Topic: The AKG Active Project - 2

[Nick's Picks]

never claimed it as my own.  just an idea to present.

off the record, Chris and I discussed this privately this morning...trying to figure out what the best way to accomplish the separation of capsule and body.
now you understand the mild ball busting.
:-)

this will come to pass folks.  it may not be perfect (active cables w/cap and no body, or body and 3m extension cable to caps)..but it'll be better than nothing

[Church-Audio]

never claimed it as my own.  just an idea to present.

off the record, Chris and I discussed this privately this morning...trying to figure out what the best way to accomplish the separation of capsule and body.
now you understand the mild ball busting.
:-)

this will come to pass folks.  it may not be perfect (active cables w/cap and no body, or body and 3m extension cable to caps)..but it'll be better than nothing

Yeah my balls hurt lol.. I was kidding around with you.. 

If Nick wants to do this, we will be taking pictures and sharing everything we did and how we did it so others can do the same...

Chris

[Nick's Picks]

we'll do it.
put some ice on those puppies before they look like this:
http://mattb.net/images/misc/cables/img_9842%20(3).jpg

[Church-Audio]

we'll do it.
put some ice on those puppies before they look like this:
http://mattb.net/images/misc/cables/img_9842%20(3).jpg

Yeah I dont want to see more pictures of your balls and these cables ok.... 

[Nick's Picks]

agreed.

[Nick's Picks]

I"ve spoke w/that company you mentioned, (ACO) and told them of our goal.  i thought this was informative.

**************************************

With the capsule you need to deal with very high impedances and low stray capacitance.Those are both hard to do.
To give you an idea
The CK series of capsules are about 30-50 pF in capacitance

The cable your using is probably not less than 30 pF/foot

So 1 foot of cable on the capsule drops the output in 1/2 (6 dB) and 3 feet 12 to 15 dB 1/4 to 1/5 the output
Plus it can become a mechanical noise source

************************************************

so cable is important, but I seldom see any capacitance ratings in the stuff I buy.

[Church-Audio]

I"ve spoke w/that company you mentioned, (ACO) and told them of our goal.  i thought this was informative.

**************************************

With the capsule you need to deal with very high impedances and low stray capacitance.Those are both hard to do.
To give you an idea
The CK series of capsules are about 30-50 pF in capacitance

The cable your using is probably not less than 30 pF/foot

So 1 foot of cable on the capsule drops the output in 1/2 (6 dB) and 3 feet 12 to 15 dB 1/4 to 1/5 the output
Plus it can become a mechanical noise source

************************************************

so cable is important, but I seldom see any capacitance ratings in the stuff I buy.

I think we just have to try different cables. We know three feet can be done, because of the extension wands that are available for these mics.. I think we need to try a few different cables.

[Nick's Picks]

again, that is assuming there is no circuitry involved w/the goose neck.

[Church-Audio]

again, that is assuming there is no circuitry involved w/the goose neck.

If there is we can take a look at the design.. But I dont think there is anything inside the tube...

[Nick's Picks]

I've got a call into Marc Nutter, who tried this w/the extension once before. He'll tell me what he found inside there.

[Thomas]

I haven't been following this thread, so this info may be old, if so please disregard. I haven't been on ts.com for a while, and at mule last friday someone mentioned to me that there were some folks on here working on this so i thought id check it out.

I run the blueline akgs (391) with the akg brand actives.  I ordered them from musiciansgear.com in germany and the shipping took about 4 or 5 months.  when they got here the package looked like it had been runover by a stampede of forklifts.  but anyway before i ordered them i sent several emails back and forth with an akg us representative who seemed to know his stuff.  he said that there was no active circuitry inside the "active cables", and that they were nothing more than connectors and high quality silver cable.  the cables i ordered are 3meters and i beleive there was also a 9m version but i can't seem to find either one for sale on the site i ordered them from. 

i don't know if this will help anyone out as far as this project goes but I sure hope so, a low profile akg setup would be awesome.

[Thomas]

has anyone tried a prototype version of just cable between the caps and the bodies?

[terrapinj]

has anyone tried a prototype version of just cable between the caps and the bodies?

there are a few here who were able to create "active" systems for the 390 series

the goal of this project is to get them for the 460s/480

your question above has been address a few times, theres a lot of good info in the 1st thread you may want to read up on

[Thomas]

Let me see if i have this right,

the schoeps cables have a buffer in the line to boost the signal to make up for the loss that the cable creates, while the akg actives that i have and all of the jklabs/nbox solutions use no circuitry in the line to boost the signal.  

my cables use no extra circuitry whatsoever to form the bridge between cap and body, while jklabs/nbox contains some extra circuitry not present in the body that it is replacing.  

It seems as though the 480s don't need any extra circuitry judging from what is inside the A61 swivel at least for a very short run, do we know if the goosenecks have any circuitry inside them?  

[Todd R]

Let me see if i have this right,

the schoeps cables have a buffer in the line to boost the signal to make up for the loss that the cable creates, while the akg actives that i have and all of the jklabs/nbox solutions use no circuitry in the line to boost the signal. 

my cables use no extra circuitry whatsoever to form the bridge between cap and body, while jklabs/nbox contains some extra circuitry not present in the body that it is replacing. 

It seems as though the 480s don't need any extra circuitry judging from what is inside the A61 swivel at least for a very short run, do we know if the goosenecks have any circuitry inside them? 

Not quite -- the neumann km100 series (eg, km140s), the schoeps, and the jklabs "active" solution for the ck6x caps (480 caps) all use active electronics in the head of the active cables where the capsules attach to.  The nbox solution, which uses the schoeps active cables, therefore also contains active electronics.  The active electronics act as a buffer, but do not really "boost" the signal.

The jklabs box (as opposed to the jklabs active cables) and the nbox both include electronics that replace the electronics in the mic bodies.

Your "active" cables for the akg blueline series are not true active cables in the sense that they do not contain active electronics.  These cables do not require active electronics because the blueline series are pre-polarized (aka electret) mics -- they are not true condensor mics that require external biasing.

The AKG gooseneck for the 460/480s, which doesn't contain active electronics, does not necessarily mean that you can have "active" cables without electronics since the distances involved are so short.

I think that summarizes everything.