Crown SASS-P

[ubxf]

Hello,
I have one of these microphones with a disintegrated foam that I need to replace. The original can't be purchased any longer, what would be an equivalent replacement? As far as the design I was wondering why is foam used and not a more opaque material like in a Jecklin disk.
https://coutant.org/sass/
The transformers in pzm are often criticized. Is a transformer upgrade worthwhile or should the whole circuit be changed

 

[ubxf]

In the Crown pzm 30 the transformer seems to be a 1:1

 

[k brown]

Hello,
I have one of these microphones with a disintegrated foam that I need to replace. The original can't be purchased any longer, what would be an equivalent replacement? As far as the design I was wondering why is foam used and not a more opaque material like in a Jecklin disk.
https://coutant.org/sass/
The transformers in pzm are often criticized. Is a transformer upgrade worthwhile or should the whole circuit be changed

The foam is so thick that it is essentially opaque.

Any foam that doesn't reflect sound will do fine. You could even stuff that space with soft wool fabric, wool felt, etc. It only needs to prevent sound from passing from one side to the other, while reflecting as little sound as possible.
https://www.evocativesound.com/2020/10/27/my-diy-sass-microphone-rig/
https://tombenedict.wordpress.com/2015/09/03/pseudo-sass-array/

As far as trafos, if it were mine I'd probably remove them, rewire the outputs to impedance-balanced, and just run it off rechargeable batteries.

 

[ubxf]

Thank you

 

[ubxf]

I'm in need to find acoustically transparent foam for replacing the foam layer that acts as a windscreen in the SASS-P . The original had foam in between 2 layers of lycra in front of the pzm element. It looks like the acoustic foam for room sound treatment wouldn't work too well for this purpose. Is the foam used for speaker grille a better choice ?

 

[k brown]

Yes, that foam was the same material used as generic 'foamies' on any mic. I would imagine that ones that fit an SM58 could easily be trimed to fit. Nothing special about them exept their shape.

Hold in place with double-stick tape.

https://www.amazon.com/Stage-Ball-Type-Microphone-Windscreen-Black/dp/B0002GXF8Q/ref=sr_1_1?crid=382UOWKH787KE&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.LsdwodcP0Ex8n3BDqzPwCGkiN8wAGMFUmBAw626L5CUtWHlsRddqYQkfeBWJI0yQtDh06g3AVsIBc-XAtgDUJsDhyiNXTSwfCPKEkPIs1FD49rDJVBoLSB71-JDNRoLdB-oeg2yW06o7m6RxfJPDokyUXmVFthmfOZWVOOisaEvFnWGxofwG_z7xLI3kbrkLlfd0TJm7X_50LeZ_anCaY2xDCW5s6cORJ5Eb4jIwRwYXNvifuC3SfxL9BJKQPWyO-4aKuDVP1iSFAKbGYONvxpwkuCKs83tzPiI_htLISug.aQOqXREBPQmBW1bRzbNA_T3gPmM48vQGnCbAPXo_ngY&dib_tag=se&keywords=foam+windscreen+sm58&qid=1735172277&sprefix=foam+windscreen+sm58,aps,220&sr=8-1

 

[ubxf]

I see so you you just cut it and flatten it, I was trying to find a sheet

 

[k brown]

I guess I still don't understand what you're looking for.

There were two types of foam: the big block of foam inserted inside the plastic housing that isolated the two mics from each other.

Then there were the two partial spheres of acoustically transparent foam that acted as a 'first layer' of wind protection that was used on each mic unit underneath the main stretch fabric windscreen that covered the entire SASS.

I've described how both types can be replaced; For the semispherical ones, cut an SM58-style foam ball in half and just tape it to the boundary (not flattening it).

Neither of these was composed of sheets of foam.

But if you really want to cobble something from sheets, the stuff used for speakers would work fine.
https://www.amazon.com/speaker-grill-foam/s?k=speaker+grill+foam

 

[k brown]

The SASSs I've seen had little foamis over the mic units, and a single layer of stretch fabric over the whole thing. It wasn't foam between two layers of fabric; maybe you have something a previous owner made?

 

[ubxf]

Mine had disintegrated foam everywhere, I already replaced the one in the central cavity separating the 2 mics. The other was inside the lycra cover (same as what you have). It was as if I had 2 bags of sand (one on top of each mic ) . That's when I discovered that there was a double layer of lycra over the mics. I opened up the seam and emptied the crumbled foam. I'm thinking of stuffing back a sheet of foam in there because I want to attach a couple of DPA 4060 next to the pzm and the hemispherical foam would be harder to manage. Would you use 10 PPI or 20 PPI open cell foam. I had some radio shack pzm that had foam over the mic and I use to have a SASS P in the 80's and it had foam stitched in the lycra so may be they were several versions.

 

[k brown]

Mine had disintegrated foam everywhere, I already replaced the one in the central cavity separating the 2 mics. The other was inside the lycra cover (same as what you have). It was as if I had 2 bags of sand (one on top of each mic ) . That's when I discovered that there was a double layer of lycra over the mics. I opened up the seam and emptied the crumbled foam. I'm thinking of stuffing back a sheet of foam in there because I want to attach a couple of DPA 4060 next to the pzm and the hemispherical foam would be harder to manage. Would you use 10 PPI or 20 PPI open cell foam.

I'd just use a sheet of the speaker foam I linked to, of the proper thickness.

They must have changed the construction the overall stretch windscreen since it first came out.

 

[ubxf]

Sounds good, many thanks

 

[AustinMics]

I'm in need to find acoustically transparent foam for replacing the foam layer that acts as a windscreen in the SASS-P . The original had foam in between 2 layers of lycra in front of the pzm element. It looks like the acoustic foam for room sound treatment wouldn't work too well for this purpose. Is the foam used for speaker grille a better choice ?

[email protected] makes replacement foam. Check with Paul there.

 

[AustinMics]

I'm in need to find acoustically transparent foam for replacing the foam layer that acts as a windscreen in the SASS-P . The original had foam in between 2 layers of lycra in front of the pzm element. It looks like the acoustic foam for room sound treatment wouldn't work too well for this purpose. Is the foam used for speaker grille a better choice ?

[email protected] makes replacement foam. Check with Paul there. His Reverb shop is out. https://reverb.com/item/84050464-crown-sass-replacement-foam-baffle

 

[k brown]

[email protected] makes replacement foam. Check with Paul there. His Reverb shop is out. https://reverb.com/item/84050464-crown-sass-replacement-foam-baffle

Rediculous price; also, wrong foam - read post #10. He already replaced the baffle foam.

Confusing, I know - given the photo shown in the first post.

 

[ubxf]

Thank you guys, all foam is replaced. I ended up using a couple of generic 'foamies' on top of the capsules like you suggested and it seems to work fine. For the cavity I used styrofoam inside as a plug and Basotect for the faces looking out to eliminate reflections to the capsules. Now I'm looking at adding weight to the pzm plates (they seem pretty resonant) maybe a thin layer of lead.