Meazzi Ribbon
Manufacturer:
MeazziModel:
RibbonCountry of Manufacture:
ItalyMicrophone Type:
RibbonPolar Pattern:
Figure 8Production Start Year:
1952Production End Year:
1960Rarity:
3
Audio Recording:
Nylon string guitar recorded with a Meazzi ribbon microphone.
Multiple quality options available
Microphone History:
Summarised and translated from Italian Wikipedia:
Meazzi was an Italian company founded in 1946 by Enrico Meazzi in Milan. His brothers Remo and Marino joined the business in 1953. Initially focused on distributing musical instruments and developing products made by third parties, it became known in the 1950s–60s for guitars, drums, amplifiers, and audio equipment, often produced by external workshops under brands like Framez (a contraction of FRAtelli MEaZzi) and Hollywood. The company collaborated with designers and sponsored popular musicians (Including Cliff Richard) to promote its products.
During the 1960s, Meazzi expanded into instrument production, recording (through EDM), and electronics, gaining some success with innovative designs and equipment. However, by the late 1960s its reputation declined due to perceived poor quality relative to price, leading to a drop in production.
From the 1970s onward, Meazzi shifted mainly to distributing other brands rather than manufacturing. The company gradually declined, ceased most activities, and was fully liquidated in the 1990s.
MoMics note:
Meazzi are reported to have manufactured microphones between 1963 and 1969, and we tentatively assigned this ribbon microphone to those dates. However, the technology feels more akin to a number of other Italian ribbon microphones from the 1950s which were all broadly based on the RCA 74B design, with the magnets placed behind the ribbon to give an offset figure-8 pattern.
In particular, this Meazzi microphone shares components and design features with the RIEM model 230, which was advertised in Selezione Radio magazine in February of 1952 . In their early years, the Meazzi company was known to sell products that were made for them by other companies and it seems likely that this was made in the factory as the RIEM microphone. With this in mind, and in the absence of any documentation, we have dated this model to the 1950s.
Frequency Response:
Impulse Response File:
Impulse Response file of the Meazzi ribbon microphone.
Meazzi_Ribbon_IR.wav
