top is the Electro-Voice 950, better known as the Cardax model. The very first time I looked at it, it reminded me of the Shure 55S, but with a more oval shape. I guess that when Nady decided to manufacture a mic with a retro look (as mentioned in an earlier post), it went for a shape that was probably a cross between the Shure 55S and the EV Cardax. At the time, the Cardax was made in Buchanan, Michigan.

It’s not a mic you see often in the movies or music videos. The only movie I saw that featured a Cardax was La Vie en Rose. In technical terms, it’s labeled as a crystal cardioid. And although some microphones from the 40’s-50’s had high/medium/low switches, this one offers a bass variation, which is quite unusual.

Scene from La Vie en Rose

The DS rarity scale: 7.5/10