AKG C-12A
Overview
The AKG C-12A is one of the most name-dropped microphones in the AKG catalog, and the documented record on the mic itself is close to empty. What survives is mostly its role as an ancestor - a reference point AKG's own engineers kept returning to when they explained where later large-diaphragm condensers came from.
The most useful technical context comes from a much later retrospective. Recording-Engineer (December 1985, p.70), surveying the C414 lineage, notes that the capsules in the C414 family - one-inch diameter - descended directly from those in the earlier C12, C24, and ELA M250/251 models. The same piece describes the C12A as offering a choice among nine remotely-controlled polar patterns. It says the C12A differed from a related model in using a 7586 nuvistor instead of a 6072 dual triode, and in offering two low-frequency rolloff settings (-7 and -12 dB at 50 Hz) in addition to a flat position. Those details are attributed to the C12A in a lineage discussion. They are the closest thing to a specification record that period literature provides.
No source consulted here gives the C-12A a production run, an original price, a sensitivity figure, an impedance rating, a self-noise number, or a documented failure mode. The documentation simply isn't there the way it is for the C414 variants that followed. The mic's reputation rests almost entirely on the fact that AKG kept citing it for forty years.
eBay Listings
As an eBay Partner, we earn from qualifying purchases. This helps support our independent vintage technology research.