Hi all. I've been wanting to try one of those
Pimped Alice mods on a Chinese BM-700 or BM-800. You can get the mic for $5-$20 and mod it for $10-$30 so it'd be a fun build to try. Search on eBay or Ali Express (or even Amazon) for BM-700 and BM-800 and you'll see what I'm referring to.
One of these guys (if it's not showing,
this link)
These are fairly large condenser cardioid studio mics and I think pretty much one company supplies them for branding and resell by dozens of other Chinese companies. The mod is a replacement condenser and replacement circuit. You use the mic as a donor body essentially.
From what I've read, the BM-700 typically ships with an XLR to 3.5mm cable and needs at least 3V-5V to run. People use it on their PCs for podcasting or whatever. No pre-amp required, but it's recommended. I think it's meant to look like a U87 clone. There's also a BM-800 is similar but requires 48V phantom power so I'd run it through a mic pre-amp.
My question: I have a CA 9100 that I run CA-14 cards through for field recording. It supplies 9V and has a 3.5mm stereo interface which matches what they commonly ship with the BM-700. That'll work OK, won't it? It's a mono mic, so I presume I'd get left-channel only.
I like the BM-800 design better, but the requirement for 48V phantom power means the 9100 is off the table, connector would be XLR<>XLR and it'd probably never leave the house. But the BM-700 could potentially be used in the field like my CA-14s if I could use the existing pre-amp. Maybe heavy battery suckage?
Also thinking a bit about building two for stereo recording... could be interesting.
Cheers and thanks...