micparts T-47: A fantastic DIY microphone

500 series spawned a ton of junk. CAPI, Kush, FMR, Avedis are all great.
Rack mount stuff is just more consistent. There's no cutting down to 16v rails and less dirty ass power supplies. Daking and Crane Song kick major ass and aren't overpriced for what they are. There are a ton of good pres in whatever flavor you want now. Just avoid cheap junk.

Purple MC77 is bright as shit if you want that. Warm is dirty trash. Shit sounds awful compared to 50 dollar plugins.

The RND 542 isn't as good as U-he Satin.

 

Classic mic pre designs are not much more complicated to solder if you're up for it. There are tons of good DIY options out there if you're interested

 

Warm totally lacks a holistic approach to their gear design. They put together parts but they don't think about it. For instance, their WA-87 has a well-implemented circuit and a decent capsule, but the build quality is a joke and the sound is utterly ruined by standing waves in their terrible headbasket design. If they knew what they were doing they could fix it in 30 minutes. Because they don't, the mic goes from worth $1000 to being something I wouldn't even use. I've never used their hardware, but from what you describe I imagine it suffers from similar stupid, dealbreaking oversights.

I designed a headbasket swap for the mic that completely fixes the sound, but at that point it's less trouble to pay someone like OPR on groupdiy to just do it all correctly for only like $150 more.

 

Yes, would love to learn about good options. I looked but without sufficient experience with mic pres it’s difficult to decide what’s good and what’s not out there.

 

I've been looking at studio gear lately and noticed that discrete pro opamps are a thing. Especially in some format I never seen before called 2520. Here's a couple examples I found

https://www.fivefishstudios.com/diy/doa17/
https://sparkoslabs.com/pro-discrete-op-amp/

And you are absolutely right about the circuits being simple. It's often just Input Xfrmer -> opamp -> Output Xfrmer. Like this classic 312 preamp.



There's some guy I randomly discovered local to me that has PCBs of some classic tubed preamps as well as a version of the 312 with Lundahl transformers. He also offers some preamps in the 500 series format.

Five Fish Audio as I mentioned earlier has a few DIY kits, but they are also heavy in opamps. Often 3 per channel which might not appeal to purr1n.

Hairball Audio also has 500 series kits including a fully discrete one. They are a bit more complicated so not 'simple'

 

the build quality is horrendous on the warm and Behringer owned Klark Technics stuff. Sound is all lofi. Of course they don’t use the cool distorting parts.

 

.... could it work as a headphone?? Multi-Driver headphones have been tried, but it's been a while since anyone with modern tech and audiophile sensibilities has attempted it. K340 anyone?

 

Now this is an interesting resource.

http://wiki.diyrecordingequipment.com/

A bit messy but lots to explore.

 

I've heard that one (1More) and the Dharma once and moved right on. I think I've even heard the surround sound ones also... they all mostly suck. The Dharma wasn't bad, jut didn't move things forward in a meaningful way.

I guess I was just curious since you suggested two different technologies in one capsule that the inverse could be used as a headphone with enough gumption. What are the limits of a condenser?

Considering the fact that companies that build microphones seem to have somewhat of a grasp on making headphones and all of them have a condenser mic in their catalogs - it kind of makes me think that it is a no-go situation though, but I never thought an AMT or true ribbon would be popping up from interesting places.

What's up with Sennheiser holding a planardynamic patent - they have some new microphones coming soon?

 

Aren't condensers basically e-stats of the mic world?

 

Hopefully this doesn't veer too far off... I wonder how long it will take before we see Audeze get back to making microphones with their CNT / 'CRBN' film. That material seems like it has quite a bit of use in our hobby(ies)

 

Built the mic and tested it, but haven't had a chance to record with it. Sharing some pics of the build in case they're useful (especially this is with the T6.5 transformer which has different wiring than the one @purr1n used).







Here's the high impedance connection:



I opted for the metallic blue body:


Tested internally and for hum. I'll post impression once I record something.

 

Going to need you to do something crazy, Marv, and if you want me to send you a second identical capsule to do this to instead so you don't mess up the one you like, that's OK. I can ship it this week. I need you to use a small needle to poke a small hole in the back diaphragm (outside the gold, around the edge) and measure the mic again...I have a sneaking suspicion they did not add the specified vents to this capsule and it's sensitive to barometric pressure. I need to see the difference between the capsule with and without the hole, so the measurements need to be made back to back without moving anything.

 

What are your impressions on sound check? I think I know what I'm seeing and what should be different, but I want to know what you think.

 

Gravedigging this thread because I was inspired by @purr1n 's initial post and finally got around to completing the build. I wanted a transformer coupled large diaphragm condenser with switchable polar patterns and micparts does not currently offer one. I found a U-87i clone kit from Mic&Mod, which I have since learned is a rip-off of the boards designed by a GroupDIY member, I feel bad about it but the purchase was already made. I got the kit without the capsule or transformer and ordered an AMI T-13 and one of the new versions of @Soliloqueen 's K87 capsules. The build was pretty straightforward and sounds great, it pairs well with my darker Beyerdynamic m160. I didn't take many pictures of the build process, but here are a few.

Mostly finished boards, capsule, chassis, mess of tools and junk:


Finished audio board:


Finished power supply board:


Capsule mounted and everything wired up:


Finished mic with counterfeit Neumann badge(I liked the red background logo better than purple):