Neumann spin off

Auggybendoggy

New member
I met someone who mentioned a microphone to me. He stated that the engineer/designer was once a Neumann engineer and started his own company. The name of the company had a name of a man - like earl, or eric or something I can't recall for the life of me. Anyone have an idea which company. I had gone to their website but a month ago and now I forgot. Yes, my browser history does not show it.


Any ideas?
 
The first Neumann company is Gefell, which was started by Georg Neumann and Erich Rickmann.

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The Neumann company itself was started later by ex-Gefell engineers, in West Berlin, while Gefell was in East Berlin. By that time, Erich Rickmann had already passed away.

Wagner could be an ex-Neumann guy:

U47 Remake

And so is Andreas Grosser:

Andreas Grosser Fan Page | About Andreas Grosser

And Siegfried Thiersch:

Thiersch elektroakustik

In fact, there are many ex-Neumann engineers, cause Sennheiser sacked all of them when they took over Neumann.

A couple of disgruntled ex-Neumann engineers went to China and started something there, but I can't recall their names...
 
Guys, thanks so much. it was in the list and it was Lucas Engineering. Once I saw the website, I realized that was it. And funny I remember it being a normal mans name.
Thanks so much for that database.
 
I read that site and they are trying not to be Clones.
Which is refreshing in many ways, as they try to invent something of their own.

clip from Lucas Engineering:
Lucas

It was decided then...they would follow no classic microphone's plan exactly, no matter the historical import of any one microphone...if appropriate, they might borrow certain concepts from one, or more...but they especially would INNOVATE as well.


WHY?

Many at this point might be saying, "Those old mics are so good, why do anything else? Why not just make a perfect clone?"

Oliver and Terry's answer was: "We are not Cloners, and we have not made, and will not make, a clone. It's that simple. The Greatness of Man lies in Innovation and Experimentation, not in Blindly Following."

Remember, when the 47/48/49/251/12 were originally designed, the makers WERE innovating. The designers did not just rely on remaking a 44, or some early condenser of the day. The Neumann/Nord West Deutscher Rundfunk /Telefunken/AKG designers used everything at their disposal, and created new and better ways, to MAKE THEIR OWN SPECIAL PRODUCT, as well as they could do it.

And they did that, with the then-world's greatest designers, right up until...the transistor came in the door. After that, there were certainly some excellent fet microphones made...but the original tube expert designers were on the way out of corporate favour. Then when, a bit later, the transformer was going out of vogue in favour of the electronically balanced circuit, things were on even more of a downhill slide for our Great Designer Guys.


AKG was same story, shutdown Harman....now Samsung buys Harman (for the automotive stuff). So will AKG survive or become some version of itself? It would be cool if Samsung just took the automotive crap and let Austrian Audio buy the AKG mic division and ensure its quality and vibe in being a company focused on microphones.
 
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That's Oliver Archut's design. Sadly, he passed away in 2014:

Vintage Audio Technology for the Modern Studio

I don't think he ever worked for Neumann, but his designs are very high rated by those who own one of his compressors, eq or preamps. I believe some of the gear is sold under the AMI brand. And another of his brands is TAB Funkenwerk:

Vintage Audio Technology for the Modern Studio

There is a FB page that seems to continue the products:

AMI - Home | Facebook

I think they are only producing transformers, atm?
 
AKG was same story, shutdown Harman....now Samsung buys Harman (for the automotive stuff). So will AKG survive or become some version of itself? It would be cool if Samsung just took the automotive crap and let Austrian Audio buy the AKG mic division and ensure its quality and vibe in being a company focused on microphones.

I thought that Lewitt were formed by ex-AKG engineers after the big Harman changes.
 
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