Why won't Neumann reissue the 47 & 67?

They're making small numbers.  Neumann's not interested unless they can do larger numbers.

You'd think that, but there are always things that need work that add up and make it expensive.  Unfortunately I've been part of this process, trying to bring back popular products from death, and it's not pretty.  I once bought an LCD for 25$ a unit.  It was discontinued by the original manufacturer and we found a second source willing to make a sell to us for 75$ a unit.  After a while, they stopped too.  We had to go full custom and ended up paying 250$ a unit until we could completely redesign our product to use newer LCD displays, which took a team of engineers and new plastic molds, etc.  In order to move from a 250$ display to a 50$ display, it took 500K$ worth of man-time and another 50K$ of plastic molds..  For a product that costs 3000$ a unit.  We'd have to sell a lot of units from that point on to make up the costs of redesign, but the plan was to be in the game for the long run..  

Even in well run companies, there are also undocumented design and manufacturing issues that are more "word of mouth" kinda stuff, that are usually lost on those who come in later trying to recreate things.  There are probably a bunch of ROHS things that need addressing, sourcing changes, etc.  A lot of times, a company might be the ONLY buyer of a part that would have been discontinued otherwise.  Once that company stops buying, the manufacturer stops making it, and generally moves on.  Getting them to restart is nigh impossible.  

Many of the original parts are no longer available due to ROHS problems, like a lot of the polystyrene caps are going away, etc.  A lot of the metalwork is ALSO not ROHS compliant, so those can't be sold in a lot of places on the planet anymore too, so new ones will need to be made, which might require hand machining, bending, soldering/brazing, etc.  Usually you can't get places to make bending dies unless you buy thousands, if not tens of thousands of units of product.  Anything less will require hand work, and thus is much more expensive.  This goes for the circuitry and everything else too.

As one who does this thing daily, it can be as smooth as you say, but usually there are hiccups, and sometimes the smallest of hiccups are the ones that derail whole projects.  

And to add, those expenses add up.  When they move to SMD placement and soldering, they've removed 90% of their personnel from the production line and left one or two dudes to run the stuffing machines and the reflow/IR solder ovens.  Staffing up for hand building mics means that you pay a person to sit and make 1% of the microphones that a SMD process can make in a day..  So one 20K$ machine that can spew out 5000 boards a day, or one 50K$ a year person making 5 a day..  And you see how the profit margin quickly goes away..

The market for mics that sound like a 47 or a 67 is being well served by some very good small designer and manufacturers. The prices are also reasonable relative to vintage offerings.

However, what is missing is the ability for customers to truly "hear" the mic they are buying.

All too often meaningless individual sound clips are posted, without comparative references, or shoot outs are done, both at no better than MP3 resolution on sites like this.

I am a home recordist who has been willing to spend some $ to upgrade, but it been incredibly frustrating process trying to identify a mic that has a similar sound signature as a 47 or 67.

I know there are several of you who build mics here, and others like Peluso, Pearlman etc that need to make the "sound" of their mics more available, and in a high quality format.

Wouldnt it possible for a site like this, and the small mic makers to get together and establish some standards for sound clips, and then pitch in to have a DropBox or other site that could host WAV files so that people can compare?

I'm not sure its as hard as you make it out to be.

The 47 is certainly known for its excellence as a vocal mic and if I were Pearlman, Peluso, or anyone who aspires to making a mic reminiscent of a 47, I'd get a decent baritone and have him captured singing into the mic at the same time as something like a 414, or a U87. I suppose you could get a real 47, but I hear there is huge variability unit to unit these days. Maybe I do the same with a stand up bass.

IMO, this would really be a decent way to gauge whether the new mic outperforms or is more complimentary on the source than current classics in capturing this type of vocalist. People used 47's because they were great on vocalists, especially males. The 414 and 87 are solid mics too. The objective is to demonstrate the difference......

Same could be done with the 67, i might also include it on piano of acoustic guitar.

You can set up standard clips for line level units, but mic demos are to reliant on the performance. You could re amp a standard sample, but then you introduce set up choice of speaker.
Add in what what has been already mentioned and its pretty useless .

I blame the manufacturers here. It's either that they just don't want to put in the effort it takes to make a bunch of well done samples or their gear just doesn't hold up and they want to rely on people spouting that their stuff if great, when in reality it's just mediocre. There are a few companies that offer nice samples of their gear (more specifically rack gear comes to mind), but not enough have solid samples.

For me, most of my gear purchases are grabbed used when a good deal comes along and if it doesn't work out, I sell and don't take much of a loss.

Also, I'm sure that you're aware but, there is the Clipalator, which tries to be what you're looking for. I'm not super into the samples posted there, but it's at least accomplishing what it's trying to. www.zenproaudio.com/clipalator

Give me the 414 (w/ a CK-12 brass) any day over a U47 (w/ either k47 or M7).

I'll go one step further than Svart on a given singer you may even prefer the Peluso to a real 47!
The fact is there are a fair number of dealers who will let you Demo / return mics. They don't discount but they offer this service, there are rental houses and FedEx.

I tell anybody who is in the market for a $5000 + mic, the best money you can spend is air fare and a couple of hours at Blackbird, once you know the real thing it gets much easier.

Never a dull moment around here eh?

I just like that when I assert my opinion, people who don't like what I have to say immediately jump to conclusions thinking I'm attacking them.  When they turn around to attack me while stating that their opinion is the correct one, suddenly I'm the asshole and they act like they are on the quest for truth and justice.  Good job guys, this kettle is just as black as your pot.

I say those folks need thicker skin and to stop taking criticism personally.  I'm not one to gush praise over things I don't agree with, and never will.  Don't expect me to keep quiet if I don't agree, because you guys certainly aren't quiet about pouting that someone disagrees with you.

Anyway, nobody is tearing you down and nobody is out to get you.  That includes me.  Listen to what I have to say or not, call me names if you want, I really don't care.  What's important is that you asked something and I replied with my honest opinion.  If you don't like it, fine by me, but that doesn't make me an asshole.  It doesn't even make me wrong, that just means we disagree.  

In this case, I wordfully (made that up) stated that everyone hears things differently and everyone sets things up differently, so there is almost zero chance that what you hear in a clip is what you'll hear in real life on your own gear.  People have tried to do exactly what ephi82 what talking about.  Maybe he didn't know it and thought he had a world changing idea, I don't know, but there is no reason to get upset about it when someone says that it's nigh impossible according to all those who have tried.

So gang up on me, talk among yourselves about me or whatever, but I'm going to keep speaking my mind.

Hi Jesse,

I kind of disagree.  While I think sound clips can acclimate someone toward a new product or give you a sense of features, I think any serious buying decision (especially of $2k-6k mics) need to be made in your own studio.  I think anyone living in the U.S. doesn't have an excuse to do this.  It's way too easy these days to buy something on a credit card from Sweetwater, check it out, and then send it back if you don't like it.  Heck, even my own small two-man company offers a 14-day no questions asked return policy on our stuff.  I think this is why manufacturers of these products don't bother to invest serious time into making sound clips of high end pieces...it's because there are too many variables that can influence a buying decision and the most proven way to understand what a piece of gear will or won't do for you is to use it for a few days.  Besides that, the sound is only one aspect of the user experience.  Putting gear in front of people, especially those that suffer from GAS, is a powerful sales tool.  I know from personal experience this does help sell gear.

When I bought my vintage U67, I gave the buyer a deposit and essentially rented the mic for a week to check it out.  I tried it on a ton of sources and then decided to pull the trigger and send over the rest of the money.

Svart is spot on about everything related to costs of remaking an old design.  I see the same thing at my day job in the aerospace industry.

Brad