Topic: Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover (Microphones)

[Busman Audio]

The FET in the CAD, Avantone, and mine are the sk170BL, well mine have the BL which is the lower noise model.

As I stated about mine before and this is true of most. A lot of the mics come from the same initial manufacturer. We can provide different design specs to the manufacturer to get what we want in the circuitry. Personally I prefer to go through the mics myself so I know the quality of the solder and so I get the exact components I want.
When I requested specific capacitors they wanted me to send some so they could test them. That made me just think it is better for me and my product to do the work myself. It is also what separates my mics from the others. Not that the others are bad but definitely different sound and quality.

The Karma10 mics are from a separate manufacturer and use SMD components.

All of these use the cheapest components possible to achieve the price they want. Again this is where I differ. I want to provide quality and price which CAN be done.



One other thing is that the transformer does not need to be in a casing. Even my KM84i which are regarded as some of the best SD mics made do not have casing over the transformers.

[bensyverson]

FYI, here is a shot of the FET from the CAD... the numbering reads:
K170
BL 6E

[bensyverson]

Come on Peluso owners... Open em up. 

[bensyverson]

A company in Europe using the same base mic:


http://www.microphonedeals.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26

[DSatz]

Well, sure--I mean, what do people imagine? The manufacturer would gladly put your name on them, too, if you'd just buy 100 or more, pay cash up front, and not try to return any for reasons of poor quality control.

I suppose it's an open secret that some people organize private "group buys" from these same manufacturers. For a lark, I was in on one that very nearly went through this past year, but fell apart at the last minute; the same Chinese-made stereo ribbon microphone that is widely sold for $600 under a semi-respectable brand name was going to cost us each around $230, shipping included.

You may think that these microphones are quite a bargain, in other words--but you ain't seen nothin' until you realize what kind of bargain they must be for the dozens of companies who are selling them to you with their name on them.

--best regards

[illconditioned]

Well, sure--I mean, what do people imagine? The manufacturer would gladly put your name on them, too, if you'd just buy 100 or more, pay cash up front, and not try to return any for reasons of poor quality control.

I suppose it's an open secret that some people organize private "group buys" from these same manufacturers. For a lark, I was in on one that very nearly went through this past year, but fell apart at the last minute; the same Chinese-made stereo ribbon microphone that is widely sold for $600 under a semi-respectable brand name was going to cost us each around $230, shipping included.

You may think that these microphones are quite a bargain, in other words--but you ain't seen nothin' until you realize what kind of bargain they must be for the dozens of companies who are selling them to you with their name on them.

--best regards

Yep, I was in not one, but two group buys of electret capsules from China.  It turns out that none of them were great for music, but I found one that was *excellent* for voice or sound effects, etc.  Great sounding mic, very low self-noise, and excellent price.  I actually trust the electrets for quality control more than the "standard" externally polarized capsules.

  Richard

[bensyverson]

You may think that these microphones are quite a bargain, in other words--but you ain't seen nothin' until you realize what kind of bargain they must be for the dozens of companies who are selling them to you with their name on them.

True -- and I do like the thought of 100 mics with my menacing face screenprinted on them.

But I guess I'd gladly pay the markup not to have to organize the distribution of 50 - 100 mics.

[Church-Audio]

The main problem with "trusting" the quality from China is this. As a manufacturer of preamps and mics my self. I would never send my items over to China for assembly. For one simple reason... They change things on you all the time. The way it works over there with most of the mic companies is you specify a design and components you want and they build it.. Only one little problem the second they dont have the parts they need they will "change" the design on you and guess what? They wont bother to tell you that they did change the design until its to late and you already have 500 of them in inventory. That's how they operate. They are cheap and sometimes you get great quality for very little $$$.. But its not by design its like throwing a dart at a dartboard with a blindfold on. Sometimes you get a bullseye sometimes not. I think its not fair to generalize but I would say 90% of the companies in China will do what ever it takes to make a quick buck..  at the expense of quality every time.

I once was working with a company from China as a consultant * a nameless microphone company * They sent me some samples of the tube mics they were making.. I opened up the high voltage power supplies, only to find out that a 250 volt 1.4A fuse was present on the circuit board but it was only there for show. As it was simply not wired to anything at all.. This is a very typical example of the kind of stuff being exported to North America. When I told the company that this was a major safety issue that they should stop selling these to The US/CAN they said "after we sell all of our old stock they would change the design" No concern for safety there at all.

You get what you pay for in the end. I agree with Bussman in the way that he is doing things. If your willing to "do the work here" you can then guarantee the quality. If you trust the guys in China you never know what you will get.


Chris

[bensyverson]

+T

Interesting stuff

[blindman]

This is the inside of my CK-1 BEFORE the Busman mod.

http://fecundswamp.peanutonastring.com/ck1/ck1_inside001.jpg

there more even higher res images here http://fecundswamp.peanutonastring.com/ck1/ look for ck1_inside00*.jpg's

I have not opened them up after the modding because I was not able to get it back together with the plastic switch covers in place the first time I opened the mic... Chris had to put them back in for me when he modded the mic.

This topic reminded me, I had an odd dream the other night that I made replacement switch covers out of hardwood... I had one of those eye loupes and a tiny file and I was carving tiny little replacement switch covers out of some kind of exotic hard wood. Don't ask me why I had the dream or why I mentioned it now... I remember waking up and thinking what a weird f*cking dream.

I am not opening my Peluso's... sorry.

[bensyverson]

+T for posting the CK-1 shot!
-T for not opening your mics 

j/k...

as I suspected, the internals of the CK-1 look pretty similar to the CAD.

[illconditioned]

+T for posting the CK-1 shot!
-T for not opening your mics 

j/k...

as I suspected, the internals of the CK-1 look pretty similar to the CAD.

Yep, it looks like the Chinese makers have finally perfected the "Scheops circuit" that Scott Dorsey wrote about.  He is a guy over at micbuilders (yahoo group) and rec.audio.pro (usenet) that suggested modding the poor (at the time) circuits in various Chinese mics.  Looks like they've all copied this design now.

I guess there are gains to be made, by: 1. quality control (ie., opening every shipment of mics), and 2. replacing some sketchy components.  I'm still thinking capsules make the difference between mics, and there are no ways to really fix capsules.

Thanks for the pics!!!

  Richard

[bensyverson]

Yeah, I've read a lot of Scott's posts over the years. He has some good stuff on RAMPS (rec.audio.movies.production.sound) as well. If the Chinese plants are getting their circuit designs from Scott, I guess I have to take back all the negative things I've said about USENET. Maybe it's not all flame wars and scheisse porn.

I suspect you're right about the capsules -- and I imagine that if there are QC issues with the Chinese mics, this is where you'd see it most. I'm not sure how much "by-hand" labor goes into capsule manufacture. If it's mostly automated, then I have more hope for the consistency. If it's mostly by-hand, well... let's just say that many years of programming has taught me much about human error.

Yep, it looks like the Chinese makers have finally perfected the "Scheops circuit" that Scott Dorsey wrote about.  He is a guy over at micbuilders (yahoo group) and rec.audio.pro (usenet) that suggested modding the poor (at the time) circuits in various Chinese mics.  Looks like they've all copied this design now.

I guess there are gains to be made, by: 1. quality control (ie., opening every shipment of mics), and 2. replacing some sketchy components.  I'm still thinking capsules make the difference between mics, and there are no ways to really fix capsules.

Thanks for the pics!!!

  Richard

[Busman Audio]

All of these quality issues are why I work on each and every microphone I receive. I found one that had a short before even testing it already. The wire coming from the capsule connection point was connected to one of the terminals on the -10db pad switch. That was pretty bad.
I check the sound quality of all my mics before putting them in the case as done.

You can say what you want about the mics before they come to me but after they go through my shop they are quality mics with the highest quality components and solder.

I asked my manufacturer if they could use good quality halogen free silver solder and they said, "Oh, we have been thinking about it but it can't happen now"

so when they said I could tell them what components to use I thought there is no way I trust that I will get the quality that I expect.

[Javier Cinakowski]

I just ran these Karma's through some tests.  Despite the visible differences on each circuit board the mics are very closely matched.  The frquency anyalizer shows little differences between the two, they dance perfectly together.  The amplitud statistics show they are close too.  The capsules must be the important part becasue the parts in the body look cheap and there are even a few different components in each...

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Using RMS Window of 50 ms