Recording - October 2017 - 48

Royer R-10
An exclusive first look at
Royer's remarkably affordable
new ribbon mic
REVIEW BY PAUL VNUK JR.

ust shy of 20 years ago, David Royer and his company Royer Labs singlehandedly renewed the audio world's interest in
ribbon microphones with the launch of the famed R-121.
It was the first of many Royer ribbons: mono, stereo, passive,
active (another Royer invention), solid-state or tube, optimized
for studio or live use...
While the R-121 is ubiquitous and a true modern classic,
especially where electric guitar recording is concerned, at $1300
it's still a serious investment for most studios. Royer's first attempt
at putting the R-Series into the hands of more users was the R-101
(reviewed December 2010), an excellent mic that was the company's most affordable ribbon to date... but still a good chunk of
change at $800.
Lucky for us, the crew at Royer Labs are restless. After a few
years of experimenting and tinkering, they have a brand-new
option that brings Royer sound and quality down to an even
more affordable price. Let me introduce you to the new Royer
R-10, which is set to street at an impressive $499 and should be
hitting stores around the time you're reading this.

patented 2.5-micron offset ribbon element and rare earth Neodymium (Grade 52) magnets, the same one found in the rest of
the R-Series mics, is made in-house at Royer HQ. The new custom
transformer is USA-made, and the mic is hand-assembled at the
company's Burbank factory. It comes with a 5-year warranty and
the first re-ribboning is free. As a point of reference: I've had my
R-121 for 17 years and it just got its first re-ribboning last year!
The R-10 comes with a screw-on swivel mount and a velvet
Royer mic sleeve. It's housed in a small aluminum briefcase and
is sold alone or in matched pairs.
The R-10 specs out as follows: 30 Hz-15 kHz frequency
response, -54 dBv sensitivity, 100 Ω output impedance, and
maximum SPL of 135 dB @ 50Hz or 160 dB @ 1 kHz. Like all
Royer R-Series ribbons, it's a figure-8 mic.

10 vs. 121

When Royer's John Jennings first told me about the R-10 last
year, the mic was still going by its pre-numeric working title of
"Stumpy", a moniker owing to its small squat size.
The R-10 measures 5 7/8" x 1 3/8". It is the same diameter as
the R-101, and uses the same triple mesh screening and generally
has the same look. The differences are that it's in nickel finish
rather than black and it's about 2" shorter (hence "Stumpy").
The family resemblance isn't coincidental; the R-10 literally started life as an R-101 that some of the guys in the Royer shop
cut down to size, with David Royer going to work designing a
brand-new transformer for it. You can read about the details in
our interview with Royer's John Jennings (below).

The big question most folks will ask is, "Is this a poor man's
R-121?" The answer is: No, not at all. Just like the R-101, the
R-10 is designed to be its own thing. It offers another facet of the
Royer sound... but it's still the Royer sound.
To start with, the R-10 is 5 dB less sensitive than the R-121.
On loud sources this yields added headroom to keep from overloading the mic. On low-level sources you will need a strong,
clean preamp, even more so than with other Royer ribbons.
I used the R-10 with my Millennia Media HV-3D preamp, a
Chandler TG-2, and the AEA RPQ2 (reviewed July 2017). On
most sources the R-10 fared just fine, short of spoken word,
which did get a tad noisy when pushed-that's the preamps,
not the mic. I also had great success running the R-10 through a
Cloud Microphones Cloudlifter CL-Z to turn it into an active ribbon.

Meet the R-10

The song remains the same

A.K.A. "Stumpy"

The R-10 is a globally sourced mic. Its body and frame are
made in China, while the ribbon transducer with Royer's
48

RECORDING October 2017

Side by side with my R-121, I tracked a folksy acoustic song
with male vocals, cajon, kick drum, tambourine, and a parlor-sized

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