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[trock]

i recently purchased a cv-28 and a cv-12. i thought both mics were really great in terms of sound, the cv-28 on acoustic guitars and the cv-12 for both my male vocals and acoustic guitar.

that being said, and looking at the pics JJ posted in the other forum of the legendary mics i found these pics of the inside of the mic on avantone's website, these are instructions to switch out the tubes (they ship you 3 of them with the mic)

and i wondered if you guys who know about build quality etc might look at these pcs and tell me whats going on in there, is it a good build qualtiy? things in there that don't look right? or to look out for if i am twisting this thing open to put a new tube in from time to time? etc, general thoughts?

http://www.avantelectronics.com/CV-12.htm

insides

http://www.avantelectronics.com/CV-12%20CHANGING%20TUBES.htm

[Galil]

Trock:

In the previous thread you saw, the problem with the solder joints was that the joints were dull (should be shiny) and there was an excessive amount of solder on the joints (should only use enough solder to allow it to flow and reinforce a mechanical joint).  When soldering, it is important to not move the joint or component until the solder sets.

The pics I saw really did not give me a chance to evaluate the quality of the CV12 workmanship.

Here is a link to a how to solder article.  The third page of the pdf has a picture of a good solder joint vs a bad solder joint.

http://maslab.lcs.mit.edu/2004/lectures/solderingTutorial.pd f

If you put "good solder joint" into a search engine, you will come up with a ton of material on this.  

Peace,

Galil

[seedyunderbelly.com]

Is this another apex 460 /telefenken usa - esque mic?
chinese

[craigmorris74]

I don't know about build quality, but there are two things to check for in terms of component quality, C4 and C8.  These two capacitors are in the signal path and probably have the greatest effect on the sound among the passive components on the PCB.  C4 is apparently between the two boards, so I can't tell what is used there.  In the Apex 460, a similar mic, it is a ceramic cap.  In high end mic circuits, this is usually some type of film capacitor.  I can't tell where C8 is, but it couples the tube to the transformer and will also have a big effect on sound quality.  In the Apex 460, it was an electrolytic.  In high end mics it is again, a film cap.  

Those are a couple of components that if they are of poor quality, can be cheaply upraded to give a noticible improvement in performance.

[tom eaton]

Where did you find the schematic?

t

[trock]

thanks guys, i am trying to learn more about the insides of mics and while i can't afford the high end stuff i still like to read klaus's stuff and learn as much as possible

and yes these are chinese mic's and very inexpensive

the cv-28 is 400 bucks and the cv-12 is 500

[craigmorris74]

The layout of the PCB's look almost exactly like the Apex 460.  The schematics are available on the Apex site.  There are several mics with this same circuit.

[ricknroll]

When you pay a few hundred bucks for a Chinese made mic, I don't think it's reasonable to expect premium components inside.  But with a mic that costs almost $10,000 and uses a slogan such as "Built to a standard, not a price," you would expect the mic to be constructed with top shelf parts.

Rick

[craigmorris74]

The difference in using decent capacitors in the signal path instead of ceramics and low end electrolytics would be less than $10.  We're not talking capsules or transformers here.  

These mics are a few hundred more expensive than the Apex and Nady models, so you would expect some difference in component quality.

[trock]

i have one, well sort of expensive mic, a peluso 22 251, that has served me well and i used it for everything. but in the end i was never real happy with it on acoustic guitar in some instances (heavy pic strumming) and while nice on my male rock vocals it was better on the woman i used for BG vocals

so i bought some other mics. i though of saving up for something like a wunder that i had heard clips of and loved, i think it was a U47 sort of clone, and it sounded great

bu i wanted to try out a bunch of mics and see the differences. so i researched some lower end ones that got good reviews and bought a fat head, the cv-28 and the cv-12 and also a blue blueberry. i was very happy with all of them and they all sound very different. and in the end i would have been hard prseed to shell out 2500 or more for one mic when these certainly sounded good to me.

that being said i did want to start learning about the insides so thats kinda where this all came from. someday i would like to have one really great mic, and of all the clips i have heard of different mics i like the sound of the wunder the best or a U47 if thats what it is truly emulating

till then i have these