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Post by svart on Jun 24, 2019 6:25:33 GMT -6
I built my own u47 for 1k and I'd put it up against any u47, clone or original. Don't suppose you'd be willing to supply a list of parts and instructions on how to DIY one? Which capsule, transformer and tube did you use? I think I put it all in another thread at some point, but the skinny is: Theirsch Blueline (choose side for best sound), AMI BV8, Russian PIO caps (from ebay), parallel 408a tubes (also from ebay). Power supply was just a generic one I made from parts to get the right voltages at the mic. I used a random cheap generic body from some website that had them. I did not put a relay in the mic to go from cardioid to omni. It's a simple circuit, so the resulting sound is a sum of the parts.
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Post by svart on Jun 24, 2019 6:45:13 GMT -6
thanks man. Even the testing company called it Signal Arts... lol I was wondering if I should just go with it. haha Did you get the 408a’s to be stable? Not trolling - just remember people saying they couldn’t get ones without noise. I have 3 pairs of random Ebay 408's/6028's that I've bought for pennies on the dollar. All of them have been through my mic with no noise or anything. I bought my first set of 408a simply because they were like 5$ for the unmatched pair. I put them in the mic and they worked fine. I didn't even know folks complained about noise until I saw it on the forum where folks mentioned needing to sort vast numbers of tubes. I mentioned not needing to, and someone insinuated that I must not of heard the noise, or that i was just lucky. I bought another set, which may have been the 6028 that time) for a few dollars once again and put them in the mic and found they were just as quiet to which the reply was that I was once again not hearing the noise or I was just lucky, or that it was because they were not 408a's. I bought a third set to replace the first set if I swapped out tubes with someone who wanted to try tested tubes in their mics. You'll probably remember I OFFERED to swap anyone who claimed to have "noisy" 408/6028 tubes for a set of my tested ones to prove that it's not the tube's problems, but the circuit/layout/wiring. Since these tubes have a wider bandwidth, I'd expect them to be more sensitive to these things. I do not believe I just got 3 lucky sets of tubes off ebay.. None of the people claiming that these tubes required a large degree of sorting took me up on it.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jun 24, 2019 7:19:51 GMT -6
Earlier on bluegrassdan mentioned resolution. Some might call it transparency, but he's right, that is the main difference between a really nice quality mic that's useable and the classics.
I'm no mic maker, but it seems the capsule and then the transformer are the two bigger factors in determining resolution. The AKG 414's I've used had it. I'm not sure which model it was because I didn't pay attention to those things then, but it was probably the earlier design.
I may have a definitive answer to lpedrum's question when the Stam SA67 with the Tim Campbell capsule arrives. Stam cuts costs by selling direct and uses the best parts available. So it's quite possible the SA67 may be the breakout "clone", the one that actually gets you the resolution and the vibe. I'll be doing a quick test comparing the SA67 with the Heiserman capsule, and the Tim Campbell capsule, and later on I'll be doing a proper video comparing it to a vintage U67.
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Post by lpedrum on Jun 24, 2019 9:53:41 GMT -6
Earlier on bluegrassdan mentioned resolution. Some might call it transparency, but he's right, that is the main difference between a really nice quality mic that's useable and the classics. I'm no mic maker, but it seems the capsule and then the transformer are the two bigger factors in determining resolution. The AKG 414's I've used had it. I'm not sure which model it was because I didn't pay attention to those things then, but it was probably the earlier design. I may have a definitive answer to lpedrum's question when the Stam SA67 with the Tim Campbell capsule arrives. Stam cuts costs by selling direct and uses the best parts available. So it's quite possible the SA67 may be the breakout "clone", the one that actually gets you the resolution and the vibe. I'll be doing a quick test comparing the SA67 with the Heiserman capsule, and the Tim Campbell capsule, and later on I'll be doing a proper video comparing it to a vintage U67. Stam’s SA47 is around $1600. (But not available until November 2019 according to the site ) Anyone here own one? If so, is your search for a great “47” over or did it come up short in some way?
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jun 24, 2019 12:28:56 GMT -6
Lpedrum, I've actually been looking for a great U67 style mic. The Soyuz 0-17 did it, the Chandler REDD did it, but they're out of my price range. So I'm crossing my fingers the Stam SA67 with the new Tim Campbell capsule does that trick. I did audition some wonderful classic mics, U47's, M49, C12, but the vintage 67 was the perfect fit for my voice, so I sold the Blackspade which was somewhere between the 47 and the M49 in tone.
I have the Soyuz 0-19 FET, so I'm in good shape in general. It's a lot like having a U87, it works well on everything. In fact, it's my favorite acoustic guitar mic and depending on the song, it can hang with the big boy mics. I have a couple of Avantone mics, the CV-95 and BV-12. The BV-12 is very nice and smooth, I like for voice-overs and the meditation podcasts I've been recording for friends lately. Down the road I might mod them.
Hopefully the SA67 fills the void of having The One great tube mic I've been searching for.
* I haven't had the chance to try the Stam 47.
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Post by ml on Jun 24, 2019 13:27:14 GMT -6
Just picked up a used Warm WA-47 off Reverb. Pretty happy with it so far. Seems to handle sibilance and eq really well. I've never used a real 47, but I've used the Slate VMS emulation. Next to the real deal the warm probably doesn't compare, but in a mix I doubt anyone could really tell the difference. Especially modern music where everything is slammed anyways.
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Post by Johnkenn on Jun 24, 2019 15:03:06 GMT -6
Just picked up a used Warm WA-47 off Reverb. Pretty happy with it so far. Seems to handle sibilance and eq really well. I've never used a real 47, but I've used the Slate VMS emulation. Next to the real deal the warm probably doesn't compare, but in a mix I doubt anyone could really tell the difference. Especially modern music where everything is slammed anyways. I mixed a couple of songs for a guy and the verse vocals sounded so good I asked what he used. Warm 47 into an API 512.
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Post by Vincent R. on Jun 24, 2019 15:28:14 GMT -6
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Post by cdkelly on Jun 24, 2019 16:42:58 GMT -6
Did you get the 408a’s to be stable? Not trolling - just remember people saying they couldn’t get ones without noise. I have 3 pairs of random Ebay 408's/6028's that I've bought for pennies on the dollar. All of them have been through my mic with no noise or anything. I bought my first set of 408a simply because they were like 5$ for the unmatched pair. I put them in the mic and they worked fine. I didn't even know folks complained about noise until I saw it on the forum where folks mentioned needing to sort vast numbers of tubes. I mentioned not needing to, and someone insinuated that I must not of heard the noise, or that i was just lucky. I bought another set, which may have been the 6028 that time) for a few dollars once again and put them in the mic and found they were just as quiet to which the reply was that I was once again not hearing the noise or I was just lucky, or that it was because they were not 408a's. I bought a third set to replace the first set if I swapped out tubes with someone who wanted to try tested tubes in their mics. You'll probably remember I OFFERED to swap anyone who claimed to have "noisy" 408/6028 tubes for a set of my tested ones to prove that it's not the tube's problems, but the circuit/layout/wiring. Since these tubes have a wider bandwidth, I'd expect them to be more sensitive to these things. I do not believe I just got 3 lucky sets of tubes off ebay.. None of the people claiming that these tubes required a large degree of sorting took me up on it. good observations, and I agree. funny enough the first 2 pairs I bought off ebay 3 or 4 years ago were fine as well. one pair was a Jan GE (green labels) 408a pair, and the other a Western Electric. I do think though that in both cases the sellers were reputable and had already tested the tubes on a test machine. I think that the excessively noisy ones are also likely spent or defective in other ways that show up on the tests and get discarded. It wasn't until I took delivery of a lot of nearly 1000 pieces or NOS Western Electric 408a's a couple years ago, that had not been kept under the most ideal conditions, that I began to find ones with issues here and there. I had to clean them all and develop a method for de-scaling the pins nicely, etc. Sometimes noise, sometimes microphony, sometimes DOA. What they do have a strong baseline of performance which is quite good, and as you go through more and more it becomes easier to identify those that fall outside of that baseline norm. And when I use tubes that have burned in and gone thru that process; the mic is impressively quiet. Quieter than most classic solid state condensers, truthfully, when you balance for levels. It's definite a 'step' that cannot be avoided (screening the tubes); but then again, when 'don't' we have to do that... When you make a good 251, you have to find a sufficiently quiet 12AY7. When Neumann made the U47, they had to cherry pick the best VF14's (that's what the 'M' suffix represents, the cream of the crop of VF14's). And judging by how many of the tubes were made vs how many were selected as 'M's, it looks like they had to reject far more tubes than we have to on the 408's.
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Post by wiz on Jun 24, 2019 19:25:15 GMT -6
Earlier on bluegrassdan mentioned resolution. Some might call it transparency, but he's right, that is the main difference between a really nice quality mic that's useable and the classics. I'm no mic maker, but it seems the capsule and then the transformer are the two bigger factors in determining resolution. The AKG 414's I've used had it. I'm not sure which model it was because I didn't pay attention to those things then, but it was probably the earlier design. I may have a definitive answer to lpedrum's question when the Stam SA67 with the Tim Campbell capsule arrives. Stam cuts costs by selling direct and uses the best parts available. So it's quite possible the SA67 may be the breakout "clone", the one that actually gets you the resolution and the vibe. I'll be doing a quick test comparing the SA67 with the Heiserman capsule, and the Tim Campbell capsule, and later on I'll be doing a proper video comparing it to a vintage U67. Stam’s SA47 is around $1600. (But not available until November 2019 according to the site ) Anyone here own one? If so, is your search for a great “47” over or did it come up short in some way? I own the SA47 with the Dany Bouchard capsule in it. I have owned the Beesneez T1 (terrible mic, poor build quality, manufacturing flaws, unreliable) the WA47 (nicesh mic, not a U47 in any way shape or form) I have used real 47s. The Stam is a bargain and sounds great, like a 47. I am sure there are others that go well too, the Heiserman I heard on RGO sounded mighty!! cheers Wiz
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Post by tskguy on Jun 25, 2019 7:07:49 GMT -6
Hey all, I think you can really divide the 47 tribute mics in to 3 distinct categories.. Good quality components in a china made body and PSU, High quality components in a china made body PSU, and high quality components in a high quality made body and high quality PSU along with tuning the mic correctly! I have seen some of the mic builders mentioned above just really cut corners to save cost. Loose parts, poor assembly shotty wiring, glued parts (transformer!). Along with that I have seen a wide swing regarding sound even though they are using all the same parts! So my suggestion to everyone demo these mics!! Open the PSU and Mic and take a look at the work! It's for sure a get what you pay for situation.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jun 25, 2019 8:07:42 GMT -6
In some ways you do get what you pay for. Like I mentioned before, the Soyuz 0-17 and Chandler Redd are no compromise high end mics. They're also quite expensive, and deservedly so. Those mics require no modding, there's no second guessing, they sound like they sound, and if that works for you, you're good to go without apology.
That was the thing about the classic U87's. You plugged them in, and went about your work. They sound right on almost everything. I used one every day for a dozen years when I had a small studio of my own, and I never had a single issue with the sound. Once I became more aware of the nuances and tonal varieties other great mics can impart, I began trying to get that kind of quality at home.
So, it's a budget vs. quality issue. The clone and the "in the style of" market has improved greatly the last two years. Companies like Lewitt, Warm and Avantone have made some very nice and useable mics at a fair price. I have a track that I use to compare mics. You'd be hard pressed to choose between some of them, each has a desirable sound quality, yet the price range can differ by $3,500 or more.
It takes a sensitive and trained ear to really hear the subtle differences. But when you throw a great vintage mic like a U47 or U67 up, they usually just smack the pretenders right down.
But... when you consider a company like Stam or Golden Age, there is now hope that we can indeed reach the plateau the Soyuz and Chandler are at at 1/2 or 1/3 the price, and there's also hope it might actually hold their own next to the classics.
So I think the real question here is can these ambitious small companies deliver on the promise. I think they can, and if the Stam SA73 or the Dizengoff D4 preamps are any indication of what can be done on a budget, there's every reason to believe that at the right time and under the right competitive circumstances, we may actually get more than we paid for.
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Post by mcirish on Jun 25, 2019 8:11:51 GMT -6
I have owned the Beesneez T1 (terrible mic, poor build quality, manufacturing flaws, unreliable) cheers Wiz Hey Wiz, that's a shame to hear that about the Beesneez T1. I really like the BN K7 capsule I have in one of my mics, but I have not bought an entire mic from BN yet. That kind of puts a damper on my enthusiasm. Bummer. I have a Wunder CM7 GTS/M7. Its a nice mic but I have also recorded with a U48. The U48 was better by about 5% or so. It had just a little more air to it and the smoothness was slightly better. A very tiny bit of EQ could make them fairly identical. Makes me wonder if the U48 had a K47 capsule. If so, I might like the K47 better than a M7. My M7 is a Thiersch red. I just don't want trouble in the future with PVC drying out in the Blue version. Then again, my Red capsule did go bad a couple years ago and Mike at Wunder had to replace it.
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Post by Omicron9 on Jun 25, 2019 8:59:30 GMT -6
Expect the KM84, to be the next big reissue IMHO. Chris If you mean by Neumann, I've been wondering about that very thing.
-09
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Post by chessparov on Jun 25, 2019 11:45:00 GMT -6
Since some things like lead soldering, are not legal anymore... I would expect the reissue KM84, to sound a teeny bit different-but no big deal! Chris
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jun 25, 2019 15:31:50 GMT -6
As long as it's better than the 184, I'm interested.
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Post by oliviadolphinjohn on Aug 9, 2019 19:50:31 GMT -6
Signal Art premium u48 totally nailed it for me, it really is a u48 with some minor difference in the high end response. The tone is there. Reminds me of the maxmod/u67 difference, but gets even closer. I was surprised by how good it is, and the order took under 3 weeks from the inquiry to having it in my hand.
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Post by kcatthedog on Aug 9, 2019 23:47:35 GMT -6
When I had my mk-u47, oddly the tubes that came with the kit were noisy and unusable, all the 408a’s I bought from shops that tested worked great, but I had one tube fail and another bad one from an eBay seller.
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Post by jamiesego on Aug 10, 2019 7:42:04 GMT -6
After trying the WA47 a few weeks ago I saw a really cheap used one on Sweetwater and decided to get it. I may send it to Signal Art and have the PIO cap put in and still have less invested than a new one.
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Post by delcampo on Aug 10, 2019 8:40:38 GMT -6
I think the "elephant in the room" of this thread, is the "chemical reaction" of Talent meets microphone. The various idiosyncrasies of a voice or instrument, can and could help "fill in the blanks" of that final recording. Chris Gonna quote this for further emphasis. The more I approach elder dude status, the more I remind myself of this very good point daily. The key thwarting factor in buying more mics. ...that I admittedly don't share with my wife fearing all consequences.
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Post by cdkelly on Aug 10, 2019 11:23:59 GMT -6
After trying the WA47 a few weeks ago I saw a really cheap used one on Sweetwater and decided to get it. I may send it to Signal Art and have the PIO cap put in and still have less invested than a new one. Send it on! the upgrades really work wonders. I do a good bit more than just the output caps, it's almost totally rebuilt. The results come shockingly close to my own fully handmade 47. Chad Signal Art
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Post by chessparov on Aug 10, 2019 18:29:00 GMT -6
Smart way to go... Chris
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Post by hadaja on Aug 20, 2019 12:47:33 GMT -6
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Post by jamiesego on Aug 20, 2019 13:55:31 GMT -6
Good lord! I wonder if anyone will pull the trigger on that.
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Post by soundintheround on Aug 20, 2019 17:51:01 GMT -6
I can also vouch for the Stam 47. One of those mics you hit record and doesn’t really need much else. EQ? No thanks.
Technically it isn’t HIS mic in that he isn’t designing the capsules, but he seems to try and source the best parts and I trust his ears. Could prob DIY something similar if don’t wanna deal with that whole thing.
Pearlman mics are also great if your not sure if you want a U47 or U67.
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