Mystery Mic

daedelus23

New member
I found this microphone in a box of old camera equipment and cannot identify it. No identifying marks anywhere. Someone took out the XLR connection and I'm wondering if it's even worth putting a new one it. I may end up doing it just for the experience, but I also don't want to ruin a decent mic ... if this is in any way a decent mic. I don't have high hopes. Everything else in the box was just low budget camera stuff, except for one lens that is potentially valuable.

IMG_1101.JPGIMG_1100.JPG
 
I did get an email back from Matt at recordinghacks.com and it's a mystery to him as well.

Does anyone have any tips on getting this out of the metal housing? There aren't any set screws anywhere or anything that comes apart other than the head basket which I can easily unscrew.

I'm hoping if I get it open there might be something in there that will help ID it.
 
A couple more images after I got it apart (and back together again) and then apart again. A couple pieces of red wire fell out when I managed to get the whole thing open. It just unscrewed, but it was tight and took a little muscle.

The only wiring left is that little white stub. There are four solder points on the back of the element. One with the white wire, one with a blue wire and one with a black wire both running up into the microphone element itself and a fourth one with what I assume is the sad tail end of the red wire sticking out a little.

Still no identifying marks anywhere. It grow curiouser and curiouser.

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I would have to replace the XLR simply because curiosity would eventually get the better of me and I would have to plug the sucker in. I'm stumped..

It looks like it's out of a 60's style television show UFO. Interesting color too. Am I seeing a gold tinge there? Could just be the lighting.

Damn cool.
 
...It looks like it's out of a 60's style television show UFO. Interesting color too. Am I seeing a gold tinge there? Could just be the lighting.

Damn cool.
Hmm. I was drifting to a sort of similar place. Metallurgy tests.. See if it's of known earth makeup.
:D
 
There's not really a gold tinge, that's my camera phone more than anything I think. The body is a semi-matte silver ... maybe with a faint hint of reddish/copperish/gold in the right light. The camera did sort of overemphasize that. It has stumped everyone I've shown it to.

I am going to get a new female XLR socket and see if I can get it working. Aside from missing the XLR connection, everything looks sound. No corrosion, no broken windings around the element. It just looks like someone yanked out the connection.

I've never wired up a mic before although I have done some electronics work. There are four solder points on the back of the element. One has the stub of the white wire sticking out, two are hooked up to wires that run up into the microphone element itself (blue and black) and I'm assume the fourth point used to have the red wire attached. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'll just need to hook up two wires ... positive (pin 2) to where I assume the red wire originally was and then negative (pin 3) to where the white wire used to terminate. Where, if anywhere, would the ground wire (pin 1) from the XLR socket be connected? A couple of broken wires came out when I opened it up, a red one and a white one. There wasn't anything I could say was a ground wire. Looking at some schematics, I'd venture to say the ground and the negative could be wired together. Like I said, I've only got a (slightly better than) rudimentary knowledge of electronics.
 
..it could be military. For communicating with command centre waiting for orders to shoot the UFO's down:D


But it could be military
 
That's a TASCAM mic. As I recall, it was called the MM100. It was supposed to sound like an EV RE-15 but that "cool-looking" grille some idiot insisted on, made it pretty useless. They guys I knew @ TEAC?TASCAM USA hated it.
 
That's a TASCAM mic. As I recall, it was called the MM100. It was supposed to sound like an EV RE-15 but that "cool-looking" grille some idiot insisted on, made it pretty useless. They guys I knew @ TEAC?TASCAM USA hated it.

Extremely cool HR success!
 
I wired it up this past weekend and it works. It sounds like replacing the grill is a good idea. Are you sure the model number was MM100? Every google search I do for that brings up a mixer, not a microphone.

It sounds like the EV RE-15 is a decent mic, so maybe I can do some small tweaks to this one and get something serviceable.
 
I wired it up this past weekend and it works. It sounds like replacing the grill is a good idea. Are you sure the model number was MM100? Every google search I do for that brings up a mixer, not a microphone.

It sounds like the EV RE-15 is a decent mic, so maybe I can do some small tweaks to this one and get something serviceable.

I'd just remove the grille when using it and replace it for storage. I wouldn't use it for close-micing drums lest the capsule gets hit by a stick.

I'm sure about the model # but it may also have been called a PE100 with a TASCAM label.
 
Hey RRuskin
Would you date this mic to the 70s or maybe 80s? I assume if it was a copy of the EV RE15, it was made around the same time period or a little later.
 
FYI - TEAC/TASCAM had all of their mics made for them by PRIMO, a Japanese company that made OEM products for the industry.
 
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