mk-219 mod

[CoolCat]

It seems kind of over-done, as in blocking the sound.
If a small gauge screen, in a Headbasket, can make a difference then what does putting a plate directly in front of the capsule do?
Obviously its a well liked, old design, microphone but makes me wonder about the small tweaks here and there.
Most mics don't have that plate, the general design is the bare-capsule in the headbasket.

I don't know, it just struck me as a design thing. There's usually a reason for it. Maybe poking it with a finger? but the headbasket does that.
Plosives?

 

[Rodiddley]

its a reflective thingy to increase high frequencies. i took mine off, prefer darker sound

 

[rob aylestone]

One of the very peculiar and misunderstood features of microphones is the notion that there has to be a direct path for the sound to get from source to the capsule membrane/diaphragm with no obstacles. Pressure operation vs pressure gradient operation, the basic theory we us in all mics. Omnis being a good example - you can yell into the rear of one, with no direct path to the transducer component and it works fine. Indeed, shouting into the rear close in (or in the case of a large diaphragm, the side) means the speech plosive sounds don't get in either! Quite a few mics have obstacles - the old Beyer X1 I played with recently has direct open end, and a disc in front of the capsule which catches a lot of the breath sounds and the wanted audio sort of leaks in around the edges. These obstacles have a tonal consequence - so I suppose the shape, size and cutouts have been designed to serve a purpose. Changing these is an interesting tweak (if you get it right) but these things are part of the design. You can bet the factory experimented with them long before we did.

The weirdest design I have is the AKG shotgun mic range that fitted on the old C451 mics. Most shotguns use the interference tube design with slots either side that allow sound in from various angles where they annoy each other and cancel. On axis sounds travel straight down the tube with no attenuation. However, the weird AKGs have a solid tube, with no interference slots, bar one - which runs along the mic. The direction of the slot to the outside world makes no difference at all. Common sense says that if you sneak in close and whisper into the slot, you will be heard, but of course if you spin it 180 degrees so the open slot is on the other side, and you whisper into the sold metal, you will be silent. Nope! Your voice magically sounds exactly the same. I'm guessing pressure operation is what makes this work, combined with pressure gradient for sound coming in from the end? I have no idea of the exact science but it works really well. If you want to google AKG CK8 and CK9 capsules, you will see the weird design.

 

[Rodiddley]

Screens In front Of Capsules- Necessary?

Screens In front Of Capsules- Necessary?

repforums.prosoundweb.com

Apparently it adds about 4db to 10k but makes ripples elsewhere in the frequency response as well which is why some people prefer to remove it. I think the nice thing about the stock capsule is its darker nature as there are enough bright mics in my collection and i prefer the octava on my voice dispite owning multiple mics worth 10x what i paid for it (£80)