dgatwood
is out. Leave a message.
No, this isn't a want ad. I own two Studio Projects B3 mics and an ADK Hamburg. The shock mounts that came with all three of these mics are horrible for precisely the same reason: pushing down on the microphone tightens the screw, but lifting up loosens it. This isn't a problem until you try to hang it upside down. Short of taking it entirely apart and restringing it upside down, it can't be used upside down. That makes the shock mount nearly useless unless you're in a controlled studio environment.... (And if you are... why do you need a shock mount again?)
Oddly enough, I have at least one shock mount of an almost identical design that does not have this problem at all. It came with a $35 Apex 435. (The shock mount alone is worth every penny I paid for the mic, IMHO.) There are three differences in that design: the rubber/plastic washer is recessed into the part that holds the mic (which results in much greater drag on that side, but shouldn't affect this at all), there's a rubber/plastic washer on the opposite side (which should make the problem slightly worse rather than fixing it), and the screw diameter is much smaller (which I believe to be the flaw in the other shock mounts).
I can actually swap the part that screws onto the stand and the T screw into the Studio Projects stand and it works, though it is a little loose. I can therefore conclude that the fundamental flaw in the Studio Projects and ADK shock mount is that their screws are too big in diameter. I have tried everything I can think of to make up for this---drilling out the holes in the center piece to be 17/64ths instead of 15/64ths, adding extra washers, lubricating the side that should slip with Vaseline(tm), etc.---all to no avail. I even tried adding a cardboard spacer in case it was caused by the small unthreaded part near the top of the screw.
I just can't make the Studio Projects shock mount work acceptably. I didn't mess with the ADK one because it is very similar in design (at least that part) so it wasn't worth duplicating the effort.
Here's a diagram that should help explain what I'm talking about:
S-O-o-u
The S is the head of the screw, which has either a T handle (ADK) or an L handle (Studio Projects). The O is a large hole in one side of the part that screws onto the stand. The hole is large because the enlarged upper body of the screw goes through it. The small o is a smaller hole in the center piece, which is part of the portion that holds the mic. The u is the screw thread on the part that screws onto the stand. There is a rubber/plastic wafer between the last two pieces of metal. This provides the drag when tightened down.
The problem is that (as best I can tell), the use of such a large screw causes too much friction against the outer side of "o" (the part that holds the mic). As a result, when you push on the shock mount (with a small amount of force), that surface sticks, causing the screw to move with the microphone-holding portion instead of staying with the part that screws onto the stand. If it happens to move in a direction that tightens the screw, you just get a lot of drag. If it moves in the opposite direction, it is actively unscrewing the screw from the base, which then causes the entire shock mount to be flopping around loose.
So the problem is, I don't know where I can get anything similar and have any reasonable expectation that it won't be this same lousy design that seems to be prevalent among a large number of major mic manufacturers.
Any suggestions for a shock mount that doesn't suck? I'll only be using the outer ring and stand screw portion, so it doesn't matter if it's compatible with either of these mics as long as it has a standard size (~84 mm) outer ring.
Oddly enough, I have at least one shock mount of an almost identical design that does not have this problem at all. It came with a $35 Apex 435. (The shock mount alone is worth every penny I paid for the mic, IMHO.) There are three differences in that design: the rubber/plastic washer is recessed into the part that holds the mic (which results in much greater drag on that side, but shouldn't affect this at all), there's a rubber/plastic washer on the opposite side (which should make the problem slightly worse rather than fixing it), and the screw diameter is much smaller (which I believe to be the flaw in the other shock mounts).
I can actually swap the part that screws onto the stand and the T screw into the Studio Projects stand and it works, though it is a little loose. I can therefore conclude that the fundamental flaw in the Studio Projects and ADK shock mount is that their screws are too big in diameter. I have tried everything I can think of to make up for this---drilling out the holes in the center piece to be 17/64ths instead of 15/64ths, adding extra washers, lubricating the side that should slip with Vaseline(tm), etc.---all to no avail. I even tried adding a cardboard spacer in case it was caused by the small unthreaded part near the top of the screw.
I just can't make the Studio Projects shock mount work acceptably. I didn't mess with the ADK one because it is very similar in design (at least that part) so it wasn't worth duplicating the effort.
Here's a diagram that should help explain what I'm talking about:
S-O-o-u
The S is the head of the screw, which has either a T handle (ADK) or an L handle (Studio Projects). The O is a large hole in one side of the part that screws onto the stand. The hole is large because the enlarged upper body of the screw goes through it. The small o is a smaller hole in the center piece, which is part of the portion that holds the mic. The u is the screw thread on the part that screws onto the stand. There is a rubber/plastic wafer between the last two pieces of metal. This provides the drag when tightened down.
The problem is that (as best I can tell), the use of such a large screw causes too much friction against the outer side of "o" (the part that holds the mic). As a result, when you push on the shock mount (with a small amount of force), that surface sticks, causing the screw to move with the microphone-holding portion instead of staying with the part that screws onto the stand. If it happens to move in a direction that tightens the screw, you just get a lot of drag. If it moves in the opposite direction, it is actively unscrewing the screw from the base, which then causes the entire shock mount to be flopping around loose.
So the problem is, I don't know where I can get anything similar and have any reasonable expectation that it won't be this same lousy design that seems to be prevalent among a large number of major mic manufacturers.
Any suggestions for a shock mount that doesn't suck? I'll only be using the outer ring and stand screw portion, so it doesn't matter if it's compatible with either of these mics as long as it has a standard size (~84 mm) outer ring.
