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[ratite]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvHeabo1bHc

Any thoughts on this about his technique/approach?

Also found this one.What is it with Australians and cleaning mics?
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhZmljRw18I&feature=relat ed

[compasspnt]

Yikes!

Not sure which of those videos scares me the most.

By the way, if you want to learn to hook up a U87, there's a video for that too...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkvjVHrAIkg&NR=1

[Klaus Heyne]

In the cleaning video: did you notice that the capsule was mounted backwards on the mount?

[compasspnt]

I like the heartwarming applause.

[Martin Kantola]

Wow, those are serious wrinkles, looks like a Chinese capsule...

Martin

[J.J. Blair]

The wrinkles appear after he brushes the thing.  He destroyed the capsule tension.

[antoniosolo]

Thank you for sharing... pink-slipper....

[ratite]

J.J. Blair wrote on Fri, 14 May 2010 01:48

The wrinkles appear after he brushes the thing.  He destroyed the capsule tension.

That's what impressed me about the video.This man drowns and destroys capsules for a living and then puts videos of it on youtube!Truly impressive.

[arconaut]

I'm not defending this, but you can see some wrinkles in the diaphragm before he cleans it, around the 2:50 mark.

I guess the second guy doesn't know about "Microphome."
http://www.microphome.com/  

[maarvold]

The wrinkles at 2:50 are actually on the pad switch/low rolloff switch side... if you look carefully, you can see them again at 7:48-7:53.  

[Mike Cleaver]

Man, there are some things smart people never do, such as cut their own hair or perform brain surgery on themselves.
Some jobs are best left to professionals.

[Martin Kantola]

Klaus Heyne wrote on Thu, 13 May 2010 20:28

1. The capsule is not a Chinese knock-off, but a genuine K870 made in 2006.

Only seen Chinese capsules with wrinkles like that, wasn't saying it IS one. Maybe your eyes (or screen resolution) are better than mine but it sure looks like wrinkles both before and after the work... (at about 5:31 you can see the diaphragm ripple when he touches it)

Martin

[Klaus Heyne]

Martin Kantola wrote on Thu, 13 May 2010 14:16

(...) Maybe your eyes (or screen resolution) are better than mine but it sure looks like wrinkles both before and after the work... (at about 5:31 you can see the diaphragm ripple when he touches it)

Martin, you are right. I did not look at the video carefully at first.

I have removed my erroneous statement, and now speculate further:

Quote:

I'm not defending this, but you can see some wrinkles in the diaphragm before he cleans it, around the 2:50 mark.

I too believe he did not create the wrinkles just by cleaning with his brush (which is pretty hard to do, even with a coarser brush than he used) but the substantial loss of tention was probably created when someone loosened the diaphragm screws, which caused an instant collapse of pre-tension, as diaphragms on Neumann LD capsules are not glued to the diaphragm rings.

Tension is irreversibly lost on these capsules as soon as more than a few mounting screws are loosened.

[MDM,]

two personal thoughts regarding this video:

first, I had to deal with a few of those 'black-period' u-87's in Rome and one really curious thing about them (to me) was that sometimes the mics would 'lose it' and become dull and unfocused, even if they had very low hours, like the one my musician friend had which was used for a few demos.

often the back side was duller than the front (I've mentioned this before.. I don't know if it was pure chance or maybe something to do with sending the duds to Italy.. I AM JUST GUESSING).

if the paint on the screws is still intact, this might mean that there MAY have been a tendency for SOME capsules to lose the grip, for some reason..

I wonder if those rings could shrink or deform or change in some way over the years.


Second, the brush I saw mentioned by Neumann as suitable for capsule cleaning with demineralized water I seem to remember was of the camel-hair variety.

[Klaus Heyne]

In almost thirty years of looking at original Neumann capsules on a regular basis I have not seen a single diaphragm side ever having lost most or all of its tension, as seen on the video, without external manipulation or adverse environmental influences.

Neumann has got that part  of capsule making down like no other company.

I am also not sure what you mean with "black-period U87s". The mic in the video is a late model U87Ai, made either in 2006 or early 2007. Can you elaborate?