I think the Vark Bar is mighty slick for coincident and near-coincident. But I hear you on wanting more spacing. Five options come to mind:
<1> buy or make a different top-plate(s) that offer greater spacing option(s)
This option probably requires custom machining, which may or may not prove a PITA.
<2> buy a 2nd Vark bar and attach two top plates together to achieve greater spacing
This is probably the best non-Kwonbar option, even though it's not as "slick" as a Kwonbar. Imagine a standard Vark bar, as
pictured here. Remove the vertical support bar, connect two of the drilled top-plates together using the standard hardware (i.e. the 2nd top plate screws onto the 3/8" thread onto which one would normally screw on the mic clip), and re-attach the vertical support bar at the new center of the combined top plate. You can achieve different spacing by either <1> attaching the top plates with overlapping holes, or <2> move the mic clips from one hole to another. This is the easiest way to accomplish your goal using 2 Vark bars, but perhaps not "slick" enough.
<3> combine more than one Vark bar rod (either with off-the-shelf or custom-machined adapters)
This sounds quite easy, but is more difficult than one might initially imagine. Connecting all the bits and pieces is pretty straightforward.
* The problem lies in orienting the mic clips in the same plane. For example, after screwing all the bits and pieces together, and holding the bar horizontally: one mic clip might be aligned vertically (in which case the mic capsule would point upwards or downwards), the other might be aligned horizontally (in which case the mic capsule would point forward or back). To align them, you could loosen one, but it won't be secure.
The resolution (and this is where it gets a little ugly): locking (or jam) nuts. Two options: <1> in
one of the connection joints, you need to install 2 locking nuts - one to lock each "end" of the bar independently, or <2> install a locking nut on each end before the mic clip. Two problems in case <1>: <a> most of these thread adapters do not have sufficient thread depth to accommodate one (much less 2) locking nuts + whatever else is attached to them in the chain, and <b> the locking nuts can only be placed into connection points that fall
outside the shockmount area. In case <2>, there's only one problem: the 3/8" thread adapters to which you attach the mic clips generaly don't have sufficient thread depth to accommodate a locking nut.
<4> Just buy a Kwonbar, already
This is probably the road I'd take.
<5> Use a different mount altogether. I used to use an AKG KM235 bar + 2 shockmounts + my caps. But the extra spacing isn't huge in this case. So I even went so far as to sometimes use 2 AKG KM235 bars connected end-to-end for additional spacing.
Topic: Vark Bar/Shure A53m question (Read 2818 times)