Some replies to other questions (in no particular order).
The wood (beech) - this was chosen for fine tolerances of machining, warp stress, acoustic 'deadness' (in resonance terms) and basic mass.
It is made in several pieces for the simple reason that making the piece from a large section of wood would be quite uneconomical. Possibly, this sectional arrangement could affect a reduction in transmission of resonance of the wood itself but at normal SPLs, self resonance of the microphone is as insignificant as in any other microphone.
There is little parallel with woods as applied to musical instruments.
The diaphragm itself is moving coil for several reasons.
Firstly, the operating principle suits horn-loading.
Secondly, the operating principle & response provides ideal match for the acoustic horn.
Thirdly and perhaps most significantly, this is the most simple circuit in electronic terms (ie. coil & transformer), so there is nowhere for electrical time-domain distortion - ie. no gain stage or other electronics which can produce time-domain distortion in the circuit.
(This does preclude optimal microphone pre-amp input impedance for electrical damping - somewhere around 1-2k ohm is fine).
There is one final aspect to the design & implementation which offers interesting validation of the concept:
The microphone is designed to be post-equalised.
This means that using a simple equalisation 'curve' the mic is brought to 'flat'.
This is self-validating in that the first principle of design was this:
If time-domain is captured cleanly, the frequency domain can be brought to 'flat' with equalisation - and that the equalisation will be utterly 'transparent'.
This is the single most significant concept regarding time-domain performance.
Those of us who have eq'd ribbon microphones will have experienced something similar but on a smaller scale.
Best regards,
Andy