Soliloqueen's k87(k67) and k47 capsules

[soliloqueen]

new spacers are here. rebuilding the k87s now. there WILL be some b-stock. Looks like there's 1 or 2 capsules that are missing the rear center spacer on one side. interesting oversight. surprisingly this doesn't affect the sound much, but it's not up to my standard. good candidates to sell as b-stock. I could match all the working sides but then the wire colors will be messed up and I would just rather not, plus it's nice to have something cheaper and more accessible available.

please excuse some cosmetic issues, all the staff is new and we can't afford pretty yet. you may see some mold overflow on the rings where it wasn't removed by the knife, or there may rarely be a small spot of dimpling (not twisting) around the center termination. These don't affect the sound.

 

[JohnnyM]

Pleased to report that the capsule that was half-out the case in transit is installed and working

I’ll have more time to try it on instruments this week but I just love these. @soliloqueen
You should be very proud of your work.

 

[soliloqueen]

Pleased to report that the capsule that was half-out the case in transit is installed and working

I’ll have more time to try it on instruments this week but I just love these. @soliloqueen
You should be very proud of your work.

I'm glad it works... but that termination set up is killing me! Please remove the plate termination and rotate the capsule 90° counterclockwise... You can put the washer for the black wire under one of the saddle screws.

 

[JohnnyM]

I'm glad it works... but that termination set up is killing me! Please remove the plate termination and rotate the capsule 90° counterclockwise... You can put the washer for the black wire under one of the saddle screws.

Got it. The pcb is to be switched out on this one anyway so that’s an opportunity to put that right. What is the downside to how I’ve done it?

 

[soliloqueen]

Got it. The pcb is to be switched out on this one anyway so that’s an opportunity to put that right. What is the downside to how I’ve done it?

Unnecessary lead shortening, potential mechanical stress on the leads and additional wire in the acoustically active part of the basket that might vibrate, though I use silicone wires specifically to avoid this problem.

 

[Nate_sk8_8]

Congrats on the site relaunch, looks great!

 

[Dylan W]

new spacers are here. rebuilding the k87s now. there WILL be some b-stock. Looks like there's 1 or 2 capsules that are missing the rear center spacer on one side. interesting oversight. surprisingly this doesn't affect the sound much, but it's not up to my standard. good candidates to sell as b-stock. I could match all the working sides but then the wire colors will be messed up and I would just rather not, plus it's nice to have something cheaper and more accessible available.

please excuse some cosmetic issues, all the staff is new and we can't afford pretty yet. you may see some mold overflow on the rings where it wasn't removed by the knife, or there may rarely be a small spot of dimpling (not twisting) around the center termination. These don't affect the sound.

Question: would the missing spacer result in a “perfect on one side” capsule like the b stock K47, or would it affect the sound/polar pattern on the intact side as well?

 

[Horizoneer]

This is very unscientific, being as there's no particular controlled a/b test and it's recorded in an untreated bedroom.

Last week I got a T-bone sct 700 to turn into a fet 47. I recorded acoustic guitar and spoken word with the stock 700 & one of my u87 clones with Arienne K87 (one of the older ones from a year ago) side by side to get a rough benchmark, then on Sunday night I swapped the stock 700 capsule for the AA flat 47.

I could only do a quick couple of clips, because my 2 year old was sleeping in the next room, but the difference between the stock t-bone capsule and flat 47 speaks for itself, I think. Even sneakily listening to the clips at work yesterday on my little Dell desktop speakers, a colleague at the next desk over commented "your voice sounded nicer on that other clip" (meaning the K47)

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/jor9ic5hds0quil1a30hc/h?rlkey=95dr1gqjpjn8a8mil8mb34ged&dl=0


One question I have - earlier in the thread there was talk of the flat k47's subsonic performance - omni below 50hz and not being suited for kick duty. Has that changed now?

 

[DuBmastah]

Just swapped the "Replica Microphone Premium K47" from one of my 47 fet clones with the AAK47Flat that just arrived.
I'm a bit disapointed with the results.
At first, after installing the cap and testing the microphone, i noticed a real severe lack of low end. At this point, the microphone was barely unusable. I plugged another mic that was lying around to test the line and the line was OK.
As i was pretty surprised, i decided to re-open the microphone and dig into this issue. I inspected the diaphragms of both sides and noticed they both seems to be just as normal exept for one point :
At the same angle regarding the lighting sources of the room, there's a huge difference in transparency of the gold surface from one side to another.
Just like if on one side, the gold was something like 50% thinner.
As the side i was using was the one with the "less" gold, i flipped the capsule, re-assembled the microphone and gave it another try. This time there was WAY more low end, trust me, i'm not talking about 1 or 2 dbs, it's a huge difference, and then the microphone sounded more natural. I plugged again the other mic lying around and there was not quite a difference this time.
I didn't have time to do more tests, but i'm pretty sure one side of the capsule is very far from working as it should.
Will do other more precise A/B test with other 47 clones later this week (depending on the planning) because even the "working" side doesn't seems to produce as low end as the replica microphone K47 did on this mic before its replacement with the AA.
Will post the results asap.

 

[soapF]

Pleased with how fast all the packages are arriving. We have negotiated rates with FedEx now. Shipping on the site might go up from 15 to 20 depending on where you're living but there's a genuine chance you might get your capsule in 3 days. I just went through and set real shipping costs for all the regions based on the costs to ship all these orders so there should be no more surprises of any kind.

Recently set up an online store myself, had no idea how much went into setting up worldwide shipping as I was using a print-on-demand service who took care of all of that prior to being able to financially cover ordering stock of custom designed stuff. I empathize with ya haha, the flat 47 is great by the way, thank you for your commitment. Hope to grab an 87 soon enough as well

 

[McIrish]

Just swapped the "Replica Microphone Premium K47" from one of my 47 fet clones with the AAK47Flat that just arrived.
I'm a bit disapointed with the results.
At first, after installing the cap and testing the microphone, i noticed a real severe lack of low end. At this point, the microphone was barely unusable. I plugged another mic that was lying around to test the line and the line was OK.
As i was pretty surprised, i decided to re-open the microphone and dig into this issue. I inspected the diaphragms of both sides and noticed they both seems to be just as normal exept for one point :
At the same angle regarding the lighting sources of the room, there's a huge difference in transparency of the gold surface from one side to another.
Just like if on one side, the gold was something like 50% thinner.
As the side i was using was the one with the "less" gold, i flipped the capsule, re-assembled the microphone and gave it another try. This time there was WAY more low end, trust me, i'm not talking about 1 or 2 dbs, it's a huge difference, and then the microphone sounded more natural. I plugged again the other mic lying around and there was not quite a difference this time.
I didn't have time to do more tests, but i'm pretty sure one side of the capsule is very far from working as it should.
Will do other more precise A/B test with other 47 clones later this week (depending on the planning) because even the "working" side doesn't seems to produce as low end as the replica microphone K47 did on this mic before its replacement with the AA.
Will post the results asap.

Were you doing the tests while wearing headphones? If so, I've run into that before where the mic is super thin sounding and weak. It's due to the phase of the mic versus what you hear in your head. Try again and flip the phase on your preamp and see if that doesn't change things.

 

[soliloqueen]

Just swapped the "Replica Microphone Premium K47" from one of my 47 fet clones with the AAK47Flat that just arrived.
I'm a bit disapointed with the results.
At first, after installing the cap and testing the microphone, i noticed a real severe lack of low end. At this point, the microphone was barely unusable. I plugged another mic that was lying around to test the line and the line was OK.
As i was pretty surprised, i decided to re-open the microphone and dig into this issue. I inspected the diaphragms of both sides and noticed they both seems to be just as normal exept for one point :
At the same angle regarding the lighting sources of the room, there's a huge difference in transparency of the gold surface from one side to another.
Just like if on one side, the gold was something like 50% thinner.
As the side i was using was the one with the "less" gold, i flipped the capsule, re-assembled the microphone and gave it another try. This time there was WAY more low end, trust me, i'm not talking about 1 or 2 dbs, it's a huge difference, and then the microphone sounded more natural. I plugged again the other mic lying around and there was not quite a difference this time.
I didn't have time to do more tests, but i'm pretty sure one side of the capsule is very far from working as it should.
Will do other more precise A/B test with other 47 clones later this week (depending on the planning) because even the "working" side doesn't seems to produce as low end as the replica microphone K47 did on this mic before its replacement with the AA.
Will post the results asap.

It's likely that the one you got has too large of a vent. This version has a vent under one of the diaphragms and if it's too wide it would cause exactly what you are describing here. I'd be happy to replace it! I'm curious about the difference in Gold thickness as I approved all these myself. Though, I don't think it's the cause of what you're describing and it's cosmetic. This is my bad.

Could you tell me what the numbers in the top left corner of the box are? It sounds to me like you might have been accidentally shipped a B grade capsule at full price and the info on the front of the box would help me verify this. Replacements are always free so don't worry about it

Cutting the vents manually is really tedious and sometimes it results in outliers like this where the spacer goes out of spec. I'm thinking I might actually have a die made with the vent in it. These kinds of issues are rare but really annoying. Anyone else with this problem will get a free replacement out of the next batch in March.

 

[soliloqueen]

One question I have - earlier in the thread there was talk of the flat k47's subsonic performance - omni below 50hz and not being suited for kick duty. Has that changed now?

Yes, the above issue is caused by the implementation of the solution to this problem being out of tolerance.

 

[DuBmastah]

It's likely that the one you got has too large of a vent. This version has a vent under one of the diaphragms and if it's too wide it would cause exactly what you are describing here. I'd be happy to replace it! I'm curious about the difference in Gold thickness as I approved all these myself. Though, I don't think it's the cause of what you're describing and it's cosmetic. This is my bad.

Could you tell me what the numbers in the top left corner of the box are? It sounds to me like you might have been accidentally shipped a B grade capsule at full price and the info on the front of the box would help me verify this. Replacements are always free so don't worry about it

Cutting the vents manually is really tedious and sometimes it results in outliers like this where the spacer goes out of spec. I'm thinking I might actually have a die made with the vent in it. These kinds of issues are rare but really annoying. Anyone else with this problem will get a free replacement out of the next batch in March.

there are two numbers on the upper left corner of the box.
I'm not pretty sure if it's 76/72 or 16/12 but my guess is it's most probably 76/72.
As for the differences beetween gold thickness, i managed to make a picture of both side from same angle, distance and lighting. Maybe this would help figuring out if there's a problem with that or not ?
The side with less transparency (on the left) is the one that actually sound decent (i didn't took the time to compare to another 47, but there was a 414 there, and the 414 was quite more "bassy" than the 47 on its best diaphragm if that could means something usefull). Mics were both plugged directly on the same (RME UFX+) mic preamp.

 

[soliloqueen]

there are two numbers on the upper left corner of the box.
I'm not pretty sure if it's 76/72 or 16/12 but my guess is it's most probably 76/72.
As for the differences beetween gold thickness, i managed to make a picture of both side from same angle, distance and lighting. Maybe this would help figuring out if there's a problem with that or not ?
The side with less transparency (on the left) is the one that actually sound decent (i didn't took the time to compare to another 47, but there was a 414 there, and the 414 was quite more "bassy" than the 47 on its best diaphragm if that could means something usefull). Mics were both plugged directly on the same (RME UFX+) mic preamp.

This looks like a b-stock/47fet capsule to me. I'll send you a new one. I may have cut off for b-stock at too wide. I'll keep an eye out for other people with this problem. Can you DM me your order number or reply to your order email so I know where to send it?

This capsule should not have made it to an A-stock buyer and I apologize. This is my fault.

 

[DuBmastah]

This looks like a b-stock/47fet capsule to me. I'll send you a new one. I may have cut off for b-stock at too wide. I'll keep an eye out for other people with this problem. Can you DM me your order number or reply to your order email so I know where to send it?

This capsule should not have made it to an A-stock buyer and I apologize. This is my fault.

No problem, i guess this would be solved flawlessly.
I sent you a message with the billing informations, just keep in touch if you don't get it ?

 

[mrgrooves666]

there are two numbers on the upper left corner of the box.
I'm not pretty sure if it's 76/72 or 16/12 but my guess is it's most probably 76/72.
As for the differences beetween gold thickness, i managed to make a picture of both side from same angle, distance and lighting. Maybe this would help figuring out if there's a problem with that or not ?
The side with less transparency (on the left) is the one that actually sound decent (i didn't took the time to compare to another 47, but there was a 414 there, and the 414 was quite more "bassy" than the 47 on its best diaphragm if that could means something usefull). Mics were both plugged directly on the same (RME UFX+) mic preamp.

I think comparing with nylon CK12 this would be normal behavior (little more bass extension on CK12 than F47). At least I personally feel edge terminated capsules, including nylon CK12 and TC12 with a kind of like a "smiley" FR, little more bass and airy up top, no?

 

[DuBmastah]

I think comparing with nylon CK12 this would be normal behavior (little more bass extension on CK12 than F47). At least I personally feet edge terminated capsules, including nylon CK12 and TC12 with a kind of like a "smiley" FR, little more bass and airy up top, no?

I've never had a chance to put my hands on one of Tim Campbell's, but from what i hear from a nylon CK12 here (in a C414EB P48), any K47 clone i've got tends to produce less bass response but more presence in the 4Khz range. At least, any use i made of third party brass "CK12's" tends to sound more bright than the nylon (in both C12 or C414 configurations). I would say that the nylon CK12 has a flatter response while the brass clone versions would be something more "in your face" regarding the hi-med and treeble.
But that maybe just a guess unless you compare them in the same exact mic, wich i didn"t do...
I've always been a fan of 414's, but never owned earlier EB's with brass CK12. The only thing i could say is in most recording situations, i would fire up one of my 414 clones prior to the original 414 nylon equiped, even if the clones are more "colored".

 

[soliloqueen]

just did a deep dive on FR QC because of this issue. There's so much crap in the uncorrected FR, it needs to be zoomed out vertically a ton, and while i can read the uncorrected FRs just fine and translate them to what they actually look like, my staff is having trouble since they're not experienced with it, which is totally normal and understandable. I failed to properly support them. That's how the b-stock capsule made it through FR validation. I've got a new system set up and we've settled on ARTA due to its similarity to DAAS in workflow and I'm going to be retraining them with ARTA and setting up proper FR correction over the next few days.

 

[Emmathom]

Hi ! my u47 flay pair has left US and is on its way to France. Thanx Soliloqueen !
My first tests (before building a entire mic with a Schoeps pre circuit) will be to replace the capsule in my t.bone SC1100
One says it's exactly the same circuits (pola & pre) that the sE Z3300 (in fact Thomann do order this model to sE but with a different body style)
Does anybody tried the Arienne U47 in such a mic ?
Best Regards