Okay...you guys are pack of cards! Just so you know, this mic is #101 and done up in milled anodized Black aluminum with the hanger being a U shaped affair with surgical rubber tubing as the shock absorber. From what I gather, they used some sort of line to hang the mount from a boom. The power supply connector is mounted onto the hanger thingy McWidget. Man, those guys were rather anal or ingenious or both. I dunno, but the mic is cool and looks very much like a 47 fet with a personality complex. Internally it is very well built and engineered unlike some of the delicate German/Austrian vintage types that I have repaired. The 1962 SM2 that I just worked on was a joke but that was how it was done back in the day. Bakelite or Micarta is not a useful substrate for copper traces. The bond just ain't happenin...easy with that soldering iron Eugene. Another funny thing about the SM2...where in the flying F*** is one supposed to find 150 meg resistors these days? Thank god I have the left overs from dead Ham Radio guys from the 1950's! You can skewer me all you want about this but I am dead set on the idea that it's ALL in the Capsule, Tube, Transformer and layout...lead dress as it were. Those cracked carbon or wire wound resistors are crap. Do they impart a sonic signature on sound? You betcha, but they are a bitch to work on and are noisy after 40+ years. The caps? Eh, well its a matter of taste I suppose...the PCB's are part of the tone folks and yes, they don't make them anymore. Thank God.
Like the old Tarryton cigarette commercials...I'd rather fight than switch. My rant will no doubt leave me with a black eye but the fact is, those parts are just damned hard to find and all these decades later we find ourselves shelling out huge sums of money for a technology that is no longer supported in the manufacturing sector.
In the end, we have to substitute a part with the right value but it won't sound the same. We can tailor the sonics by changing the value of an RC network to tame down the response to our liking but it still isn't the same. Is it really worth $10,000 dollars? You be the judge. Anything man made is subject to becoming obsolete with age and thats a fact we have to live with.
Stem cells do not apply to audio.
Meanwhile, my ADK GK-67 sounds rather bitchen and I can still afford to make my car payment...amen!
I think I'll just have some fun and see what sounds good on tape and to hell with the emblem on the case.
Billy Yates