Soliloqueen's k87(k67) and k47 capsules

[galgogergo]

Making sure because? It's not enough they are good? Have you read the whole thread including the first post here? "US made" makes things somehow better, because k67 origin is US, and best capsules comes from US?

Some of the QC has been done by me in Norway, should i apologize for not being based the US, do i count as "overseas"? Here in Norway and Europe in general given word still counts as well. Reference to your earlier post.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down, man!
I was asking from a QC standpoint only, not trying to challenge your or Arienne's credibility.

Buncha' whole threads were about Neumann's own capsules allegedly not being up to 'standard', or having not been uniform enough, sounding "different", and things like that, just a couple of years ago. (These were suggested by Heyne back in the day, if I remember correctly. If not, forgive me. But if Neumann's QC could have been questioned back then, why are you upset that I want to know more about the manufacturing, and especially that every capsule sounds the same with these???)

Especially since Arianne has been so open about everything, including problems with manufacturing in the former place.

I don't know why asking a simple question would stir up this much emotion. These look really promising, just wanted to make sure they're the best - for me anyway.

Also, she mentioned it took 6-7 months for her to train the new team to tune and assemble the capsule. I assume she didn't have to travel to China to do this - so this must've been in the US, no? But how would I know if not by asking...? Is this some kind of secret?

 

[micolas]

galgogergo,

Did you ask Neumann/Sennheiser if they use parts from China? Or if they assemble products in Hungary?

 

[galgogergo]

galgogergo,

Did you ask Neumann/Sennheiser if they use parts from China? Or if they assemble products in Hungary?

The new Neumann MT48 is indeed assembled in Hungary

 

[kingkorg]

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down, man!
I was asking from a QC standpoint only, not trying to challenge your or Arienne's credibility.

Buncha' whole threads were about Neumann's own capsules allegedly not being up to 'standard', or having not been uniform enough, sounding "different", and things like that, just a couple of years ago. (These were suggested by Heyne back in the day, if I remember correctly. If not, forgive me, but Neumann has been industry leader for the last 50-60 years, and if Neumann's QC could have been questioned back then, why are you upset that I want to know more about the manufacturing???

Especially since Arianne has been so open about everything, including problems with manufacturing in the former place.

I don't know why asking a simple question would stir up this much emotion.

Also, she mentioned it took 6-7 months for her to train the new team to tune and assemble the capsule. I assume she didn't have to travel to Shenzen, China to do this - so this must've been in the US probably, doesn't it. Buthow would I now if not by asking...?

Well it kinda matters how you pose a question. The way you posed this one, and couple of others came of pretty xenophobic. The whole point of the thread and details shared by participants, transparency, measurements... why would you wonder it's a wholesale thing? If you are so unsure, which i would 100% understand, the only way would be to test it yourself.

I also understand biases and preferences, Shure makes some incredible mics and capsules in the US. They come with US prices.

 

[micolas]

The new Neumann MT48 is indeed assembled in Hungary

And can you sleep peacefully at night knowing this?

 

[kingkorg]

Kind of reminds me of biases regarding East/West Germany, what tube was produced where, is it Neumann, is it Gefell, chicken or the egg. Gefell makes some amazing mics, no one cares, it's all 'bout Neumann, owned by Sennheiser.

I had a cup of coffee today in a caffe in Spain, watching at brand new Telefunken smart TV. I've been wondering whole day if it's made by the same company that makes the capsules, RFT mics, if they share same capacitors, or if they are all made by shitty companies based in two great counties USA and Germany exploiting legacy of once great company. So now there's Telefunken USA making mics, and Telefunken gmbh making home appliances. Wondering if i can start Telefunken Scandinavia and make toothpicks.

https://www.globenewswire.com/en/ne...0/en/Gordon-Brothers-Acquires-Telefunken.html

 

[soliloqueen]

relax guys!

No, they're not made in the US, but they're not repackaged wholesale products either. Given my disability, doing them entirely myself is out of the picture for now. Hiring staff to help assemble is my only option, but I do get to be selective. They're made at a new place, still in China, with my direct involvement, with salvaged equipment & entirely new staff I trained myself. They're made by a workshop by people I've known for years where I have borderline tyrannical control over everything they do. Materials, metalwork, film, sputtering thickness & composition, heat treatment, and so on. All the parts are also custom and all from my own technical drawings, and I inspect and approve the parts before they ever even get used. The supervision is extremely close. It's smaller and doesn't quite have the economics of scale of an established factory, but I get much finer control and my staff are also personal friends I met networking in China that get paid substantially more than the factory I used to outsource to.

Given that the staff training burden would be the same in China and the US, my reasoning for still doing it overseas is more about sourcing equipment. Frankly, you wouldn't believe the shit they throw out in china just because something newer replaced it or they don't know how to fix it. because manufacturing is so regional in china, we were able to get, like, over 50 tensioning jigs and a bunch of other crazy specialist equipment for film treatment etc in working or near-working states and then fix them up. It would have been difficult at best to find most of this stuff in the US. I would have had to watch auctions nationwide for ages to get some of this stuff (and I did for a while), or special order it for a ton of money (I am dirt poor). But in china, it's all just kind of sitting around waiting for someone to put in the minimal elbow grease required to get it working again. If I'd had more time and money, I would have moved assembly here, and I still plan to eventually. If I did, I'd probably move the existing equipment and even my upper level staff if they were willing to relocate. We work that closely. For right now, this works well.

QC wise, on site, after the backplates are done being machined, they do get tested pretty thoroughly for flatness, hole size consistency etc with optical inspection. a portion of random plates are also pulled for physical go/no-go testing too. the standards I set are extremely strict. this happens on site at our assembly location, not at the machine shop. the plates are then cleaned again, and heat dried, and then stored bagged before use. With regards to tensioning, I designed and personally supervise the process by which they do this too. Some of this information is a bit of a trade secret, but I just spent 8 months personally training these people and they do great work. They are all FR tested on the floor. This time I can verify that since I helped set the system up myself. Once they arrive here, they go through an entire second round of inspections. Spot units from individual batches go to kingkorg (when he's not away), who does a third pass of inspections.

 

[soliloqueen]

she mentioned it took 6-7 months for her to train the new team to tune and assemble the capsule. I assume she didn't have to travel to China to do this

i am, indeed, stupid enough to have actually done this. the most obvious options were:

A. find a new existing factory in china
B. do it yourself in the US
but instead I created a third option:
C. start your own factory in china

it's just kind of how things worked out. I met the right people at the right time by coincidence and then there was this "holy shit, i could actually do this" realization. My disability is a big motivating factor in why I chose to go such an unusual route. That, and 3U is enjoying a little bit too much of a monopoly on "affordable high quality" for OEM for my taste... This way, I can offer an entirely new set of products on the OEM market for mic companies to play around with and introduce a bit of well-needed competition. Before this, there were only three options: garbage (either sold at $15 or marked up from $15 to $200). boutique, and 3U. In the retail market, there was a gaping hole for $200 capsules that are actually worth $200.

 

[rock soderstrom]

I had a cup of coffee today in a caffe in Spain, watching at brand new Telefunken smart TV. I've been wondering whole day if it's made by the same company that makes the capsules, RFT mics, if they share same capacitors, or if they are all made by shitty companies based in two great counties USA and Germany exploiting legacy of once great company. So now there's Telefunken USA making mics, and Telefunken gmbh making home appliances. Wondering if i can start Telefunken Scandinavia and make toothpicks.

The traditional German brands of defunct companies can actually be licensed for money. The individual licencees have nothing to do with each other and, of course, nothing to do with the original company.

So nothing stands in the way of your new business as a toothpick producer. With enough money, you can be the owner and CEO of Telefunken Scandinavia. Congratulations!

 

[rock soderstrom]

C. start your own factory in china

it's just kind of how things worked out. I met the right people at the right time by coincidence and then there was this "holy shit, i could actually do this" realization. My disability is a big motivating factor in why I chose to go such an unusual route.

Respect!

 

[soliloqueen]

flat k47s are in. testing and sorting them over the next few days, then direct fulfilling all the domestic preorders. the international orders will go to my forwarder, who will also handle mass shipping to the people who need replacements. Everyone should have their capsules in less than 2 weeks. most US preorderers will have them within the next 7 days. thanks for waiting so long while i got an entirely new supply chain set up!

 

[OneRoomStudio]

flat k47s are in. testing and sorting them over the next few days, then direct fulfilling all the domestic preorders. the international orders will go to my forwarder, who will also handle mass shipping to the people who need replacements. Everyone should have their capsules in less than 2 weeks. most US preorderers will have them within the next 7 days. thanks for waiting so long while i got an entirely new supply chain set up!

Fantastic news! Thank you for communicating so well through all of this and for having such high standards.

 

[micolas]

Since I was getting a ton of brand new film sputtered at the lab anyway and had some time before the metal shop was done with the back plates I had custom masks made so that the metalized portion of the diaphragm is the correct size compared to the original capsule. This probably doesn't make a huge difference but there's no reason not to increase accuracy if I can get away with it!
View attachment 121077

Hi Ari,
I'm sorry to bother you, I have some questions:
In the case of the latest version of the capsule, let's call it k87 v3 new, the metallized area of the diaphragm is closer to the size of the original, historical capsule. But compared to k87 v2 old, the portion of the metallized area is smaller by a few percent. This is the active, moving armature of the capacitor - transducer.
Keeping unchanged the other shapes and sizes of the capsule parts, the mechanical tension in the diaphragm and the distance between the diaphragm and the backplate, the pattern of the holes, etc., logic tells me that the electrical capacity of the capsule will decrease (static and dynamic- in operation). The sensitivity of the capsule will also decrease, so it will provide a lower voltage at the output of the capsule, so the signal/noise ratio will worsen and last but not least, maybe, I say just maybe, the frequency response graph, the tonal balance, the character of the sound, could change.
All this, I don't know to what extent they are affected, maybe a few percent.
My question: can what I assumed above be true, have you compared the v3 vs v2 measurements?
Thank you!

 

[soliloqueen]

Fantastic news! Thank you for communicating so well through all of this and for having such high standards.

Thanks! It took a while to get it all dialed in. Among other things, the tolerances on the flat k47 are now considerably tighter

Hi Ari,
I'm sorry to bother you, I have some questions:
In the case of the latest version of the capsule, let's call it k87 v3 new, the metallized area of the diaphragm is closer to the size of the original, historical capsule. But compared to k87 v2 old, the portion of the metallized area is smaller by a few percent. This is the active, moving armature of the capacitor - transducer.
Keeping unchanged the other shapes and sizes of the capsule parts, the mechanical tension in the diaphragm and the distance between the diaphragm and the backplate, the pattern of the holes, etc., logic tells me that the electrical capacity of the capsule will decrease (static and dynamic- in operation). The sensitivity of the capsule will also decrease, so it will provide a lower voltage at the output of the capsule, so the signal/noise ratio will worsen and last but not least, maybe, I say just maybe, the frequency response graph, the tonal balance, the character of the sound, could change.
All this, I don't know to what extent they are affected, maybe a few percent.
My question: can what I assumed above be true, have you compared the v3 vs v2 measurements?
Thank you!

Something to crunch on since you're thinking about it: The above is only true of the parts of the diaphragm that move up and down and it's scaled by the amount they move.

 

[soliloqueen]

Hi Ari,
I'm sorry to bother you, I have some questions:
In the case of the latest version of the capsule, let's call it k87 v3 new, the metallized area of the diaphragm is closer to the size of the original, historical capsule. But compared to k87 v2 old, the portion of the metallized area is smaller by a few percent. This is the active, moving armature of the capacitor - transducer.
Keeping unchanged the other shapes and sizes of the capsule parts, the mechanical tension in the diaphragm and the distance between the diaphragm and the backplate, the pattern of the holes, etc., logic tells me that the electrical capacity of the capsule will decrease (static and dynamic- in operation). The sensitivity of the capsule will also decrease, so it will provide a lower voltage at the output of the capsule, so the signal/noise ratio will worsen and last but not least, maybe, I say just maybe, the frequency response graph, the tonal balance, the character of the sound, could change.
All this, I don't know to what extent they are affected, maybe a few percent.
My question: can what I assumed above be true, have you compared the v3 vs v2 measurements?
Thank you!

I'll post some measurements in a bit if I can find a good capsule to do it with. Thought experiment: does the portion of metallization that was removed generate signal? If so, how much? More directly, does it contribute more signal than it contributes in static capacitance? If it contributes more capacitance than it does signal, what happens then? And when it's removed?

 

[micolas]

I'll post some measurements in a bit if I can find a good capsule to do it with. Thought experiment: does the portion of metallization that was removed generate signal? If so, how much? More directly, does it contribute more signal than it contributes in static capacitance? If it contributes more capacitance than it does signal, what happens then? And when it's removed?

Thank you Ari!
I thought about exactly these things. Can an analogy be made with the difference between an LDC and an SDC (or MediumDC?)

 

[JohnnyM]

flat k47s are in. testing and sorting them over the next few days, then direct fulfilling all the domestic preorders. the international orders will go to my forwarder, who will also handle mass shipping to the people who need replacements. Everyone should have their capsules in less than 2 weeks. most US preorderers will have them within the next 7 days. thanks for waiting so long while i got an entirely new supply chain set up!

Thanks for this update, really appreciate your efforts! Did you go with the brass clamping rings on the flat 47s in the end?

 

[JeffKall]

Making sure because? It's not enough they are good? Have you read the whole thread including the first post here? "US made" makes things somehow better, because k67 origin is US, and best capsules comes from US?

Some of the QC has been done by me in Norway, should i apologize for not being based the US, do i count as "overseas"? Here in Norway and Europe in general given word still counts as well. Reference to your earlier post.

I think that even though I am still waiting for my two flat 47’s and my two flat 87’s to arrive … I have no doubt that they will be absolutely worth the wait !!!

I agree with my Nordic brother that it should NOT MATTER where quality comes from or how it is ultimately derived !!!

We are all a little leery about expensive junk masquerading as quality these days … and quite frankly none of us is immune … hence the cynicism … but as a citizen of the United States from birth … I can attest that we have no excuse to be proud or boastful about the slogan “Made in the USA” …

There is a general state of depreciating quality all over this spinning blue orb … and rather than linking ourselves to products geographically … we should be celebrating the fact that there are still a few individuals and companies that produce quality for a fair price regardless of where they call home !

Ari is one of those individuals … and I can’t wait to put her high quality capsules in four of my DIY microphones !!!

 

[galgogergo]

I think that even though I am still waiting for my two flat 47’s and my two flat 87’s to arrive … I have no doubt that they will be absolutely worth the wait !!!

I agree with my Nordic brother that it should NOT MATTER where quality comes from or how it is ultimately derived !!!

We are all a little leery about expensive junk masquerading as quality these days … and quite frankly none of us is immune … hence the cynicism … but as a citizen of the United States from birth … I can attest that we have no excuse to be proud or boastful about the slogan “Made in the USA” …

There is a general state of depreciating quality all over this spinning blue orb … and rather than linking ourselves to products geographically … we should be celebrating the fact that there are still a few individuals and companies that produce quality for a fair price regardless of where they call home !

Ari is one of those individuals … and I can’t wait to put her high quality capsules in four of my DIY microphones !!!

Guys,
It was simply quality control that I wanted to know a little bit more about. That's all. I don't care where quality comes from, as long as it's quality, and since Ari assured us she keeps an eye on all things important, there's nothing more for me to be worried about

Maybe how I asked the question wasn't the best it could've been, I assure you there was no wrong intention in it. Love to you all, and I wish nothing but all the best to Arienne! (competition is indeed very important, and I'm glad she thinks the same way about 3U! I'm happy she could nail this the way it turned out, and I hope she's gonna be able to succeed in all her endeavors like designing new capsule types (C12, etc), and all that she might have in mind.)

Peace.

 

[kingkorg]

I think that even though I am still waiting for my two flat 47’s and my two flat 87’s to arrive … I have no doubt that they will be absolutely worth the wait !!!

I agree with my Nordic brother that it should NOT MATTER where quality comes from or how it is ultimately derived !!!

We are all a little leery about expensive junk masquerading as quality … and quite frankly none of us is immune … hence the cynicism … but as a citizen of the United States from birth … I can attest that we have no excuse to be proud or boastful about the slogan “Made in the USA” …

There is a general state of depreciating quality all over this spinning blue orb … and rather than linking ourselves to products geographically … we should be celebrating the fact that there are still a few individuals and companies that produce quality for a fair price regardless of where they call home !

Ari is one of those individuals … and I can’t wait to put her high quality capsules in four of my DIY microphones !!!

Americans should be way more proud of Shure, Electro-Voice... companies i personally adore. I'd use just about any mic from KSM series before most Neumanns. It's nice to see REs, and SM7b sales blooming. Then there are others, rebranding rubbish stuf... so i get where skepticism comes from.

Having that said, IMHO the best Neumann's are not the ones everyone wants in their mic locker. So many good ones almost no one talks about.