New CK12 capsule

[alloitsjosh]

Then maybe it's safe, though I'd still be a little suspicious that they're possibly using inaccurate pictures, because I'm sure Shuaiyin would be selling the capsules already if they're ready (even if they didn't make them).

Supposedly I have a couple samples being shipped to me on Monday. You may be right though. Alex from Xingde told me the design was finished a few weeks ago and that there has been a lot of testing (whatever that means). Proof will be through unbiased testing.

 

[jensenmann]

In alphabetical order, including a couple missed:

Beesneez
Heiserman
Josephson
Lawson
MBHO/Haun
OPR
Telefunken Elektoakustik
Tim Campbell
Upton

Coming soon...

3U
Chinese (see above)
Myburgh
The Russians

Exciting! Stay tuned...

Why Myburgh? They use Thiersch capsules: about the M1 | Myburgh

 

[johnchantler]

Myburgh’s new mic uses a ‘German made ck12 style capsule’ - I assumed it would be Haun, rather than their own construction. Picture of it here, for those who know better:

 

[Tim Campbell]

The Myburgh is still a Haun for the time being. I only said that they would be producing it soon.

 

[Tim Campbell]

In alphabetical order, including a couple missed:

Beesneez
Heiserman
Josephson
Lawson
MBHO/Haun
OPR
Telefunken Elektoakustik
Tim Campbell
Upton

Coming soon...

3U
Chinese (see above)
Myburgh
The Russians

Exciting! Stay tuned...

Actually since you are going by last names I would be second hahahaha and if it were company names Campbell Transmitter

 

[Moby]

This thread became really interesting
I'm looking forward to hear how this new CK12 sounds

 

[distorter]

There are already at least 7 companies making historically accurate CK12 capsules. Some of us for many years. No one it seems can agree if any of us make exact sounding copies. What makes you think a chinese company that never made this capsule before would suddenly on their first try make one that sounds correct. At best it is usable and at worst every capsule you buy will sound different.

It is hard to tell from these photos if the chamber is the correct size but the construction is certainly different than AKG

What makes you say that? I can tell you that this Chinese-made capsule sounds great based on my own experience. I conducted an A/B test of it on a Telefunken USA C12 against original Telefunken USA CK12, this Chinese-made capsule actually surpassed the Telefunken USA CK12 in terms of sound performance. Sorry to disappoint you.

 

[distorter]

I had planned on purchasing a CT12 capsule for my vintage AKG 414 from Tim since it produced excellent sound in my FLEA 12. I reached out to Tim via email, only to be informed that he refuses to do business with anyone from China. This encounter felt discriminatory, why so much hate? Nonetheless, I am relieved to have acquired a Chinese-made CK12 (I believe it is the same one as this thread mentioned) that extremely close to my vintage AKG CK12, more importantly, it came at a fantastic price. Consequently, I no longer desire the CT12 from Tim.

 

[Tim Campbell]

I had planned on purchasing a CT12 capsule for my vintage AKG 414 from Tim since it produced excellent sound in my FLEA 12. I reached out to Tim via email, only to be informed that he refuses to do business with anyone from China. This encounter felt discriminatory, why so much hate? Nonetheless, I am relieved to have acquired a Chinese-made CK12 (I believe it is the same one as this thread mentioned) that extremely close to my vintage AKG CK12, more importantly, it came at a fantastic price. Consequently, I no longer desire the CT12 from Tim.

Good for you Distorter! So glad you are satisfied. Glad that you no longer desire my capsule. It sounds as if many members here will also soon be able to test this capsule against a real AKG capsule and we'll get more feedback. Your experience with your capsule doesn't change all the reported experience of myself or the group of varied quality of chinese capsules over the years. We have spent endless threads about this and also endless threads about whose CK12 copy sounds closest to an original.
Hate?? I haven't sold to China the last 20 years simply because I like to earn a living and afford to raise my family. We haven't had a real CK12 style from China before. It seems that I wasn't so misguided.


At 100 USD dollars it will certainly shake up the microphone market and for all the loss it might cause for manufacturers this company won't earn huge profits on this. It is hard to earn a living even at the prices we capsule builders charge.

Good luck to them with this.

 

[distorter]

Good for you Distorter! So glad you are satisfied. Glad that you no longer desire my capsule. It sounds as if many members here will also soon be able to test this capsule against a real AKG capsule and we'll get more feedback. Your experience with your capsule doesn't change all the reported experience of myself or the group of varied quality of chinese capsules over the years. We have spent endless threads about this and also endless threads about whose CK12 copy sounds closest to an original.
Hate?? I haven't sold to China the last 20 years simply because I like to earn a living and afford to raise my family. It should be obvious to those that know that this capsule is based on my work and not AKG's or any other manufacturers. There are some proprietory features that my capsules have that no other CK12's have ever had except this one. We haven't had a real CK12 style from China before. My capsule only recently became available in China when FLEA decided to distribute there and voila a clone appears. It seems that I wasn't so misguided.
My work with my CT12 has only been copying AKG's work with their CK12 which they based on the Wente's work. There is nothing original in any of this beyond the features that I implemented that this clone copies


At 100 USD dollars it will certainly shake up the microphone market and for all the loss it might cause for manufacturers this company won't earn huge profits on this. It is hard to earn a living even at the prices we capsule builders charge but then again we don't have access to cheap labor, subsidies, skirting environmental laws or carbon surcharges.

Good luck to them with this.

Hi Tim, your refusal to do business with anyone from China due to your preference for earning a living is quite disappointing. While I acknowledge that your work with the CT12 is based on your own efforts, it doesn't justify discrimination based on nationality. Your comment about 'almost slave labor' hints at a biased viewpoint, which is unfair and unsubstantiated. It's disheartening to witness such a narrow-minded perspective.

I'm glad to have found a Chinese-made CK12 that performs exceptionally well and suits my needs at a fantastic price. It's interesting how your exclusivity seems to be shaken by the emergence of competitive alternatives. Perhaps this will encourage more manufacturers to provide affordable options to consumers, ultimately benefiting the microphone market.

While I understand your concern about the varying quality of Chinese capsules, it's crucial to recognize that quality discrepancies exist across products, regardless of their origin. By dismissing an entire country's products, you might be overlooking potential innovations and depriving yourself of opportunities.

In conclusion, I encourage you to reconsider your stance and embrace a more inclusive and open-minded approach. The world is a diverse place, and it's essential to judge individuals and their creations on their own merits rather than making generalizations. Good luck to you, and may you find success in adapting to an evolving market.

 

[Tim Campbell]

Hi Tim, your refusal to do business with anyone from China due to your preference for earning a living is quite disappointing. While I acknowledge that your work with the CT12 is based on your own efforts, it doesn't justify discrimination based on nationality. Your comment about 'almost slave labor' hints at a biased viewpoint, which is unfair and unsubstantiated. It's disheartening to witness such a narrow-minded perspective.

I'm glad to have found a Chinese-made CK12 that performs exceptionally well and suits my needs at a fantastic price. It's interesting how your exclusivity seems to be shaken by the emergence of competitive alternatives. Perhaps this will encourage more manufacturers to provide affordable options to consumers, ultimately benefiting the microphone market.

While I understand your concern about the varying quality of Chinese capsules, it's crucial to recognize that quality discrepancies exist across products, regardless of their origin. By dismissing an entire country's products, you might be overlooking potential innovations and depriving yourself of opportunities.

In conclusion, I encourage you to reconsider your stance and embrace a more inclusive and open-minded approach. The world is a diverse place, and it's essential to judge individuals and their creations on their own merits rather than making generalizations. Good luck to you, and may you find success in adapting to an evolving market.

Distorter (perhaps Cameron?) I am not concerned about any of this. This does not worry me. I do business with china in many other areas but in this instance it seems my concerns were completely justified. You don't know me and speaking at me based on your assumptions about my world view and how you think I might change for the better really don't have a place in this discussion.

My business decisions are always based on what is best for my business regardless of my personal views.

 

[Icantthinkofaname]

This as well as the Panda/Golden Age Ela M 251 were developed by a chinese millionaire who I talked to many time as Mr. Pan and a chinese engineer with an english name of Cameron.
They have been bugging me for years but I knew it was coming soon because about 3 months ago I started getting bombarded 3 times a day by every fake company and engineer in china pretending they wanted samples or for repairs.

The last Pan offered to buy 100 of my capsules just to get some . I should have taken his money hehehe.

Unfortunately they probably got their hands on yours, or a similar capsule, possibly through buying a mic with them or buying leftovers from other customers.

Personally I'm excited for cheaper options for this style of capsule as long as it's decent. I'd even be fine if they don't make it an exact copy. I'm a little suspicious of the $100 one, but something that cost $200 or so I'd have a little more faith in, but I'm eagerly awaiting 3U Audio's version.

 

[Tim Campbell]

Well I agree. This is great for the DIY community.
My only motivation for building my capsules was to make them affordable and accessable to groupdiy. I am a DIY guy myself.
It has bothered me for some time that I could not produce enough to sell to the both oem and personal users and that to continue to build them the price had to rise. My sales to the mic building community has always given me the greatest reward and feedback.

It will be interesting to hear members opinions and builds with the new capsules.

 

[Tim Campbell]

This is almost the same price as any boutique capsule

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/100...412299326!sea!DK!0&curPageLogUid=XOx7akgvL0H2

 

[distorter]

Distorter (perhaps Cameron?) I am not concerned about any of this. This does not worry me. I do business with china in many other areas but in this instance it seems my concerns were completely justified. You don't know me and speaking at me based on your assumptions about my world view and how you think I might change for the better really don't have a place in this discussion.

My business decisions are always based on what is best for my business regardless of my personal views.

I'm not sure why you have an issue with Cameron, but I want to clarify that I am not him. I am responding to you based on the information you shared in your email messages and the comments made in this thread. However, it is unnecessary to criticize a product solely based on its country of origin without actually giving it a try. It is unwise to assume that a product cannot be exceptional simply because of where it was manufactured. Best of luck with your business endeavors.

 

[kingkorg]

CK12 is notoriously difficult to tune right, and keep stable. As i understand Tim's has evolved through the years, and even AKG's is all over the place in this regard. We will most definitely have to wait and see. I am so split on this topic for so many reasons. It is extremely hard to "choose the right side" on this topic. I also doubt the price will remain 100$ for this capsule.

What worries me the most is what i mentioned in my first post here. Many mic "manufacturers" will most definitely include this new capsule in their new models, and images of it will be all over the web. The quality will not be a concern for them as long as the capsule looks decent. Edge terminated k67 hasn't stopped them to market the mics as something they are not.

And then you will get companies as MP, or Kaiku, Haiku, Telefunken who will claim their version of this capsule has passed additional QC by their experts, and been sprinkled with fairy dust for extra stability and performance.

 

[GeorgeToledo]

1) Tim Campbell of course
2) Beesneez
3) OPR
4) Haun
5) Heiserman
6) Lawson
7) Joesphson
And i think that 4 and 5 are not availble to the masses (anymore).

I don’t think this is accurate to represent all of the products as “historically accurate”.

Skipping steps like threading the sub parts and deciding to just glue them together, isn’t historically accurate.

Using different screw sizes, incompatibility with historical mounts, are other areas where some of these products miss the mark.

Upton seems to fully clone the capsule. Tim doesn’t, and opts to skip threading of subparts. Haun and Josephson have some visually and sonically obvious build deviations. Heiserman seems to contract out part of the capsule work, given that I’ve seen two companies trying to get paid for it.

Also. Anyone who has been around long enough and has paid attention can remember recalls of various mics based on capsules not working correctly, and the first two that come to mind are Tim Campbell, and Cathedral Pipes. If these people don’t get their capsule right the first run, they will have company.

 

[soliloqueen]

I decided to go a different route entirely with my CK12 design. I took a diagram of the assembled capsule, erased the part lines and drew new ones. It assembles into electrically and acoustically the exact same capsule, but the parts are completely different. Some of these other designs, I feel like they try to preserve certain aspects of the design but end up changing important things in order to preserve those aspects, like moving or removing metal etc. Better to abandon the assembly process completely but make sure everything is in the right place and out of the right material

 

[Tim Campbell]

I don’t think this is accurate to represent all of the products as “historically accurate”.

Skipping steps like threading the sub parts and deciding to just glue them together, isn’t historically accurate.

Using different screw sizes, incompatibility with historical mounts, are other areas where some of these products miss the mark.

Upton seems to fully clone the capsule. Tim doesn’t, and opts to skip threading of subparts. Haun and Josephson have some visually and sonically obvious build deviations. Heiserman seems to contract out part of the capsule work, given that I’ve seen two companies trying to get paid for it.

Also. Anyone who has been around long enough and has paid attention can remember recalls of various mics based on capsules not working correctly, and the first two that come to mind are Tim Campbell, and Cathedral Pipes. If these people don’t get their capsule right the first run, they will have company.

George this just isn't true. The first reported non working CK12 capsule in this forum was a Heiserman capsule against one of mine in a Chunger test. I have no idea what capsule you are referring to ,please refresh my memory. Anyone who has ever had a problem with one of my capsules and contacted me got a fully working capsule asap without cost. Every one of the manufacturers you have listed has changed unimportant aspects of their capsule over the years

From an engineering standpoint all of these capsules are historically accurate ( meaning properly chambered. many call this historically accurate ) because they have all the necessary requirements to accurately reproduce the acoustic signature of an original AKG CK12. None, and I mean none exactly match every aspect of some ideal of a CK12 capsule. Even AKG at some points screwed parts together and press fit them other years, used 3 different size retaining rings, gold plated parts, didn't goldplate parts, oxidized parts, didn't oxidize parts, used smaller chambers, used larger chambers and even called their nylon versions CK12.

When you buy my capsule you are buying a CT12, my capsule. The best chambered type capsule I can build. If you want a CK12 capsule by your definition the only option is to buy an original AKG.

The only 3 companies that have ever worked directly with AKG in bringing their own version of this capsule to market have been Haun, Telefunken and myself. Karl Peschel and Norbert Sobel of AKG helped me immensely on my capsule and gave me their blessing.

 

[soliloqueen]

the ck12 is a monument to engineering ingenuity not just because the concept is brilliant, but because of the hard work they put into circumventing the limitations of their manufacturing. they did the best they could with what they had at the time, but the ck12 overall is kind of a disaster in terms of manufacturing process and efficiency. i think the common mythologization of this capsule is kind of insulting to the engineers, honestly, as it fails to credit them for the very real nightmare they experienced going through dozens of documented revisions post start of production on this 10th circle of dante's inferno of a capsule. the longer you work on it, the more you realize that this design sucks, they did it this precise way because they had no other choice, and nobody should be trying to reproduce it accurately. i am 100% certain the people who made it originally feel the same way. when people mythologize this capsule, they're not crediting the engineers for 80% of their work, IMO.