What are these magical mics you can buy with transformers and not a chinese K67 capsule?
My DU87 builds with cinemag transformers and maiku capsules come in at around $500. The maiku is far better than the chinese capsules, period (I know they use chinese backplates, but the sound is there).
My voice is very sibilant, and I like to play acoustic guitar and sing. I can tell how I'm going to like any mic if I put it in front of me and see how it handles me, and also how the acoustic guitar leakage sounds.
The chinese capsules sound fine with up front sounds, but the bleed sounds strange.
In my first DU67 build I used a used neumann, and in my 2nd one I have a chinese capsule while I'm trying to decide which K67 to go with, and the difference is really interesting. You put the chinese one up, and do a vocal, and it sounds good. You do the same vocal with the neumann capsule one and it gets noticeably smoother on the high end. Now the chinese one sounds grainy and smeared. Off axis sounds on the neumann one are clear and unobtrusive, whereas the chinese is annoying and doesn't seem to blend as well with the acoustic guitar mic, for example.
Anyways, what commercial offerings are out there for the prices you can DIY? an AKG c414 used for $700 or whatever? I have an AKG C414 eb P48, and it is probably my 7th or 8th most useful condenser, and my most expensive non tube model. New they are even more than that!
I also like with DIY I can buy a transformer when I get a good deal, or a capsule or body, put it on the shelf and slowly spend $100 or $200 a time over a year or so, rather than having to spend $1K+ in one go.
I don't particularly care about having non transformer, clean sounds. I'm looking for fat color for pretty much everything I do.
Finally, I just finished recording this over the weekend for a charity tribute show we do here at a club every year with original artists doing tribute sets on Halloween to raise money to get instruments for kid's music programs. This year it will be streaming, so I did a "quarantined" set with me playing all the instruments, with a few guest spots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0QyvxTS6wc
This recording is basically all my U47 and U67 build mics, with a few others I built and a handful of commercial dynamic mics. All going into tube preamps I built or modified (peavey VMP-2's, Ian's (Ruffrecords) classic tube mic pre, and an RCA BA2C clone), recording amps I built (mostly a vox-ish clone with aspects of AC-15, AC30 top boost and matchless mixed together) even with guitars I built (partscaster tele, Les Paul Jr. build)
If I'm recording, mixing, mastering, playing all the instruments, usually writing the songs, building the guitars, amps, pedals and cables, building the preamps and recording gear, why would I stop at the mics?!