Just built myself a U87

[normen]

Hey,

I recently found the cool microphone kits from http://microphone-parts.com ( http://microphone-parts.co.uk for the EU ) and ordered a S87 kit, which is a copy of the Neumann U87 capsule. Today it arrived and... Duh, one membrane looked like this:



I wrote them an email and they were very friendly and although they don't have any more capsules in stock right now they'll send me a new one as soon as they do. It looks like this one was handled a bit rough in transit.

Nevertheless, in cardioid mode only one of the membranes is actually active anyway so I proceeded to build the microphone and tested it and lo and behold, its actually a great little microphone, certainly better than anything else I could get for the 320€ it cost me!



I'll be shooting it out against a real U87 some time soon but heres a short test with speech (careful, around 12s I test the plosives) - no processing or low cut.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/736 ... senUsi.mp3

So all in all, if you're somewhat adept with the soldering iron I can really recommend these - if just for the fun of actually building a microphone yourself

[selig]

Wow, looks like decent quality parts too - was probably fun to build. Must really consider breaking out the old soldering iron myself!
BTW, there's two of the same Picts showing up for me - seem to be missing the bad membrane pic?


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[MarkTarlton]

I have been thinking about the u47 kit

keep us posted normen!

[normen]

Wow, looks like decent quality parts too - was probably fun to build. Must really consider breaking out the old soldering iron myself!
BTW, there's two of the same Picts showing up for me - seem to be missing the bad membrane pic?


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Fixed that. Yeah, the PCBs are stellar, take solder like a boss. The parts they package are all quality brands, all resistors are metal film, the mic is very quiet. You can actually set the polarizing voltage yourself so you can balance between noise floor and max SPL as needed. The capsules seem very decent as well judging from the "good" side The housing is good too, no machining leftovers or anything, it is lighter than a real U87 however so I guess the housing resonance will be the main thing setting the sound apart from the real deal.

[normen]

Heres some more pics from the build process:

[Olivier]

Awesome ! I've been looking for a project to solder other then another eurorack item. Didn't think about building a mic

[MarkTarlton]

http://microphone-parts.com/pages/mxl-990-mods

there is a nice video about the mxl 990 mod...I am thinking this is the one I am going to build

thanks for posting this and reminding me normen

[gak]

Impressive.

[normen]

http://microphone-parts.com/pages/mxl-990-mods

there is a nice video about the mxl 990 mod...I am thinking this is the one I am going to build

thanks for posting this and reminding me normen

Hmm, since I'll still have this capsule when the new one arrives I might try just replacing the capsule in a mxl990 with this one.. I mean for 50€ what can go wrong? The capsule might be a bit bright with the MXL circuitry but its worth a try..