Why ? high end mic capsules sound better than chinese copies

if the chinese copies are back engineered, exact copies to what i would imagine to be extremely close tolerences and made on a high quality cnc,why dont they sound the same as the neumann or akg mic capsules they are copying? what are the chinese imports missing? i'm curious because i'm toying with the idea of having some capsules made. i have a machinist friend.i can tell he is obsessed with making his work the best it can be. he has worked by hand in the past.(he makes parts for miniature models and dummies for movies)he and his partner recently purchased what he called the" top of the line cnc machine" $30,000 US. my thought was to use the m7 specs dale has provided here:

http://www.10000cows.com/M7CapsuleDirections.pdf

to have some backplates and capsule parts made up. then send them out to be "skinned". what can i do so my capsules will sound like or more like the original M7 than a cheap copy? i've read every thread in the mics forum. any other advice is appreciated. thanks.

What''s the difference? I think a lot of it comes down to quality control.

I've seen a number of the MXL2001 / "soundking" style capsules with incorrectly tensioned membranes, even with ripples in them.

Is the tension the same?
Is the mylar the same type, thickness & uniformity?
Is the gold the same quality and thickness
Are the machine tolerances the same?
Is the brass the same type?

I think the main reason why Chinese capsules don't sound as good as the originals is that they don't really understand what they're doing. Other reasons are lacking precision and of course the cost factor.

I recently visited the Neumann headquarters and after talking to the guys there - mostly engineers - I left the place in total awe. I'm pretty confident I know more about mics than the average guy, but in the course of the four hours I spent there I learned a lot about capsules and other things I hadn't known. And I'm also pretty confident that no matter how much I learned from those engineers, it won't make up for 80 years of accumulated knowledge.

Anyway, there's a lot more than meets the eye, and a copied capsule is only that which the guy who copied the thing could find out with the knowledge he had and was able to translate into a manufacturing process (with cost limits) and workers whose training is again limited by the copyist's knowledge. If you applied the same technique to painting I guess you'd get something like a paint by numbers version of a Picasso/van Gogh/Monet.

I was thinking about posting something similar as Rossi did but then I decided not to do it. Neumann-bashing is a popular sport nowadays. I didn´t want to get a notification from this thread and then read accumulated bullshit of clueless idiots who know everything better than engineers who work decades in R&D. Guess what, I´ve been reading too much in other forums where they claim the knowledge about mikes is supposed to be.

Anyway, decades of R&D MUST be good for something. Nemann did this, Schoeps did this, Sennheiser, Beyer, AKG, MBHO did it, too. Chinese didn´t. They copy. Their research is how to make better copies (correct me please if I´m wrong).
btw most mikecompanies don´t research ether - at least not in capsules. Most of them get OEM stuff - from MBHO, Thiersch or .... CHINA.

I´m still waiting for the day patents from china about new exciting inventions are released.

China is a huge problem, and yet has to get its act together at some point.

There have been some signs recently that in a few areas, one of them notably being superconductor research, that Chinese scientists are beginning to shine. We may not have to wait too long for some of those patents. And when they begin to issue, it may drive a greater appreciation of intellectual property!

I have Chinese and other Asian friends and I like them a lot. I try to understand to what extent the way they are comes from growing up in such remarkably different cultures and sets of values. Of course they vary in how much they come to question those mores and values.

Chinese researchers have done some interesting original work, but most of it hasn't been in audio. They were, for example, the first to produce 100% synthetic insulin. (Then there were gunpowder, printing, etc....)

As to why the capsules aren't the same: There are a couple of things which are super-critical. For example, someone elsewhere noted that the holes in the backplates have to be deburred just so; if you leave any trace of a lip, the capsule has a harsh peak up top. But if you debur a little too much, so there's a taper to the edge of the hole, there's a different harsh peak up top.

Also, the membrane tension is super-critical, and according to some folks in a position to know, the Chinese factories have mostly not mastered this task. (Neumann, AKG, Schoeps, etc. hold their secrets very tightly in this field.)

Finally, if you're wanting to make an M7, you need a diaphragm made from PVC, which has to be produced by puddling rather than rolling out thin. Doing that, repeatably, is very hard, which is why only Microtech Gefell still does it. They've had an unbroken chain of production from the first introduction of the M7 capsule in 1932, so the opportunity was there to pass the secrets along orally.

Peace,
Paul

quality assurance at every step. the german assemblers were trying to make great mics, not great copies. big difference. and also remember that neve rejected a large percentage of the transformers that marinair and carnhill made for them, made to neve specs but didnt reach neve standards. not knowing those standards only the specs would make average performance your best scenaio.

by specs I mean size, shape, turns ratio.

by standards I mean actual performance. there are performance tests along the assembly line that the "microphone" engineers know will get great results.