Replacing a terrible ribbon element

T

timthetortoise

MADE OF SANDALWOOD
Well, I actually already replaced it, but it sounds about the same. Overbearing lows, and almost nonexistant highs. It's a Nsonic NS-1 (made by Alctron I believe). It's basically just a ribbon element and a transformer (looks like the one iso transformer that Radioshack stocks).
But yeah, enough of that. Basically, I'm wondering what kind of effect the depth/quantity of folds in the foil will have on the frequency response, or if it could be the transformer that's limiting the frequency response (haven't tried taking the tranny out of the equation but I plan on doing it sometime today). Here are a couple of pics (including my first attempt at a ribbon, I cleaned it up and got it looking pretty good after the third try). There's not really much info on Google about the specifics of what these things affect, so I'm just looking for a little basic guidance on what I can do to start turning this piece into a usable mic. Thanks!
 

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Yes, I realized that afterwards and tensioned it as well as took a bit of width off of it. It looks properly tensioned and isn't touching either side anymore (would take more pics, but all I have is my cell phone at the moment).

Edit:
Not to say that this fixed it, it's about the same as it was. From the looks of those pics, I think that I may need a method of making larger folds, so I'm going to pick up a couple of small cogs today and build a jig to do it. I'm becoming more and more sure upon further reading that the transformer is at fault. Thinking about picking up a Cinemag...
 
Okay, I'm gonna bump this thing. From what was said in here, does anyone think swapping the transformer would make the difference I'm looking for? I'm thinking about picking up a Lundahl LL2912 in the next couple days. I figure if it doesn't work I can just build my own motor and see if I can do better than the makers of this mic and use the Lundahl with my homemade dealy.
 
Not sure about taking off from the sides there. It's hard to tell in the picture, but it looked kinda narrow to begin with. A good ribbon has a very small gap between its edge and the polepieces. In fact, they are often set using a magnifying glass.
 
I redid the thing probably 8 or 9 times, and finally got it to about a 2-3mm tolerance. I did the turn-the-mic-every-which-way test and it came out clean. It actually looks better than the stock ribbon now, but still exhibits the same absence of highs and overwhelmingly washed out lows.

Also, off topic, do you have any stereo bars left? If so, do standard mic clips fit? I'm thinking about picking up a couple.
 
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