Bad news for Neumann, Shure, AKG etc...!

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I posted follow up on Neumann pinboard:

Dear Mr. Schneider,

First, I would like to tell that I highly regard many Neumann's microphones and at different points owned some 'classics'--SM2, U47tube,U67, U87, KM54.
I was the person Han refered as an 'engineer' in his post. For different studios I have serviced and repaired literally hundreds of microphones, including Neumanns.
If you don't mind I have a few questions:

1)As Han has mentioned, his tube became noisy after some 2 and half year. We all know that normally (esp. preselected) the tube should be fine for at least 20-30 years. Considering that you use 'special selected tubes', which priced quite high, do you have any warranty, which covers that, or every two-three years your customers have to pay some $400 for replacing the tube?

2)As I understand, first M149's were with 8254 tubes. If you could tell me please, I am interested to know the reason why later it was replaced with 6111? Is it a quality reason, or 8254' availability?

3)A few years ago friend of mine replaced his AC701 (which is by far much more expensive tube than 6111) in his forty years old M50. If I remember correctly, he payed $350. I am interested to know what makes 6111, (even specially selected) $50-$100 superior than AC701, considering that it goes noisy in two and half years?

Thanks, Marik
 
Marik,

If you get a response, I sincerely hope you will share it with the forum. I'll be especially interested if Mr. Schneider answers your questions directly or if he skirts them. It's funny though, it goes back to what I was saying about marketing. I didn't mention the service aspect. A friend of mine told me a story years ago that I can't confirm but it illustrates the point:

She was driving cross country (USA) with a freind from California to New York in a Rolls Royce. In the mountains of Pennsylvania the car experienced engine problems and made such an awful racket they were forced to stop and call RR service. RR service found a room for them at a nearby hotel, gave them a rental and took the RR for repair. They had the car back in 24 hours, repaired. When the owner inquired as to the trouble, he was told "Nothing! Rolls Royces do not break down!" (the problem was actually a bad transmission ;) ).

I think it illustrates the point well. If you are going to sell Rolls Royces, you damn well better service the customer. I don't think Han was and it's too bad that it's too late to rectify the situation.

Regards, Steve
 
Oh, it happens all the time. A couple of years back I've had the same kind of experience with a Hartke bass combo.

I'd bought it new and it almost never got used in the studio. Only a couple of times and sometimes to monitor a Rhodes or some other keyboard.

It has never left the studio, it never has been on stage and it has never been played loudly.

Then it began to sound not funny and it turned out tha aluminium cone of the 15" speaker was cracked, there was a circular crack.

I sent it to the importer and got the message the speaker was blown. So I demanded to have the 'blown' speaker sent back to me. It had a slightly different color on a part of the coil, but this would never had been a problem whatsoever. If that cone wouldn't have the crack, it would have still be a fine speaker.

I replaced it with a 15" JBL speaker, which still sounds fine.

I don't have to pay that speaker privately, but what about the young kid, delivering the morning paper for some lousy bucks, in order to save for his Hartke bass amp, which he can buy after a year of hard labour?

Later I found out there have been many problems with the aluminium coned speakers, a guy from a big music store told me.

No guarantee on Hartke speakers!
 
This is one of my very long-running complaints. What these arrogant companies are really telling you is:

"F*** you. We have so much business, we do not need yours."

There are so many, many nice choices other than Sennheiser or Neumann. In addition to the ones mentioned above, I'm watching from the side lines to see how the Studio Projects Stephen Paul mic is going to be received. From what I understand, it will be a real engineering marvel.

Choice is good. Especially premium grade choice.
 
<If you get a response, I sincerely hope you will share it with the forum. I'll be especially interested if Mr. Schneider answers your questions directly or if he skirts them.>

I definitely will.

<It's funny though, it goes back to what I was saying about marketing. I didn't mention the service aspect.>

Yeah Steve,
Tell me about Neumann's customer service. A few years ago I inquired about my shot KK67 capsule. I waited three months--no reply. I wrote again--you bet, up until now I am waiting. When I have some spare time I will just try to rediaphragm it myself.

Speaking of the cars... I have an old 1987 325ES BMW--nothing special. A year and half ago I got a letter from the company, saying that my car is eligible for recall (some heater hoses). Mind you, I never went to a dealer for service before. I guess they got the information from MVD. So I left the car for a day and got from them rental. Next day I came to pick my car and was prepared to pay at least for rental. Some pretty girl gave me receipt where the line with total due was filled as 00.00 and told me: "Thank you sir, enjoy your car"
 
arcanemethods said:
There is a form of patent called a "design patent" which covers the external, visible appearance of a product. It need claim nothing but novelty.
Bob
Click to expand...

I'm aware of design patents. I asked about that because IMO there are far more potentially actionable trademark claims than patent claims. I'm quite surprised that folks would attempt to assert a patent claim (even a design patent) when there are better trademark or unfair competition claims about this stuff. But, even if a design patent is what is being threatened, a company cannot claim that a design is new if the design has been used for many years.

Look around at microphone designs. Can you honestly say that there is any "new" design? The novelty standard is not "new to the maker". Instead it's "new to the world" or "new art". This is a difficult legal standard to achieve with microphone designs as they exist now.... back to Neumann tubes...:D
 
Marik, I noticed that you've put a second post on Neumann's.
That will not make them very happy I suppose.

In general, people are visiting the pinboard to ask questions about the mics and to discuss applications, but I haven't seen any complaining about the service so far.

I think it's about time to realize the mic industry is changing rapidly, the mic manufaturers from the far east are coming!

If you visit the forums you can see that the customer service from Studio Projects for example, is a fine example of how it should be. A $79 mic get's replaced for free, because it has been fallen down from his clip.

The benefit of the internot is that any engineer can and will notice the behaviour of manufacturers and this is a problem as well for them.

You will agree with me that once you do something wrong or make a mistake, the 'news' spreads like oil on water and it will take many good things to have your good name restored, that's how things work in this small audio world.

I hope Sennheiser will realize that the policy is not what it should be, economics in Germany are fading and more than other countries in Europe.

I like Steve's analogy with Rolls Royce, you pay an enormous amount of money for the car, but you get an enormous amount of car and you'll never be in trouble.
 
this is the difference between computer gear and musical stuff, and it confuses me a little.

you buy computer parts dirt cheap, from a trade dealer or an OEM supplier, and you know it's cheaper cos it doesn't come with free support and all the crap the high street dealers bundle in. you pay extra if you want better service.

the music market doesn't seem to work this way at all (certainly not in this case or in my experience generally) because no matter how much you spend there is no guarantee of support or repairs. i bought some cheap headphones the other week, the wire is really thin but it said two-year warranty so i thought i'd be fine. i get home and read the warranty and it excludes the lead! so there was never a promise of functionality from brand new on the most fragile part of the item!

what these far eastern manufacturers are doing for prices is great, but when they have the great support that SP is known for, or offer free 2-week no obligation trials like SE Electronics, the big names have gotta be running scared. yes, the expensive brands may last longer, but i'd rather have a cheap mic replaced twice than an expensive one which dies a couple of years down the road and costs 3 months' rent to repair.
 
Marik said:
Yep, I have always been wondering... What makes some of the mics to be worth of a car, or.... downpayment for a house...
Or what makes Dick Sequeirra ribbon mic, which consists of two magnets, two iron pole pieces, piece of aluminum foil, transformer and housing (and that's it!!!) worth $3.000.
Click to expand...
What about Stephen Paul... what's so special about Stephen Paul's work and why is the Stephen Paul mic going to cost almost $2000? Do you think the Chinese will some day make an identical Stephen Paul mic and sell it for under $200... will it be as good (well built, sound, etc) as the orignal Stephen Paul mic?
 
Maybe this will answer your question........................


From Brent Casey.........................."However, some of these parts and materials aren't so easy to come by due to their tolerance. Right now I am working on obtaining a certain material and the tightest tolerance I can find so far is +/- 0.00006" That's plus or minus sixty millionths. We would prefer a tighter spec than that, say about half.
The mic is like that throughout. It is tight.
Most of the custom parts such as the FET, etc. are on hand here and ready to go. Other parts have been built since Stephen moved on and I really wish he was here to see them. We are very fortunate in that Stephen had established very good relationships with the machinists, metal stampers, injection molding, plating people, etc. - everybody who has a big hand in building respective parts of the mic. All of them thought very highly of Stephen because he could speak their language. We came to a lot of different companies with our concepts and drawings tucked under our arms. Stephen, being a master of digression could bring a CEO or engineer of an aerospace company up to speed on the last sixty years of microphone technology and then explain how he intended to take all that history and technology a step further with his mic. Then he would bring them up to date on the aerospace industry as well. Some of those guys couldn't care less about what he was doing, but they would quote us just the same. Money is money. What we have today are the people who did care about the man and what he was doing and they understand exactly how to go about it. Stephen and I spent countless hours with them.
This mic is being built in Los Angeles within a 30 mile radius of Stephen's front door. We have painstakingly found and selected companies who have all been operating in the music and aerospace industry for decades."



And from Alan Hyatt.....................". I had always thought Stephen was crazy and out of his mind. I had bet he could not do it to those tolerances. I am here to tell you, I was wrong. It is possible. Damn freaking hard, but after two years, it now can be done.

So, know that many things that were said in hopes of doing this based on one way of thinking, are now two years later being done another way. I assure you, it is the right way, and the only way Stephen would allow it. You can't do this in China, and maybe not even in Germany, or anywhere else anymore."



:cool:
 
With that in mind... do you really think the cheap Chinese mics are as good as the top name brand mics like Neumann, Shure, AKG and etc... and if so, why only Stephen Paul and not Neumann, Shure, AKG and etc?
 
"Good" is subjective.................if a mic does the job satisfactorily then I guess it can be classed as "good", at least on that occasion regardless of what brand it is.

I have little doubt that there is a definite step up in build quality when you move from the Asian mics to the likes of Neumann, etc. What is the lifespan of a mic.................who knows! What we are seeing is what appears to be a steady improvement in a lot of the mics coming from Asia and it is this that will eventually put pressure on the "high end" and boutique manufacturers.



"......................and if so, why only Stephen Paul and not Neumann, Shure, AKG and etc?"

Sorry, but I don't know what you were getting at with this comment.



:cool:
 
<Marik, I noticed that you've put a second post on Neumann's.
That will not make them very happy I suppose.>

If I am not happy with them, why should I make them happy? :)

Here is my post:

BTW, I just wanted to let you know.
About three years ago I inquired your service center about rediaphragming my shot KK67 capsule. I did not get any reply. Three months later I emaled again and never got a reply either. The capsule is still in the closet...

Best regards, Marik


And here is reply from David Satz (of Schoeps, I suppose):

Marik,

I certainly don't speak for Neumann, but it's my fairly clear impression that they don't "rediaphragm" any capsules--they treat the entire capsule as a single, replaceable part. This makes sense technically since it is important for the two halves of the capsule to match one another closely (for the "omni" and especially the figure-8 patterns), so it it preferable to make the halves of the capsule separately and test them, then choose two which have the same sensitivity.

If you "reskin" one or both sides of an existing capsule you will get whatever degree of symmetry you happen to get--and I would imagine that the only way to bring it within specification would then be to try again, and perhaps again, and again ...

The designation KK 67 which you mentioned actually refers to the entire "head" of the U 67 microphone, which includes many other expensive parts in addition to the capsule; thus it costs considerably more than the capsule alone. If you need to replace only the capsule, the needed part would be the K 67.

However, since this same capsule is now used in the U 87A microphone, but the designation "K 87" was already used for the capsule of the original U 87, your capsule is usually called "K 870" or even "K 67/870" nowadays.

--best regards

So I am still waiting for the reply of my first message.

<With that in mind... do you really think the cheap Chinese mics are as good as the top name brand mics like Neumann, Shure, AKG and etc... and if so, why only Stephen Paul and not Neumann, Shure, AKG and etc?>

DJL,

In the situation as it is now they are not. But I believe they can be. Why they are cheap?--It is basically rip off of other designes--they don't invest much into development or research--it is much easier to take K67 capsule, measure it, and make a copy with +/- whatever tolerance--anyway it will sound somehow. However, if they make tolerances up to original specifications--why not?--
Of course Chinese mics can be as good as Neumann or AKG.

Stephen Paul's microphone is a completely different story. His revolutionary, under 1 micron diaphragm, tight as it is humanly possible tolerances... Don't forget thousands hours of research and experiments--who pays for all this? Yes, I believe that his work is work of art. The fact that he obsessively worked on his mic until his last day makes me feel only deepest respect to this man.
Com'on, considering that for all his work you pay under $2000, what is the point of TelefunkenUSA making a mere copy of ELA and putting $10k price tag on it? Brand name? I am wondering how much you will pay for replacing 6072 in it? And cannot even imagine price of AC701...
 
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Marik said:

<With that in mind... do you really think the cheap Chinese mics are as good as the top name brand mics like Neumann, Shure, AKG and etc... and if so, why only Stephen Paul and not Neumann, Shure, AKG and etc?>

DJL,

In the situation as it is now they are not.
Click to expand...

That really remains to be determined in any kind of level matched, double blind testing.
But I believe they can be.
Click to expand...
And will be; you can take that to the bank.
Why they are cheap?--It is basically rip off of other designes--they don't invest much into development or research--it is much easier to take K67 capsule, measure it, and make a copy with +/- whatever tolerance--anyway it will sound somehow. However, if they make tolerances up to original specifications--why not?--
Click to expand...
Also because as I've said it isn't really that hard to build them and in fact the paramaterized models of microphone behavior are now sophisticated enough that the old trial and error method of finding what works has gone the way of the old speaker cabinet design methods which were displaced by the Thiele-Small model.

It is now possible to settle on the physical design paramters through use of the models and the actual mic built to those specifications will perform almost identically to the model from which it derived.
Stephen Paul's microphone is a completely different story. His revolutionary, under 1 micron diaphragm, tight as it is humanly possible tolerances... Don't forget thousands hours of research and experiments--who pays for all this? Yes, I believe that his work is work of art. The fact that he obsessively worked on his mic until his last day makes me feel only deepest respect to this man.
Com'on, considering that for all his work you pay under $2000, what is the point of TelefunkenUSA making a mere copy of ELA and selling it for $10k?
Click to expand...
It also remains to be seen what the real effect of this fanatical precision is. I don't think it's going to pay off in any signifigant way. If he has come up with some basic mechanical reconfiguration that could be another matter but if it's just precision, that too can be modeled and I happen to know where those effects would appear in the modeling and they would have little signifigance.

With all due respect to Stephen, he was a very manic dude and when he got going could see the daylight sky through the night time clouds.


Bob
 
Marik said:
In the situation as it is now they are not.
Click to expand...
ausrock said:
I have little doubt that there is a definite step up in build quality when you move from the Asian mics to the likes of Neumann, etc.
Click to expand...
Wow, we finally argree on something... cool. :cool:
 
<It also remains to be seen what the real effect of this fanatical precision is. I don't think it's going to pay off in any signifigant way. If he has come up with some basic mechanical reconfiguration that could be another matter>

Whether it pays off or not is another question, but at least this precision can explain the cost. BTW, it probably pays off at least in uniformity from one capsule to another.
 
I didn't think this thread was going to last this long.

I think that its entirely possible for the Chinese Mfg to do what the Germans are doing or do whatever anyone else is doing. I think we have this prehistoric idea that somehow the past cannot be separated from the potential future. Its not true. Chinese people are not some stupid incapable human beings, they are just as smart as the white boy. So lets not stuck in this subliminal racist argument against the abilities of one country over another. While that may not be the intent, its certainly gave me that perception.

A microphone is a fairly simple device. But how much something costs is never linked directly how much it sells for. This goes back to economics 101 right. There are other things thst drive up costs like R&D, QC, Advertising, Taxes, Expedite, Employee benefits etc. Depending on where you work those can add up pretty quick. See threads on outsourcing. But even when all the money gets added up you still have to tag on what the MFG thinks the customer will pay in regards to how much it cost to put it on the shelf.

The one thing that drives up pro audio isn't how much it cost, but what does it sound like. There are plenty of expensive and rare things that sound like crap. Neumanns are valuable for their characteristics, not the specs in the way we read specs. The Chinese are at point where they have alot of growth potential because their labor market is pretty cheap. Do any of you remember how the US outsourced to Japan alot of electronics and Automobiles. It got outsourced because it was cheap. But their growth was so rapid that they had to outsource to South Korea and Mexico to be able to keep building stuff.

I think if the Chinese Mfg feel like taking on Neumann market share, they could very well do it. I remeber when Airbus got laughed at by Boeing when they entered a market dominated by Boeing. But Boeings arrogancy proved to be their biggest enemy. Airlines found that they could sacrifice a few levels of quality save some money and still be within FAA specifications. Never underestimate or isolate your customers.

I think what might happen is that the Chinese will get better but won't go into Neumann territory unless Neumann tries to push a prosumer line that ventures into thiers. Market share.
Im hoping that the Chinese mic's get better but not enthused about a potential price hike. I like balanced markets and were heading towards it. IMO YMMV, My 2 Cents, etc etc etc...

SoMm
 
Well that doesn't sound very arcane, Bob.
It sounds more like you're talking about putting on a chrome air filter and valve covers. Nope, engine still runs the same.
To carry that analogy a little further: we'd be doing the full "balance and blueprinting" with this mic, comparatively. Of course it can be modeled. But it helps to know where the precision is required and I can assure you, it makes a Significant Difference. Whether or not you could apply that in your signal chain is another matter. Perhaps a Panasonic capsule will do and the Stephen Paul is overkill. The reason we are specifying precision in various areas of the microphone is because it makes a measurable difference. Otherwise we'd spec it at two tenths +/- 10% and go hang with the all the rest, Gefell and Josephson notwithstanding. As Stephen said, "I'd be such an easy guy to get along with if that were the case."

Brent Casey
PMI Audio Group
877-563-6335




arcanemethods said:

It also remains to be seen what the real effect of this fanatical precision is. I don't think it's going to pay off in any signifigant way. If he has come up with some basic mechanical reconfiguration that could be another matter but if it's just precision, that too can be modeled and I happen to know where those effects would appear in the modeling and they would have little signifigance.

With all due respect to Stephen, he was a very manic dude and when he got going could see the daylight sky through the night time clouds.


Bob
Click to expand...
 
Brent Casey said:
Well that doesn't sound very arcane, Bob.
It sounds more like you're talking about putting on a chrome air filter and valve covers. Nope, engine still runs the same.
Click to expand...
Hmm, that _is_ what I was saying put in another, rather appropriate, lingo.

To carry that analogy a little further: we'd be doing the full "balance and blueprinting" with this mic, comparatively. Of course it can be modeled. But it helps to know where the precision is required and I can assure you, it makes a Significant Difference.
Click to expand...

With all due respect, again, I do know that you are putting a great deal of effort into something dear to you and wish you the very best. I know that feeling well. I must and do remain skeptical, however, and will let the product speak for itself. The proof, as they say, is in the putting.


Peace,

Bob
 
err ... that particular proof would be in the PUDDING. unless it's another English thing the Yanks changed for the sake of it :cool:

i like the hype around this Stephen Paul mic. I know nothing about it, the technology or the designer, but it's got people shaken up in anticipation. I really hope it delivers something both different and usable - i.e. not a clever gimmick like a Pod, but something that sits alongside existing equipment.

maybe one day when i'm a pro studio owner i'll buy one ... :D
 
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