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Post by johneppstein on Aug 9, 2018 13:34:53 GMT -6
How difficult, or impossible is t to retension the diaphragm? I have no idea, but it seems this could turn good mics into great ones. The design on the the hole patterns on the plates is well-known I'm sure. So it has to be something with the tensioning that is preventing even Chinese made capsules from sounding better. Thickness of the mylar and the sputtering will also affect it, but it seems odd that with all this technology, we can't get something right that was done nearly half a century ago. The problem is that diaphragm tensioning is a manul art - it's can't really be done properly by machine.
When a guy like Shannon tunes a mic to a customer's voice, tensioning has a lot to do with it.
Since Chinese microphones are all about mass production we're not going to see much improvement there.
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Post by EmRR on Aug 9, 2018 13:40:26 GMT -6
but happychap , his knowledge, re[utaton and expertise. have all increased over the years as well Let me hear a before and after with a KH U87. Where are all of Klaus' sound samples? Can we mere mortals hear the difference? Can I be a skeptic? Or is the cult of Klaus just too powerful? Sure you can, it's healthy. Sound samples.....it's kinda like websites with busy people....ya don't need one until you're not busy.....
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Post by EmRR on Aug 9, 2018 13:49:38 GMT -6
He hears no problem with resistors, capacitors, or transformers, all the normal places people want to start making mods.
The various tube swap tests done here have shown how definitely a tube can affect the overall character of this mic, I believe due to the feedback correction path including the capsule itself in the loop. There are certainly tubes that make the whole thing sound bright and thin, and others that make it tubby and wooly. It seems you'd have a see-saw effect between tube choice and capsule tuning based on what I've heard.
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Post by johneppstein on Aug 9, 2018 13:53:30 GMT -6
Not to be contrarian, but it strikes me as odd that the world’s best microphone manufacturer can’t get it right on their own star product, while somehow there are a few select individuals that really know better, know what’s wrong, and know how to fix it. I can’t help but remain skeptical. I have no horse in the race anyway... In a word, SENNHEISER. Their "corporate culture" is in conflict with the original Neumann ethos - they're all about streamlining to reduce costs and increase production, not painstakingly duplicate the old hand craftsmanship. They're marketing oriented, not detail oriented. You can see it throughout their line. A perfect example is the MD421 series II. They didn't redesign it to make it a better mic - it definitely isn't - they made it cheaper to mass produce. When AES was still held in San Francisco evey other year I'd ask the Sennheiser people why they didn't revive the MD409. The answer always was that it wouldn't be "cost effective", which is obvious BS given what they go for on the vintage market.
The people at Neumann have to fight this all the time - there's immense pressure to streamline production, eliminate hand crafted steps, and produce products tailored to what the parent company perceives as "the modern market". and that market ain't those of us who want accurate renditions of the classics - we don't buy enough. The parent DOES see a demand from the better heeled segment of the "modern market" consisting of people with no experience with the originals but crave them due to all they've read about them in the audio press and on the internet - hence the reissues. But the parent also knows that this market has no benchmark to compare to and also has been brainwashed by the hype that tells them tha an unmusical presence boost equals "better detail", etc - which is why they now have Neumann tension the diaphragms higher than they should be.
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Post by matt@IAA on Aug 9, 2018 14:05:27 GMT -6
Not to be contrarian, but it strikes me as odd that the world’s best microphone manufacturer can’t get it right on their own star product, while somehow there are a few select individuals that really know better, know what’s wrong, and know how to fix it. I can’t help but remain skeptical. I have no horse in the race anyway... In a word, SENNHEISER. Their "corporate culture" is in conflict with the original Neumann ethos - they're all about streamlining to reduce costs and increase production, not painstakingly duplicate the old hand craftsmanship. They're marketing oriented, not detail oriented. You can see it throughout their line. A perfect example is the MD421 series II. They didn't redesign it to make it a better mic - it definitely isn't - they made it cheaper to mass produce. When AES was still held in San Francisco evey other year I'd ask the Sennheiser people why they didn't revive the MD409. The answer always was that it wouldn't be "cost effective", which is obvious BS given what they go for on the vintage market.
The people at Neumann have to fight this all the time - there's immense pressure to streamline production, eliminate hand crafted steps, and produce products tailored to what the parent company perceives as "the modern market". and that market ain't those of us who want accurate renditions of the classics - we don't buy enough. The parent DOES see a demand from the better heeled segment of the "modern market" consisting of people with no experience with the originals but crave them due all they've read about them in the audio press and on the internet - hence the reissues. But the parent also knows that this market has no benchmark to compare to and also has been brainwashed by the hype that tells them tha an unmusical presence boost equals "better detail", etc - which is why they now have Neumann tension the diaphragms higher than they should be.
Ok..but... we’re not talking about eliminating a step or changing a part. They’re still tensioning the capsule. So... cui bono? Why make it tighter? I work in an industry that deals with counterintuitive things and as a result combating bro-science and layman sample size = 1 observations is a part of my job. What evidence do we have that Klaus knows better than Neumann? When people start to extol the virtues of things you can’t measure I say look out! It’s bound to be subjective as hell.
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Post by johneppstein on Aug 9, 2018 14:23:15 GMT -6
I don't buy this. Of course no one is making records with him, he's an expert in making mics sound better for other people who make records. That is his career. He doesn't need to advertise for business, the guy is busy and practically at retirement age. He gains nothing by having more people knock on the door. Imagine the complaints if he were suddenly unavailable to work on mics because of his startup engineering career. I'm not buying 'Klaus makes magic' where no one else can- it's way too self-serving. I've watched his passive-aggressive self-promotional act for years. I've also watched how his opinion of Neumann has shifted as his personal career has taken off. Track down some old Neumann Forum posts of his and you'll see what I mean. Excuse me, but do you KNOW the man?
As it happens I do, or actually did, way back when he was starting his career. He ran the Service Department at Don Wehr's Music City in San Francisco (a post which I held for awhile many years later, but that's another story.) I can vouch for his impeccable craftsmanship, attention to even the most minute detail, and boundless thirst for knowledge of his chosen subject.
"Passive-aggressive self-promotional act"? You don't have a clue. Klaus is the real deal - there are very few left like him in the world. He is neither "passive aggressive" nor "self promotional". a bit anal rententive perhaps - you be hard pressed to function on the plane he does without it. A bit of a stereotype Germanic personality, yeah, a bit, so what? I'm not exaggerating when I say that, had his interests taken a different turn he could have ended up working for NASA, he's that kind of German scientist type. And he's that smart.
Dig it, the guy has put in an incredible amount of work and study to get where he is now and he's greatly respected by all in his field for his achievements.
As to his opinion of Neumann - the company ain't what it used to be. A lot of the old talent is dead and gone and the Sennheiser takeover kept it alive but at the same time had a detrimental effect on the product line. Klaus's view of the company is shared by an awful lot of the surviving "old guard" of the audio world.
Companies, like people, are not static entities. They grow, they succeed (or not), they plateau, they decline, often they die. Only thing is, with companies sometimes they really do become zombies - alive in name only, lurching through some ghastly life after death. Neumann isn't that far gone - yet - but they're declining. Sennheiser has Neumann on life support as a figurehead, but the old no-holds-barred dedication to excellence above all is threatened.
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Post by happychap on Aug 9, 2018 14:27:29 GMT -6
Tell me what year U87 capsules started to be inconsistent.
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Post by yotonic on Aug 9, 2018 14:29:19 GMT -6
Talk about "tension"... LOL
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Post by aremos on Aug 9, 2018 14:35:02 GMT -6
The only thing I wish Klaus would have done is having looked at at least 1 other reissue. He based everything on 1 mic. Maybe that would've shown the consistency of the inconsistencies in the capsules?
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Post by happychap on Aug 9, 2018 14:43:05 GMT -6
Just follow Klaus' well documented commentary from 2004-2016 regarding U87's both old and new.
Talk about inconsistent.
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Post by johneppstein on Aug 9, 2018 14:44:43 GMT -6
In a word, SENNHEISER. Their "corporate culture" is in conflict with the original Neumann ethos - they're all about streamlining to reduce costs and increase production, not painstakingly duplicate the old hand craftsmanship. They're marketing oriented, not detail oriented. You can see it throughout their line. A perfect example is the MD421 series II. They didn't redesign it to make it a better mic - it definitely isn't - they made it cheaper to mass produce. When AES was still held in San Francisco evey other year I'd ask the Sennheiser people why they didn't revive the MD409. The answer always was that it wouldn't be "cost effective", which is obvious BS given what they go for on the vintage market.
The people at Neumann have to fight this all the time - there's immense pressure to streamline production, eliminate hand crafted steps, and produce products tailored to what the parent company perceives as "the modern market". and that market ain't those of us who want accurate renditions of the classics - we don't buy enough. The parent DOES see a demand from the better heeled segment of the "modern market" consisting of people with no experience with the originals but crave them due all they've read about them in the audio press and on the internet - hence the reissues. But the parent also knows that this market has no benchmark to compare to and also has been brainwashed by the hype that tells them tha an unmusical presence boost equals "better detail", etc - which is why they now have Neumann tension the diaphragms higher than they should be.
Ok..but... we’re not talking about eliminating a step or changing a part. They’re still tensioning the capsule. So... cui bono? Why make it tighter? In a word, marketing. Sennheiser thinks the tighter diaphragm sounds "more modern". They think it will sell better to the (well heeled portion of the) amateur market. It's the same thinking that replaced the KM84 with the KM184. They can't leave well enough alone.
Here's a parallel example - Many, many people say the the U87Ai is inferior to the original U87. However I own a U87Ai that, while not identical to the original, sounds much better than most. How is mine different? It was made 2 years pre-Sennheiser. I checked.
The fact the Klaus has preserved knowledge that the current Neumann has lost - because Klaus went to a lot of trouble to track down original sources of that knowledge while they were still around on the face of this earth. The man is not merely a technician, he is a scholar and in a way, an archeologist.
The evidence is his work, and the portion of his knowledge that he shares with others.
Art is subjective. Only a fool attempts to measure art with "science".
Furthemore, science itself is far from perfect or complete as any REAL scientist will tell you. Science is constantly being revised, phenomena that people laughed at a few years ago become accepted as proven fact, measurement systems improve, etc. Science is a living, growing thing. A true scientist had undying curiousity about things that have been observed but not "proven".
Science is not static. People who treat science as static are not scientists, but we do have a name for them. That name is "pedants".
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Post by johneppstein on Aug 9, 2018 14:52:43 GMT -6
Tell me what year U87 capsules started to be inconsistent. I do not know. What I DO know is that Sennheiser purchased Neumann in 1991 and my mic was made in 1989 according to the serial number.
When they started fooling with the capsules I'm not certain, but I'd guess some time in the early 21st century when home rercording started being a hugely expanding market.
Klaus would know. David Bock might also.
I'm not sure if "inconsistent" is the right word. The new ones are pretty consistant, they just don't sound as good.
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Post by matt@IAA on Aug 9, 2018 14:54:16 GMT -6
So your claim is contrary to Klaus’ then. He doesn’t say all new capsules are tighter by intent, just that their range is all over the place. I doubt Klaus has more information available to him than an engineer at Neumann. I don’t know this for a fact, but having worked as an engineer - a field dominated by people who are information junkies just like you describe Klaus to be - I find the idea extremely unlikely. Dollars to donuts neumann has a spec on tension and a reason for the spec. Unless Klaus has this spec, and a rev log or the newer and older specs being used, he isn’t privy to what’s what. And if you can’t measure the change between tensions you’re off in subjective land. Making mics isn’t “art”. Sound comes in, voltage comes out. I don’t think it’s science either, because the scientific principles here are pretty well understood. Seems to me it is engineering, but don’t let me get in the way of an otherwise solid rant.
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Post by johneppstein on Aug 9, 2018 14:55:49 GMT -6
The only thing I wish Klaus would have done is having looked at at least 1 other reissue. He based everything on 1 mic. Maybe that would've shown the consistency of the inconsistencies in the capsules? One thing about Neumann - I doubt their capsules in any given era are really "inconsistent". I think the correct word would be "different".
But sure, a larger sample would always be nice.
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Post by wiz on Aug 9, 2018 15:06:00 GMT -6
I just read Klaus’s review and I have a question.
Does capsule tension change over time?
Could a capsule tensioned in the 1960s , be as tight as one coming off the production line today?
Is time a factor?
Cheers
Wiz
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Post by Johnkenn on Aug 9, 2018 15:07:51 GMT -6
I think there might be a misnomer that the capsule is stretched over like a drumhead and bolted or glued. I don’t believe that’s the case. When you turn the screws on say a kk47, I believed you’re changing the distance between the two plates therefore changing capacitance. I think the culprit is the sputtering process.
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Post by Johnkenn on Aug 9, 2018 15:09:08 GMT -6
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Post by matt@IAA on Aug 9, 2018 15:10:03 GMT -6
I think there might be a misnomer that the capsule is stretched over like a drumhead and bolted or glued. I don’t believe that’s the case. When you turn the screws on say a kk47, I believed you’re changing the distance between the two plates therefore changing capacitance. I think the culprit is the sputtering process. I was definitely operating under that notion. Interesting.
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Post by happychap on Aug 9, 2018 15:11:46 GMT -6
I just read Klaus’s review and I have a question. Does capsule tension change over time? Could a capsule tensioned in the 1960s , be as tight as one coming off the production line today? Is time a factor? Cheers Wiz According to mic guru David Brown, capsule screws can loosen and affect the tension: T here is a procedure that I do to U 87's that takes about 6 hours to do:This process includes a full cleaning of the capsule, adjusting the FET voltage, polishing all contacts including all of the gold pins and any other plug in type of connection, I also do the best I can in getting any dents out of the screen and I clean the body and screen in a ultrasonic cleaner, I touch up any cold solder connections under a microscope I also replace all of the old tantalum capacitors that have gotten old and dried up I also will re tension the diaphragm if it needs it. Sometimes the small screws that hold the diaphragm in place will become loose over the years.PS- FWIW, David has a week turnaround on this service.
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Post by jampa on Aug 9, 2018 15:12:42 GMT -6
^ Possibly also part of what wiz is thinking - Does capsule tension change from years of sound pressure arriving at it?
Edit: see posts above
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Post by johneppstein on Aug 9, 2018 15:13:31 GMT -6
So your claim is contrary to Klaus’ then. He doesn’t say all new capsules are tighter by intent, just that their range is all over the place. Really? I hadn't seen that, but I'll bow to his superior knowledge.
If I could afford it I'd bet you a new U67 that Klaus has more information than current Neumann engineers. Most, if not all the original engineers are dead. I'd also bet you that Neumann has changed their spec on tensioning at least some models due to marketing reasons, especially since the corporate takeover.
Why would you assume that Klaus would not have meticulous logs of tensioning of various capsules over time? I would be very surprised if he did not.
Of course it's art. It's as much art as building guitars or violins. If in fact Neumann capsules have become inconsistent in recent years it would be due to reliance on machine tensioning now in place of the former meticulous (and expensive) hand tensioning employed before.
After a certain point there is an element of hand tuning in much engineering. The tuning of bracing and wood thickness in guitar tops. The balancing of engine parts in drag racers. The individual tuning and matching of microphone diaphragms.
That is the interface between engineering and art - and art takes over.
Engineering is the practical application of science.
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Post by johneppstein on Aug 9, 2018 15:17:22 GMT -6
I think there might be a misnomer that the capsule is stretched over like a drumhead and bolted or glued. I don’t believe that’s the case. When you turn the screws on say a kk47, I believed you’re changing the distance between the two plates therefore changing capacitance. I think the culprit is the sputtering process. My impression is that it's both.
The actual tension would affect resonant frequency of the diaphragm, not capacitance. Capacitance would be due to spacing, and the resonant frequency would also be affected by resonance with the immediate environment (gap, venting, etc.)
The neckbone is connected to the thighbone....
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Post by matt@IAA on Aug 9, 2018 15:24:05 GMT -6
Why would you assume that Neumann does not have meticulous logs of diaphragm tension over time? Not to mention design manuals, design notes, engineering bulletins, the original design specifications and tolerances, changes to those specifications with the reasons for the change (revision logs), the consequences of those changes, etc etc? These are all proprietary IP so unless these engineers Klaus spoke with did some unethical things with regard to IP and trade secrets - or unless Klaus worked for Neumann and took all that IP with him - he doesn’t have this stuff. He’s working on reverse engineered numbers which aren’t useless but are by no means the same as having the original spec and tolerances in hand...much less the documents which explain design intent.
Hand work vs machine work is always and only a question of cost vs benefit. There is no magic in balancing engine parts, and a machine can be more consistent than a human ten times out of ten... if what you’re producing is objectively measurable after the work is done*. Ain’t no such thing as magic.
*there are some processes which are extremely difficult to check after completion such as the peening of turbine blades and as a result these can sometimes be performed more reliably by humans who can feel and report an error. But even these types of things are rapidly dwindling in the world as machinery gets better.
Here’s is what Klaus said in his review:
So is it the spec or the tolerance or the QC or or or? Or is it just subjective? We don’t know because sexy and robust are not quantitative.
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Post by matt@IAA on Aug 9, 2018 15:30:42 GMT -6
This video from ~2009 shows a capsule being assembled and tensioned by hand.
Skip to 2:20 or so.
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Post by stormymondays on Aug 9, 2018 16:16:49 GMT -6
This video from ~2009 shows a capsule being assembled and tensioned by hand. Nice, thanks for finding that! It doesn’t look like rocket surgery to me. It would be interesting to see how they do the QC.
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