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[mikezietsman]

Good Day,

I have fairly recently come into possession of an original aluminium kk50 capsule.

I know very very little about these capsules.
What are things to be careful about when using them?
Are they prone to long term failure in anyway like the m7 or loss of tension like the ck12?
Do they deal well with say, plosives, in the same way that a k47 or k67 might or should they be kept away from vocalists?
How do they handle exposure to environmental contaminants? and is it possible to clean them if they are sensitive to build up like the k47 and k67?

Obviously I intend to handle the unit I have with great care, but there is so little information about this most rare unit and it would be good to know what I am dealing with so I don't do something dumb and damage it in my day to day use.

(I am careful with my microphones but I do not consider a vintage microphones something that I should store and use on special occasions, most of my mics are in day to day use, if a part is not up to that I would rather know before it becomes a part of my repertoire)

[klaus]

The extremely high tensioned K50 capsule ("KK" stands for the complete capsule head) does not suffer the environmental challenges of PVC diaphragm deterioration, does not suffer from arcing holes like (much lower tensioned) nickel diaphragms in SM2, KM54 and KM56, and in general is very stable over time, from my observation through the decades.

"Plosives" are not so much an issue of a condenser capsule's diaphragm construction itself, but of the architecture of the capsule surround, its positioning in the mic (axial vs. perpendicular) and from vocals that produce too much air movement too close to the capsule.

K50 are not known for the latter issue, again, because of the K50's incredibly high diaphragm tension (which is also the reason why this capsule model was never reissued: the skills to replicate tensioning an aluminum diaphragm of that thinness to that high level of diaphragm tension has been lost).