MXL 603 capsule

R

rick woodall

New member
Hello Folks

just wondering if anyone can help me. I own a pair of MXL 603's (actually one of them is a 603 mogami) and there seems to be something wrong with the capsule on one of them. It basically makes a kind of rumbling noise, almost as if its being blown into.

So I am basically just wondering if anyone knows of anywhere I can by a replacement capsule in the UK? I've found them selling in the US but by the time I've paid postage and import fees, I would probably be better off saving my self the hassle, and just spending an extra £30 to buy a new mic.

Obviously if someone knows a simple way of fixing the problem then that would also be useful, but bare i mind I know jack shit about fixing microphones.

cheers

rick
 
I am thinking that it is

1) Condensation on the diaphragm, leave the mic powered up over night in a warm room to see if it fixes it.

2) A bad connection on the mic cable (dirty pins, bad cable), give the xlr pins on the mic, cable and preamp / mixer.

3) A bad capacitor in the mic. Is there a local tech you can take it to as it might me an easy fix.

Alan.
 
Cheers for the responses guys.

here's the noise, first the faulty mic then for the sake of comparison the one that's working fine, you can actually hear me moving about a bit on the clip from the faulty mic, but it's not difficult to differentiate that from the noise I'm talking about, it's kind of a low pitch quite wobble.

faulty
Mxl 603 faulty by ricks other account on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

working
Mxl 603 working by ricks other account on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

wizendos - the moisture thing sounds possible, I'll leave the mic powered up when I go to work tomorrow. It's definitely not the connection/pins though, as I have tried swapping the capsule with the other mic and it is definitely the capsule. don't really know any tech people but I'll ask around if need be.

cheers

rick
 
Could be a bad FET that's oscillating or a bad capsule, but before I did anything I'd check the capsule's supply voltage to make sure it isn't way off one way or the other. Measure the voltage between the center pin of the capsule mount and the body of the working mic, then measure it on the non-working one. Odds are there's a huge difference. One of my Chinese condensers did the same thing after I modded it. Turns out one of the film caps was defective (or I overheated it, not sure which). Keep tracing your way back though the circuit at each capacitor until you find one where the voltages roughly match on one side and not on the other. That's the bad part.

Of course, if it's a bad capsule, that's trivial to check. Stick the dubious capsule on the working mic. If it works, the problem is not the capsule.
 
cheers for the advice mate but i have no idea how to do any of that. it's definitely the capsule, I've already swapped them to check. think i'm probably going to order a new one from the ebay shop suggested in the earlier post.
 
rick woodall said:
cheers for the advice mate but i have no idea how to do any of that. it's definitely the capsule, I've already swapped them to check. think i'm probably going to order a new one from the ebay shop suggested in the earlier post.
Click to expand...

In that case, you might try taking the capsule apart and putting it back together again. The spacers might have shifted around in such a way that there's a partial short or something. Taking them apart is kind of a pain in the backside, but you don't really have anything to lose. My vague recollection is that you usually hold the outside of the capsule with one hand while you stick two screwdrivers into a couple of holes in the metal ring on the inside of the capsule, grab them as a pair with the other hand, and twist counterclockwise (lefty-loosie) to unscrew the guts. However, I don't have one in front of me, so I could be remembering wrong.

Once you get it apart, behind the plastic is a piece of metal that forms both the resonance chamber of the mic and the backplate, followed by a couple of very, very thin and hard-to-see rings made out of clear plastic, followed by the diaphragm. Make sure those spacers are sitting flat out at the edge of the capsule, then put things back together.

I recommend doing this on a dark table in a well-lit room. :)
 
I have ever met the same trouble with you,I took it to someone else to fix it,he is the one who good at doing this,you can take it to someone to fix it.
 
Dgatwood ..... at that point once everything is out isn't there a really simple modification that can be done to the microphone? I believe it's a free-bee given out by M. Joly at his OktavaMod.com site.
 
Last edited:
Nope never mind I just checked for the link it's for a ribbon microphone and a SM57. But take a look at the site anyways!
 
hmm, I'll ask around, see if any friends know of anyone who fixes microphones, and if the price is ok I'll have them take a look at it (no point having them do it if it will cost half as much as a new mic). Failing that, I'll look into getting a replacement capsule, but I suppose if I'm going to do that then I've got nothing to loose by having a go at fixing it my self before hand.

cheers fellows

rick
 
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