new microphone mod tape op #44

I dont know dave... Yes I get a rental return on a piece of equipment, but I tend to not look at things like that, I was thinking more about the resale, which effects us all equally as investors. When you spend $300 on an oktava, sure there's a chance in 10 years that mic might be worth some money. I remember, however, when those small capsule system oktava's first came out years ago and they sure as hell werent under $100 each. Now you can get them new for under $100. If you bought an RCA today for $350. Tomorrow its worth $350. The next day if the wind is blowing the right way on ebay, its worth $400. There's a lot less risk buying gear like that, if you dont like it, just sell it and often, there is no loss. I do that all the time. You cant bring that attitude to an Oktava, and really, if you are buying it to mod in the first place, there's probably a handful of vintage ribbons for under $300 that you could spend time modding which you could probably buy for less and resell for more when you get bored with it.

dave

Good point. I tend not to think of resale value much since I'm a total packrat and I never get rid of anything.

This may be another candidate for that mod:



They are about $260 on e Bay. I've never tried one, so I can't tell you if the grill rings like it does in the Oktava. It looks nice, though!

Click to expand...

Do we understand it correctly that after the attack of the 'yellow LD condensers' the ribbons are next now ?!? :shock: :roll:

[quote author="Flatpicker"]I'm going to write them and tell them they need to feature a ... microphone building article by Gus Smalley. :green: [/quote]

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I'm sure the $200+ price tag makes some shy (it makes me shy anyway) but has anybody had any luck with the Jensen JT-346-AX moving coil xfrmr in any of the ribbons they've modded/made?

http://www.jensentransformers.com/datashts/346ax112.pdf

http://www.jensentransformers.com/as/as067.pdf

I've just ordered al Lundahl LL2911 xformer to upgrade my Oktava ML52-2.
Will report back as soon as the job's done.

Besides that, I also just ordered a TBone RB500 ribbon mic.
129 Euros seemed cheap enough to give it a go.
It really looks deceivingly close to the Nady ribbon - see for yourself:

T.Bone:


Nady:


Will keep you guys updated...

Cheers,


Michael

any fans of the beyer m160? less than $500 from that place in germany, www.musicians-gear.com. great mic!

ebay can be a great place to buy ribbon mics but it can suck to. i bought two EV V1's and the bolth had intacked ribbom TXs only one had a BROKEN CHASSIS the broken part was the part that held one side of the ribbon, so that ribbon did not last long, the other was fixed and sounds freacking great on a dirty old tube guitar amp only its hiZ so it needs to run into a DI rather than a pre. so ive got this onlder peavy valvex hi-z tube pre that i run my guitars through before hitting the DI (i do this for key boards to) so i run my v1 throught the valvex into the DI and into VLZ pro mic pre, and it sounds great only took me 6-7 months to do this, and was it worth it? hell ya would it have been easyer to buy a nady or RCA or Royer? yea but no where near as fun.

[quote author="frob"]
only its hiZ so it needs to run into a DI rather than a pre.[/quote]

The old ribbon mics were whether LowZ (30-50 Ohm), or HiZ (200 Ohm). Only a few had a HiZ of around 20K-50K. I don't know of EV with such a hich impedance. Most likely you don't need the DI.

Certainly the EV V3 was switchable impedence. It is marked 'vari-Z' High and lo, although I don't know how high is high! There is a datasheet on the web at coutant.

http://www.coutant.org/v1a/

According to the datasheets, the mics were availiable as 50, 250, 500 or 25K, or switchable. The V3 I saw just had two settings though.

z50

I'm going to machine a slot in the ML52 and run the LL2911 from a switch for both 1:18 and 1:37. Higher ratio could be pleasing w/a 1272 set for 1200ohms in, y'know. I have also been wondering just how much resonance lives in that fat chunk of cheapo aluminum the motor is mounted to...may make a whole new body at some point, for now making a new brass grill that clamps to the base w/screws to align front, 50% open area mesh and reusing silks minus the silk on the dome. May just keep rolling and put in new ribbons with tighter corrugations. Anybody come up with a method for measuring resonance of new ribbons?

It just now occured to me that the OEP A262 A1E could work for a ribbon. 6.25+6.25: 1+1, individual windings at nominal 150ohm and 3.75ohm. Specs make it look like a moving coil step up backwards. Hmmm....

im not sure how high the impedance is but with out the di it has alot more noise and and litle to no responce. but ive found literaly nothing on this mic in writing. it has and old srew type of conector where the ground is the chasis and the hot is in the center, unbalanced.