There was a post along these lines at one time. Someone on this board took Schoeps podium mounts and made them into custom actives. Seems like there were some noise issues that never got resolved?
Anyway, I had this exact idea for a pair of 451's last year, and I got the VR1 tubes and everything. Called AKG and they told me it couldn't be done but wouldn't tell me why. Talked to an electrical engineer friend of mine and he looked at it and said it probably wouldn't work either and cited something about noise, distance from the capsule, polarizing voltage, yadda, yadda, yadda. Wish I knew more about this stuff, but at that point it wasn't worth the effort to continue.
Incidentally, those tubes are VERY solid metal, so it's not as easy as "hacking off the ends". I couldn't even bend one with brute force.
Dirk