Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[J.J. Blair]

While we are on the topic of Gefell, I'll say that I do think they make some of the best capsules around.  However, as far as the UM92.1 goes, I found it to be a bit dark from the RF filtration they have done.

[Barry Hufker]

JJ, You should do Oliver's mod on the UM92.1S.  I did -- and it's a whole new mic.  MUCH better than it was.

Gefell is OK, but it seems to me there is always this rise from the midrange to about 7K.  To me all that does is aggravate sibilance.  I *can't* stand that sound.  And I seem to hear if often in their stuff.

Barry

[Schallfeldnebel]

Oliver,

You reminded us in a PSW thread that none of the Chinese or Russion make tubes can compete in quality with the selected Telefunken tubes? Also you reminded us to the fact that whenever there would be one serious manufacturer willing to produce a tube of quality, he might never succeed to do so, since many of the raw metalmixtures needed, are simply not available in the right form anymore, since other industries do not need them anymore. When the VF14 can not be made anymore, a U47 can never be made anymore, period. Let's record again, and make beautiful recordings. It is not the equipment, but the engineer and producer.

Erik


Barry,

Schallfeld is German for Soundfield, and a Feldwebel is something like sergeant. I combined the two, because I found it funny.

Erik Sikkema

[Barry Hufker]

Erik,

Thanks for the explanation.  I too think it's funny.

And feel free to give yourself a promotion.  Sergeant is too low a rank for you!

Best,
Barry

[Oliver Archut]

Hello Eric,

in my original question, can Neumann reissue... I already pointed out maybe not the U47, but for certain the M49/50 and U67/M269 as tube mics. The KM series is possible as well. The U47 would be possible if the is a financial back bone to overcome all the difficulties of the VF14 design, custom metal, etc.

I agree that there is no bad mic, there is only a wrong application, and that a good engineer can make even a inferior mic sound good. But aside the use for acoustical unchallenging situations, let say as an speakermic like the one you can currently find on David Letterman's desk, the M147 has no use and flair to a good working U47. Not even a basic relation, and believe me I bought a M149, a M147 after they were introduced but none of the mics came ever as close than the vintage counterparts, nor the sparkle that Neumann mics were famous for.
Please do not get me wrong, I am a big Neumann and Sennheiser fan.

I recently talked with Mr. Vogt the last living member of the M49/50 design team (just as an side note Neumann DID NOT develop it), there would be a possibility making the MCS2 or even the AC701 in a small hand made production version. Just to give you an idea, the first 15000 AC701 were handmade, and several of the people that made the last AC701 in 1978/79 are still around.
It is not the problem that it can not be done, the problem is they do not want to do it. Why? My speculation is that they don't know how!

The U67 could be done quite easy, without any effort, there are sufficient amounts of EF86 tubes on the market, there are several kilos of the original transformer lamination available...
The last time they issued the U67 was done with NOS parts, but that was nearly 10 years ago.

Over the next few year something will happened, there are several great mic manufacture today, none hit it like the historic ones, but if Neumann will not do it, somebody will step up to the plate and hit a homerun!

By the way, Gefell is one of the two manufactures that make incredible capsules, but do not compare the UM92 to a U47 or M49 due to so may differences in mechanical and electronic design.  
If you get rid of the choking components, the UM92 is in the same battle class than the other M7 based mics, like M49 and U47...

Will coment on J.J. coment later...

[Schallfeldnebel]

Oliver,

Thanks for your explanation. Maybe the biggest miscalculation in the M147 and M149 designs is the lack of the output  transformer. Anyway I try to make a living from recording, and as I already wrote earlier, for me any microphone above a $1,500 I cannot afford anymore.  

/E


Barry,

Maybe I will be promoted, but ranks in the Audio Dept. go very slow. Maybe one day I will be Direktschallfeldwebel.    

Erik Sikkema

[J.J. Blair]

Barry, I don't own a UM92.1.  But if you remember in my article, I mentioned  that one might want to do that mod.

[Martin Kantola]

Schallfeldwebel wrote on Tue, 18 October 2005 23:13

Anyway I try to make a living from recording, and as I already wrote earlier, for me any microphone above a $1,500 I cannot afford anymore.

Since this forum is about high-end microphones I'd like to say that to me high-end (among many other things) could be a piece of equipment where the performance is not limited by the cost issue too much. To put it another way, it should be OK that really good mikes are quite expensive. Besides, they are life-time investments if you take good care of them.

We can't ask for even better mikes if we don't want to pay for them (in case some-one from Neumann is reading this).

When I first started out as a sound engineer, I borrowed money to buy seven good condenser microphones, must have been around 8000 euros at the time, which was an enormous amount for me...

There have been some really tough times financially since, but I never regretted the investment, might have been the best one I ever did. Why? Because those microphones enabled me to make (technically) high quality recordings from the start and most importantly, helped me develop my own hearing. Things that have been the foundation of my "making a living from recording."

Erik, noticed you use DPA's too. Now those are not cheap in pairs...

Martin

 

[maxdimario]

Quote:

Certainly not to start a discussion of religion here, I am only citing this as an example of a collector: the founder of Scientology, the late L. Ron Hubbard,

Well, thinking about it, the rich collectors could do us all a favour and buy enough of the super-microphones to cover tooling and start-up costs.

Anything which is of the highest quality made is going to have admirers and buyers, especially nowadays.

[lord]

If any company (even Neumann) goes to an investor looking for dough to build new vacuum tubes, I have to imagine that they are made to feel very silly.

But the global market for tube microphones seems to be growing dramatically (albeit sad derivitive low-end models). If the trend continues, hopefully even the suits can be convinced.

[Oliver Archut]

As for J.J. hint.

During the time most of the classic Neumann's were build and distributed, the entire design, manufacturing as well as outlet/sale was different compared to the current high volume based Sennheiser distribution.

All classic Neumann mics were either designed entirely or in Neumann cooperation by german government agencies like the IRT, large industrial companies like Siemens and AEG-Telefunken, and in most cases the design cost were fully covered by german tax payers.
So in cases like the U47, M49/50 and the KM5x series, Neumann did not need to roll the design cost in sales price, also german government contracts for broadcast and other application insured large (in the thousands) numbers otherwise not obtainable with such a high price microphone.
Additional sales to private studios were only secondary or icing on the cake.

With Neumann being located in Berlin, the stronghold of the western free world, Neumann received high amounts of tax breaks, countries like the US gave special custom tariffs, to accommodate Berlin based manufactures.
(Very similar to what the state department still does today for companies located in the former Soviet Union to promote democracy; Skipper mentioned that Blue products are nearly free of custom).

After getting some hints from several Sennheiser officers, the price point policy in the Sennheiser distribution would not allow or better leave room to build extravagant designs like the M49/50, U67, etc.
Please keep in mind all of Sennheisers circuit boards are build by robots (as shown in their nice Neumann book) and they would have a hard time to assemble lets say an M49, a marvel of german electronic craftsmanship.
Also the current service set up doesn't work with a high maintenance mic like a classic tube designs. Just to give an idea, a M147 with a bad tube receives an entire new PCB with amplifier if send to Sennheiser, approx. one hour of work with final test, etc.
Just to change a tube on an M49 requires nearly 3 hours to install and than the test, adjusting, etc.

I am still hoping that Neumann will do a step backwards and cultivate their historic products... There are several other high volume companies that still do it....

[Barry Hufker]

Is it:
1) possible the board of directors at Neumann could buy the company from Sennheiser?
2) possible that Gefell could buy Neumann from Sennheiser?
3) would it be beneficial for Gefell and Neumann to get back together?
4) would they even want to?

It seems to me Gefell is the place that could nurture Neumann's Classics.  Both would finally be the Neumann company for real!

Barry

[danickstr]

What is so hard about mixing up a batch of metal alloy???  Sound like a job for technical lab, and voila...magic metal is back.

[sdelsolray]

Hasn't Gefell recently done this (more or less) with the limited edition UM75?

Stephen Boyke

[maxdimario]

Quote:

design cost were fully covered by german tax payers.

YES!

there are some incredibly built and engineered discrete audio mixers well into the 80's built for broadcast purposes with german tax money that have unbelievable quality.

vintage neves are almost budget mixers in comparison.