microphone-parts.com

[Papanate]

Austin Ribbon Microphones | DIY

Make Something! Do-It-Yourself (DIY) kits, tools, and workshops for musicians, recording studios, and schools.

diyribbonmic.com

This is a whole page of samples , its that Austin OA-1 with a less than 1 micron thick ribbon. Mine was from back when it was RicksRecords or something. I paid $89 I think. The SM57/58 capsule is 2 fer $2. The LDC head ...$3 a piece.

I meant of the MXL 990/991 with the swapped heads.

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

China garbage from ebay..

The Austin kit is nice. It was a technical challenge. The 1 micron foil is NUTS. So fragile. Te width of ribbon you cut makes a differnt in fatness of what is picked up. I tried a thin ribbbon and thick . Then to see if the SM58 capsule would work without a transformer. Or if the LDC head worked without a transformer. How quiet the signal gets, but it is possibly useable. Trying different things. It was a platform to try a bunch of projects. I learned a lot.

 

[Blue Jinn]

You are? You have KM84s and compare them with the Mic Kits?



What are you talking about? The Mic Kit you were looking at were comes of AKG 451s? None the less the Behringers and 451 Clones are just a capsule and a few. resistors away from sounding as good as a Rode IMO.


I don't think Microphone Parts is aimed at the HiFi fraternity - I"m not sure who they are aimed at - being that you have have some great building skills in place - and if you can build one you could certainly source the parts you self - except maybe the PCB which you have to make yourself.

I've done some mic modding and built a couple of Royer style mics from scratch using cheaply sourced MXL bodies. I don't want to knock microphone-parts.com, but the prices do seem a bit steep. One thing he has is an authentic K87 (with isolated backplanes) for a reasonable price. You can get a U87 PCB set from GroupDIY.com and use that capsule. I had some PCBs fabbed in China for the BigUgly mic, which is the Royer head with the G7 pattern switching scheme. I also built a Royer style circuit point to point using a 6AK5,

Otherwise, Dave Thomas at AAMicrophones.com has better prices. He also sells a kit to modify an APEX 460. I am assuming micparts sources from China. There was a sort of flame war on GroupDIY.com a while back between him and someone who assumed his capsules were the same as WGTChina (where I bought some). He indicated no, and that the quality control was much better. I believe AAMicrophones uses the same factory in China as Peluso, but all the finish work is done in China (where Peluso does it in the USA.)

If you really want to DIY, and are reasonably skilled, GroupDIY.com is a good place for info, and the white market there is a good source for kits or links to kits. They also sell or provide links to some really really high end. Like hand made C12 and M7 capsules in the $300-500 range. (I've stayed on the cheap myself) but if you want to spend more money, Check it out.

 

[rob aylestone]

A good friend lived in China for a while and we totally misunderstand how Chinese manufacturing works. It’s very rare for a single entity to produces entire products on their own. The photos of factories are often the entire plant, and the business you deal with is an office and a manufacturing room within the big plant. One might specialise in engineering, another specialises in producing Mylar sheet. Another makes hardware like nuts bolts etc. Another will specialise in capacitor supply. So when they want some 36mm capsules, they go to the engineering business down the corridor and they make up 100 or a thousand or whatever is needed. They buy some Mylar, and probably have a jog to fit them together. If six months later, they need more they go to the engineering people and order more. They might have a new milling machine, or they might have a broken one, and suggest a different company down the corridor. This is why orders are always unique. Finding a supplier is difficult, but expecting every order to be unique is just not going to happen. I have imported some similar lighting products from 7 independents suppliers. Every order has the exact same little bit of mould mark on the casings inside. The holes are different, the colours slightly different but the source is clearly the same. Any overseas customer has no idea who is making their order and the next one could be from somebody different.

 

[Papanate]

I've done some mic modding and built a couple of Royer style mics from scratch using cheaply sourced MXL bodies. I don't want to knock microphone-parts.com, but the prices do seem a bit steep. One thing he has is an authentic K87 (with isolated backplanes) for a reasonable price. You can get a U87 PCB set from GroupDIY.com and use that capsule. I had some PCBs fabbed in China for the BigUgly mic, which is the Royer head with the G7 pattern switching scheme. I also built a Royer style circuit point to point using a 6AK5,

True - I never said microphone-parts.com was the best price - just that for what it is it is convenient.

Otherwise, Dave Thomas at AAMicrophones.com has better prices. He also sells a kit to modify an APEX 460. I am assuming micparts sources from China. There was a sort of flame war on GroupDIY.com a while back between him and someone who assumed his capsules were the same as WGTChina (where I bought some). He indicated no, and that the quality control was much better. I believe AAMicrophones uses the same factory in China as Peluso, but all the finish work is done in China (where Peluso does it in the USA.)

If you really want to DIY, and are reasonably skilled, GroupDIY.com is a good place for info, and the white market there is a good source for kits or links to kits. They also sell or provide links to some really really high end. Like hand made C12 and M7 capsules in the $300-500 range. (I've stayed on the cheap myself) but if you want to spend more money, Check it out.

Those are good sources - and if you are going to get into Microphone Building is a slightly less expensive route to go.

 

[Jacknk98]

You can buy sdc pairs from anywhere
costs $100, $1000, or $3000

 

[Blue Jinn]

I know the thread was specifically about SDCs and not LDCs. Royer also had a mod for the MXL (can't remember the model now) that used the same 5840 tube in a cathode follower configuration, so less parts in the mic. Also, (and I think he went by mshilarious but isn't around any more AFAIK) he had a few designs for SDC mics using electret capsules, and he sells some of his designs https://naiant.com/

One of them used a 6418 hearing aid tube so it could be phantom powered.