u87 stuff

GroupDIY Audio Forum

Help Support GroupDIY Audio Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

tmbg

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 7, 2004
Messages
438
Location
Atlanta, GA
Ok so I had the capsule apart last night, and learned a few things...

the gold is going away :( I cleaned as gingerly as possible, and now it's not quite as prone to drop out, but it still does to some degree, and there's a noticeable loss of midrange on the diaphraghm that's missing the most gold... I suppose the only thing to be done about that is a replacement capsule. What do they cost?


Also, can you tell year of manufacture by serial number? The serial number is 4 digits, 9xxx (don't recall the exact number).
 
is the gold flaking off on the front side? Go to the neumann site and find the u87 manual in might be in the infopool section or the historic product section. You can find the pn and then call neumann for a price.

If Cardiod is all you are going to use you can reverse the capsule .
 
Yeah the gold is flaking on the cardioid side. Well, it's flaking worse on the front, there's some flaking on the back, but the front is so bad that it's significantly affecting response. I've emailed a couple of companies that offer capsule exchange re-diaphragming services, and I'll call sennheiser US and see if I can get a price on new capsules, although I imagine that it'll be prohibitive.

The mic itself is very old and very beat up, the body is pretty dented and scratched, but the electronics seem sound. The capsule carrier needs a bit of attention, the ball bearings that provide detents for the switches are gone, and the little plastic nubbin on the pad switch is broken off. The FET is indeed the 2n part you mentioned, btw.

Is this mic worth keeping and fixing up because of its age? Or would I be better off trying to sell it for as much as I can get considering condition, and buy a less used one off the ebay...
 
$675 for a new K87 from Sennheiser... yeow

I'm hoping some of these re-diaphragming services might prove less expensive :/ I guess they'd have to be, or why wouldn't everyone just buy new capsules?
 
So, reskinning might cost me about $300 plus shipping...

half price, eh. How do you folks suppose a reskinned capsule would sound as compared to a brand new one?
 
Depends on who does it and how close they get to the original Neumann specs. It's actually not that difficult to put on a new diaphragm if you have a tensioning jig - I've done it, but getting the right tension means knowing what it is supposed to be in the first place. I don't know if Tracy Korby reskins them or not, but he's supposed to be quite good at doing mic work.

-Dale
 
[quote author="cjenrick"]There's a guy named Tony whom you might want to converse with.
:idea:[/quote]

If Tony's last name is Merrill, than :thumb:
 
SPaudio? Thats stephen pauls place. He is the Neumann genius. God rest his soul. You know I piced up a broken 87 for a guy for $500.00 I figured it wouldn't be too hard to fix espeically since the problem was that it had a short. When I couldn't find it I sent the mic to SPaudio. They fixed it quickly and it works great. The problem was a broken solder conenction that I couldn't find. But they kick asss and have a good turnaround time.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top