#86 Condenser Cavalcade - AKG Perception 150 / P170 / P17, Behringer BA-19A

You know me, i can't pass up a silly-good deal when i see one. That's how i ended up grabbing the other week, two AKG small-diaphragm condensers (the black P170 and P17) and a Behringer BA19A boundary-microphone. Yeah, i know, i know, but an equivalent total retail cost of ~250eu got quickly whittled down to 120eu (shipped!). 

The Perception 150 i've had for a good few years now, and i figured i'd include it here, to see if and how the insides of AKG's lower end of SDC's have evolved over the years.

#71 Shure 55SH Series II "Elvis mic" teardown & repair

The practical side of this one was performed and documented a couple months back, but since i've had this back-log to work through, the text is only getting written now. But good things come to those who wait, right? Or so i've heard...

Regardless, i couldn't not grab this deal when i saw it. A shure 55SH "Elvis mic", with allegedly low(ered) output, for 75eu shipped (considering it retails around 160-ish). Now, granted, i HAD peeked around the interwebs beforehand, and it seemed that, at least in some cases, the on/off switch could be a suspect. But on the other hand, even IF the capsule itself turned out to be a dud, i could still MacGyver another capsule in there, one way or another (possibly from a Grundig GDSM-202, but shhhhh!...). Aesthetically it was in good shape, so why not?

#64 Vocaltone D7 microphone (Shure SM57 clone) teardown & measurements

Literally last week, a local friend gave me a heads-up on a ridiculous sale that a big electronics retailer nearby was having, on some knockoff Shure microphone clones (of the SM57 and SM58, specifically) - normal price 39,90e; discounted price 10e(!!!). I grabbed three, right off the bat, with the intent of borrowing a legit SM57 and doing some measurements. But then i figured, why not make an article out of it?

But i've got big(?) plans for these, more or less. There's method to this madness, though...

#33 Superlux R102 active ribbon microphone teardown & reverse-engineering

By sheer luck / accident, the other week i refreshed my Facebook main page (or "news feed" or whatever), and the first thing i saw was an ad from one of the trading groups i'm in, about a Superlux R102 (mk1) ribbon mic for sale, for a measly 30e (~$32). The seller was in a (sort-of-nearby) town i was headed to just a few days later, so i jumped at the chance. Immaculate shape, fully functional, retails for about four times as much - why not?

#16 Cheap chinese BM700 / BM800 microphone modding / upgrade, part 2 (CK12 & K47 capsules)

<Continuation from part 1>

After quite a while, i "finally" got around to modding the other three BM800 mics i had. Just for the hell of it, i decided to make a matched triplet (to use as, say, three overheads on a big drum set).

I went with more of my modded-Schoeps boards, and matched components between them, as closely as i could (within reason, at least). Resistors were no big deal, and neither were the capacitors; one of those cheapo chinese ATMega328-based "component testers" helped with matching the JFETs and PNP transistors. No, i didn't necessarily care about the absolute values, just that they're the same (or as close as reasonably possible).

#12 Cheap chinese BM700 / BM800 microphone modding / upgrade (to say the least).

<Part 2 can be found right over here>

Last year, after hearing (or rather, after reading) about these cheapo BM700 / BM800 microphones, over on the GroupDIY forum, i decided to get a few myself. They were cheap enough (under 20 bucks a piece), and i figured they would, at the very least, make for reasonable enough donor bodies.

Some credit is due in no small part to Mr. Henry Spragens, whose microphone section on his blog served as a considerable portion of inspiration for this endeavour. Said blog is a fountain of knowledge, testing and ideas for anyone interested in condenser microphone modding or even building from scratch.

#11 sE Electronics sE X1 rebuild

It's been a good few years since this mic (sE Electronics X1) came into my possession. As many others i have, i bought this one as faulty. The main problem was, it was noisy as hell (think wind-noise, or the sound of blowing straight into a microphone).

Once i had another capsule to test this with (a temporarily removed capsule from a Shure KSM27), i figured i'd hook it up to the X1 to see whether the capsule was the source of the noise. Nope, the noise was still there. After i ruled out the (stock) capsule, i replaced it with a 100pF styroflex capacitor, for minimal hassle (and risk of damaging a capsule) during subsequent testing of the electronics.