Apex 435 mods?

[dgatwood]

I'm toying with the possibility of adding a Peluso capsule to one of my mics, and I have an Apex 435 ($35) that I don't mind hacking the heck out of, but I haven't been able to find out for sure whether the capsule that it ships with is fixed charge (electret) or externally polarized.

Anybody know? There is a cap between the red lead and the base of the adjacent transistor (presumably the main FET), but beyond that, with two boards mounted back-to-back (with components on both sides!), this thing is really foiling my efforts to figure out the circuit.

Would it be safe to put a multimeter set to read DC 50V across the two mic leads to see if the capsule is externally polarized?

 

[PhilGood]

To me the 435 looks almost the same as the MXL V63 or CAD GXL2400. Both of those are non-electret. Should be a standard KK67 chinese copy capsule.

Don't quote me on that, though.

 

[Minion]

You can tell usually just by looking at the Capsule, Electret Capsules look totally different from real condenser capsules.....

You should be able to put a Volt meter between the Leads of the Capsule to see what the Voltage is without risk of dammage.....


Cheers

 

[dgatwood]

To me the 435 looks almost the same as the MXL V63 or CAD GXL2400. Both of those are non-electret. Should be a standard KK67 chinese copy capsule.

Don't quote me on that, though.

That's what I'm thinking as well, but there are no markings on the capsule to identify it. It is a center-fixed capsule, with a 32mm diameter housing. It looks almost identical to the capsule in my ADK Hamburg, so I'm guessing it isn't an electret, but since I've never seen an electret in anything other than a PC mount SDC form factor, I wasn't quite sure what to look for.

It looks like there should be enough room for a 34mm capsule, so I'm considering moving up in size. The biggest problem there is that the Peluso 34mm saddle/post looks like it has a single center pin holding it, while the stock 32mm post has two screw holds from the bottom spaced about 1/4" apart. They're close enough that I don't think I could drill a stable hole between them (and if the bit wandered even just a little, I'd end up totally screwed). Sadly, the saddle and post on this thing are a single piece of plastic, so I can't separate them or anything.

Does anybody know of a 34mm post/saddle with that sort of mounting? Maybe a flat plastic bottom that I can drill screw holes into as needed?

 

[PhilGood]

Why not just buy the mount for the 34mm that peluso sells?

It's the same mount as in the Apex 460 and MXL 2003. You would just drill one hole into the plate where the grill attaches.

 

[dgatwood]

Why not just buy the mount for the 34mm that peluso sells?

It's the same mount as in the Apex 460 and MXL 2003. You would just drill one hole into the plate where the grill attaches.

There's only a 5mm space (approx.) between the two existing holes, which doesn't leave much room for error. That and since they don't give any dimensions, all I can do is approximate it based on the size in the photo, creating a circle of matching arc, measuring that, and using that as a scaling factor. I get 36/34ths scale. If that's right, the top of the capsule will come within 1mm of the top of the basket. Any slight deviation from my math and the whole thing won't fit.

 

[dgatwood]

So I take it nobody knows how big the Peluso saddle/post are?

Apparently neither do they. I emailed then Tuesday. When I hadn't heard from them by Thursday, I emailed them again. Still waiting for an answer. You'd think they'd be quick to supply information for somebody about to spend money to buy stuff from them.

*sigh*

Anybody know what happened to micfactory.com? According to a Google search, it looks like they carry just what I'm looking for, but their site was "down for maintenance" according to a google cache entry from a month ago, and now it is completely unreachable.

 

[PhilGood]

Not really sure what you're asking. If you buy the whole 34mm support post, you don't have enough room?

I have taken the saddle from a 34mm support and screwed it onto a support post for an MXL 2000 or MXL V69 and it worked just fine. I think you said the support post for the Apex is one piece?

Got any photos?