December 27 saw me in Searsound's Studio C in Manhattan ( http://members.aol.com/searsound/studioc.html ) for some microphone listening tests. Searsound is owned by legendary audio engineer Walter Sear (see Steve Guttenberg's interview in the March 2005 Stereophile - http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/305sears/ ) who probably knows more about microphones than anyone alive. See here are some his collection of 243 models -- AKGs, Neumanns, Blues, Telefunkens, Coles, Beyerdynamics, RCAs, AEAs, Shures, Schoeps, and many more -- each on its own stand with cable, to minimize handling. Wilco had finished mixing their new album in Studio A the day before, so engineer Alan Silverman (see Stereophile, September 2006, p.72) and Stereophile columnist John Marks had taken advantage of the lull in activity to ask Walter to host a microphone listening session.