Electro-Voice RE85
A lavalier built like two microphones in one case, because clothing noise doesn't care how good your capsule is.
Overview
The RE85 is a dynamic lavalier built around one idea: the hard part of clipping a microphone to a person isn't capturing the voice, it's ignoring everything else. Clothing rustle, cord noise, the occasional brush against a jacket button - E-V's own advertising for the RE85 admitted these troubles are "a plague" to lavalier types. The company's answer was a microphone within a microphone. An inner element sits shock-mounted inside an outer case, and the two are separated so mechanical vibration never reaches the diaphragm. Recording-Engineer (September 1970, p.36) ran the launch copy for the RE85 and its hand-held sibling the RE50. Mass and resonance were worked out with the aid of a computer so that contact noises and cable rustling would stay out of the Acoustalloy diaphragm.
The spec sheet backs it up with numbers. The RE85 weighs 8 oz, measures 2⅝ inches long, and covers 90-10,000 Hz. That sounds modest next to a condenser, but this is a dynamic built for speech, and the response is described as peak-free and natural. It matches low-Z inputs. The finish is a hard, smooth paint chosen on purpose to reduce small rubbing noises, and a special low-noise grille handles the rest. The cable is smooth too, since a rough jacket dragging on fabric is exactly the friction the design exists to defeat.
Underneath the isolation tricks, the RE85 is a 635A in a quieter housing. E-V's own literature says the response, output level, and polar pattern are essentially the same as the 635A, the omnidirectional dynamic the company called one of the most popular professional microphones of all time. So you get the same forgiving pickup pattern and the same honest midrange, but in a package that can be worn on a lapel without picking up the performer's breathing, jewelry, or nervous fidgeting. According to the company, the result is virtually noise-free operation even with inexperienced performers, and at no expense to sound quality.
The accessories show how E-V expected it to be used. Each RE85 shipped with a neck cord, a tie clip, and a belt clip to help control the cable, plus 30 feet of cable. The belt clip matters more than it looks. On a lavalier, cable management is half the battle, and a loose run of cable swinging against a shirt will undo what the double-wall construction achieves. The tie clip and neck cord cover the two most common mounting methods of the era.
Pricing is where the sources disagree. The introductory advertising pegged the RE85 at $133 list, less normal trade discounts, and DB-Magazine (November 1970, p.43) carried the same figure alongside the RE50's $120. But distributor listings from the period show the RE85 moving at $109 through Electronic Industries, the Oshkosh master distributor that took out regular full-page ads in the trade press. Later listings push the price back up toward $139.95, so the street price drifted over the years rather than holding steady.
Here is what the RE85 is not. It's a dynamic, not a condenser, and 10 kHz is the ceiling. This is a speech and interview microphone, not a vocal mic for a singer who wants air and sparkle on top. The omnidirectional pattern means it hears the room as readily as it hears the subject, which is fine in a quiet studio and less fine on a noisy location. The isolation is a mechanical solution to a mechanical problem: it reduces contact noise, but the cable still has to be dressed properly.
Collectors and working engineers still run across these, usually in broadcast surplus lots or bundled with a 635A and an RE50 from the same era. The double-wall construction is the reason to seek one out. Parts are the usual story for 1970s dynamics: the capsule is tough, the cable and connectors are the wear items, and the finish on the outer case is the first thing to show its age. The 30-foot cable and the clips are frequently missing from secondhand examples, so a complete one is worth more than the sum of its parts.
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