Banzai's KM84 DIY Body & PCB kit build thread

[Aleguitarpro]

I recorded a clip with original KM84 couple and same time my couple DIY with Maiku.
The I applied Eq curve I obtained with a test rig I made (full range 3 way speakers with test tone recorded with both and then I matched results with Pro q2)
Maiku capsules EQed are similar to originals but Neumann are smoother.
p.s. level match in your daw because I have to decide to level match peaks vs rms because dynamic behaviour is little different, too (so I left them unmatched, same gain at preamps applied)

 

[Ricardus]

Take the original tracks and have a friend rename them so you don't know which is which, and level match them as best as possible. Then re-listen.

 

[Aleguitarpro]

Take the original tracks and have a friend rename them so you don't know which is which, and level match them as best as possible. Then re-listen.

Why I have to do this blind test? It’s not obvious the difference between original and these clones?
Was already discussed a lot of times here that there’s no diy options for a km84 capsule and now I understand why (after this test as a t recording I made for a string a quartet using originals and my clones as stereo pair)

 

[kingkorg]

@Chrisfromthepast has taken some great measurements of various capsules here. I've done my part of work to compensate the responses for the speaker deviations. The file can be opened in REW (freeware).
The capsules provided in this kit have nothing in common with km84, and are highly inconsistent. Best bet to get anything close to km84 out of this kit would be either 3U or MP capsule.

@Chrisfromthepast has done great job taking these measurements. The Audix cal mic works great as a reference mic, so you can view these as accurate absolute frequency response curves of these mics. I have some of these capsules and they match my measurements. Also dips and bumps are consistent with typical deviations of these when construction is sub optimal.

My conclusion. 3U audio and MP capsules are of the same origin. They are not flat compared to something like CM4. But they are flatter than most capsules of this type. Banzai capsules provided with those km84 kit are pure rubbish, inconsistent, and hove nothing in common with km84. Waste of time and money.

 

[Ricardus]

Why I have to do this blind test? It’s not obvious the difference between original and these clones?

I don't know. I haven't listened blind. But cognitive bias makes our brains lie to us.

 

[Aleguitarpro]

I don't know. I haven't listened blind. But cognitive bias makes our brains lie to us.

I made the recording attached here with classical guitar and we were 2 classical guitarists in my studio and both us preferred neumann's.
Then I made this recording with the quartet with the 2 couples with same preamps and mics in same positions and the musician (all of them) and me preferred by a long distance originals.
I'm not saying this maiku are unusable at all and maybe on some sources they are ok.. but for classical music I prefer not EQing at all. I prefer spend a lot of time positioning mics and choosing mics/preamps to fit better sources.
So for classical music or at least for me they are not usable.
As spot mics they are muddy and not well defined.
As stereo pair for room they exibit same "character"...
If I ever imagined they are like this I would have never bought the kit.

@Chrisfromthepast has taken some great measurements of various capsules here. I've done my part of work to compensate the responses for the speaker deviations. The file can be opened in REW (freeware).
The capsules provided in this kit have nothing in common with km84, and are highly inconsistent. Best bet to get anything close to km84 out of this kit would be either 3U or MP capsule.

Do you think they'd became "usable" with 3u audio capsules?
From test here and from plots I can't judge and I don't want to waste my money again.
KM84s I had aren't mine... I have to give them back and they are very expensive.
I love my vintage Schoeps CMC5 but I need more SDC mics and I'm searching for alternatives without spending 4k.

 

[kingkorg]

I made the recording attached here with classical guitar and we were 2 classical guitarists in my studio and both us preferred neumann's.
Then I made this recording with the quartet with the 2 couples with same preamps and mics in same positions and the musician (all of them) and me preferred by a long distance originals.
I'm not saying this maiku are unusable at all and maybe on some sources they are ok.. but for classical music I prefer not EQing at all. I prefer spend a lot of time positioning mics and choosing mics/preamps to fit better sources.
So for classical music or at least for me they are not usable.
As spot mics they are muddy and not well defined.
As stereo pair for room they exibit same "character"...
If I ever imagined they are like this I would have never bought the kit.


Do you think they'd became "usable" with 3u audio capsules?
From test here and from plots I can't judge and I don't want to waste my money again.
KM84s I had aren't mine... I have to give them back and they are very expensive.
I love my vintage Schoeps CMC5 but I need more SDC mics and I'm searching for alternatives without spending 4k.

Only one suggestion, Line Audio CM4.
3U will get you closer but they don't have the right backplate either.

Not saying any of these are unusable, commenting simply because this is supposed to be a km84 kit. Makes no sense whatsoever to go after the original circuit, spend time and money on circuit components, transformer coupling and skip the component that makes 99% of the sound.

Stock Takstar CM60 with tiny amount of eq will sound closer to the Neumanns than this thing here ever will.

 

[kingkorg]

Here's the measurement of 4 of these capsules. Highly inconsistent, both in level and frequency response. Hyped high end with a dip just before the boost which only makes things worse. It accentuates the boost even more which makes it sound even brighter.
Measured by @Chrisfromthepast

 

[Ricardus]

Here's the measurement of 4 of these capsules. Highly inconsistent, both in level and frequency response. Hyped high end with a dip just before the boost which only makes things worse. It accentuates the boost even more which makes it sound even brighter.
Measured by @Chrisfromthepast

Which capsules are those?

Based on other mic capsule tests I've seen I would say the frquency response across all 4 is highly correlated (close enough) but the levels are very different.

 

[Ricardus]

I made the recording attached here with classical guitar and we were 2 classical guitarists in my studio and both us preferred neumann's.
Then I made this recording with the quartet with the 2 couples with same preamps and mics in same positions and the musician (all of them) and me preferred by a long distance originals.
I'm not saying this maiku are unusable at all and maybe on some sources they are ok.. but for classical music I prefer not EQing at all. I prefer spend a lot of time positioning mics and choosing mics/preamps to fit better sources.
So for classical music or at least for me they are not usable.
As spot mics they are muddy and not well defined.
As stereo pair for room they exibit same "character"...
If I ever imagined they are like this I would have never bought the kit.


Do you think they'd became "usable" with 3u audio capsules?
From test here and from plots I can't judge and I don't want to waste my money again.
KM84s I had aren't mine... I have to give them back and they are very expensive.
I love my vintage Schoeps CMC5 but I need more SDC mics and I'm searching for alternatives without spending 4k.

I wasn't able to download the WAV files.

 

[kingkorg]

Which capsules are those?

Based on other mic capsule tests I've seen I would say the frquency response across all 4 is highly correlated (close enough) but the levels are very different.

@Chrisfromthepast would have to answer this. You can say they are correlated in those measurements. most of them basically follow the same trend. Probably depends on how lucky you are with those you got.

 

[McIrish]

I've got capsules from 3U audio.

View attachment 103006

I like the way they packing things.

View attachment 103008

Fits like this.

View attachment 103009

Now time for a comparison. 25cm away from 12th fret. Didn't do anything but level matching and normalizing.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1OF_I5mLikKCkXeZatlSfOjFxB_4My464?usp=share_link
You can download files from above.

+Uploaded files with more distance from mics(About 15'').

I'm going through a bout of Covid so my ears are not quite right, but the difference between capsules is not as drastic as I had hoped. They sound pretty similar. When I did my comparison with the maiku/bansai against a real KM84, the difference was not subtle at all. The KM84 was WAY better. Do you find these new 3U capsules better matched? My (2) Maiku capsules are probably 3dB different in output from each other. I really appreciate you doing these recordings. While not the night and day difference I was hoping for, at least now I know what the 3U sounds like before I spend even more money on these.
Seriously, I enjoyed the build process. I didn't care for the results but it was a good learning experience. Given the amount of money I've invested in the projects, I think I would go a different route next time. A Oktava MK-012 or a Beyerdynamic MC930 are infinitely more usable SDC mics.

 

[TLRT]

I'm going through a bout of Covid so my ears are not quite right, but the difference between capsules is not as drastic as I had hoped. They sound pretty similar. When I did my comparison with the maiku/bansai against a real KM84, the difference was not subtle at all. The KM84 was WAY better. Do you find these new 3U capsules better matched? My (2) Maiku capsules are probably 3dB different in output from each other. I really appreciate you doing these recordings. While not the night and day difference I was hoping for, at least now I know what the 3U sounds like before I spend even more money on these.
Seriously, I enjoyed the build process. I didn't care for the results but it was a good learning experience. Given the amount of money I've invested in the projects, I think I would go a different route next time. A Oktava MK-012 or a Beyerdynamic MC930 are infinitely more usable SDC mics.

You can match the output by changing C2.

 

[oongbac]

I'm going through a bout of Covid so my ears are not quite right, but the difference between capsules is not as drastic as I had hoped. They sound pretty similar. When I did my comparison with the maiku/bansai against a real KM84, the difference was not subtle at all. The KM84 was WAY better. Do you find these new 3U capsules better matched? My (2) Maiku capsules are probably 3dB different in output from each other. I really appreciate you doing these recordings. While not the night and day difference I was hoping for, at least now I know what the 3U sounds like before I spend even more money on these.
Seriously, I enjoyed the build process. I didn't care for the results but it was a good learning experience. Given the amount of money I've invested in the projects, I think I would go a different route next time. A Oktava MK-012 or a Beyerdynamic MC930 are infinitely more usable SDC mics.

Yeah at least 3U capsules better matched… Take care. I also got COVID last week ;(

 

[Ricardus]

Yeah at least 3U capsules better matched…

You can ask for matched pairs when you order as well. Which is what I did when I wanted better capsules for my MXL to KM84 conversion.

 

[Chrisfromthepast]

The matching of the (2) pairs of 3u capsules is pretty good!
I have a very small sample size though

 

[Chrisfromthepast]

Here's the measurement of 4 of these capsules. Highly inconsistent, both in level and frequency response. Hyped high end with a dip just before the boost which only makes things worse. It accentuates the boost even more which makes it sound even brighter.
Measured by @Chrisfromthepast

These measurements are from the mics I purchased from the kit, screwed onto a takstar cm60 body for transformer-less test, and measured on axis 8 inches from a genelec coaxial speaker, and corrected against a reference mic by @kingkorg.
Teal is from my first build, round 1. Its a bit dark, but I use this mic for snare sometimes, it does the job, I dunno, snare mics are a whole subject, lets not.
I consider the purple and yellow to be a match and I use them for overheads, they work for me as a pair, and because I built them, I prefer them to sm81's any day.
The red one isn't as dark as the rest of the bunch, and has more of a peak at 9k, but its still a useful shape for hi hat or brass close mic situations, and its still better than most 603s capsules, though perhaps we should aim higher. These are just measurements, in the end. I really like small diaphragm condensers, and this kit was fun to build, and inspired me to build a bunch more mics, and that's pretty much all I ever asked for.
-Edited for small errors

 

[Aleguitarpro]

I wasn't able to download the WAV files.

Sorry I edit my post so I lost WAV files.
I reposted them

 

[Ricardus]

Sorry I edit my post so I lost WAV files.
I reposted them

Awesome.

 

[fsalter]

Would anyone have a Maiku sdc for sale? I'm thinking perhaps someone who opted for a 3u capsule may want to unload their Maiku?
Already posted in Black Market.