The SE Electronics Z5600 is a tube capacitor (condenser) microphone with an amazingly low price tag. It comes with a suspension mount and an external power supply. (Some of those high-end European manufacturers make you pay extra for the suspension mount - as much as a good mic sometimes!). Tube microphones generally do need external power supplies; those that can run from phantom power are rare. However, this type of mic will most likely only ever be used in a studio, rather than for live work or location recording, so it doesn't really matter. One interesting feature is that even though this mic is quite low in cost, it offers multiple patterns all the way from omnidirectional to figure-of-eight with more intermediate stages than you would expect. These are selected on the power supply rather than on the microphone. As a tube mic, you would expect a more 'present' sound than a transistor microphone. Combined with the large diaphragm, this will give an upfront, quite in-your-face sound quality. You should also expect a little more noise, but as the typical usage would be close to the sound source you should not find this a problem.