mbho microphone

[ubertar]

Hey, it works!

Stopped by rat shack and picked up a couple 6v lithium batteries. Unfortunately, they didn't both fit-- they wouldn't let me take them out of the package to see if they would. But it'll run with just one. I filled the extra space on the neg side of the battery with a wad of aluminum foil. It's a lithium battery meant for cameras.
I've only tested it on my voice through a guitar amp so far, but it sounds good, with no sign of a brittle or harsh high end.

I dug under the foam in the case and found a spec sheet and some other papers. The freq response is 40-20k and the impedance is 100 ohms. It looks like this mic may have been made in 1976, because there's a note dated June '76 on one page that says, "For many years our 520 has had a 1k resistor in series with each leg of signal inside the fem xl3 cable con. Today I have removed the one in series with pin #2 of xl3.
At the top of the page it says Stanford MB Microphones. The MB is the same logo as the MBHO co. At the bottom it says Stanford International with a CA address. Maybe they were the distributor.

 

[monter]

hello,

Interesting, maybe is it similar microphone to Polish Tonsil MCU53/MCO52....?

http://monterdiy.com/tonsilmco.htm
http://monterdiy.com/tonsilmco2.htm
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v365/monter/Moje%20graty/mco52.jpg

Best Regards,

Tomek

 

[ubertar]

Thanks Monter. That looks exactly like it. I did an online translation (not very good) and found this line: "Equal old as well as newest versions were produced on german license of firm MB electronic engineer (electronics)." so it looks like this is definitely the same thing.

I recorded some oud with it before the move-- I had to place it close to the instrument to get enough output without having to crank the preamp, otherwise it was noisy, and it sounded great, better than ribbons I've used and a sony c37p, though I haven't tried them in an a/b test, so my memory could be off.