[Paul Dorman]

On 12/29/2020 6:58 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
Paul Dorman wrote:

It's not hard to make a surface very flat. You'll
have to Bull-S*** better than that!

Again, I suggest you try it.

It's easy to make an omni capsule that does pretty well. It's hard to
make a cardioid capsule that does pretty well. It is damn hard to make
a figure-8 capsule that does pretty well.

I have been trying it. I can only tell you what I have experienced.

Comments from Richard Wielgosz:

"If you're buying good parts like a Peluso capsule and transformer, the
parts come out to about $575. It's not magic, the rest of the components
are just common electronics parts. Caps, resistors, etc.... Neumann
builds lovely mic bodies machined to serious standards, so using a less
expensive body saves money here. The commonly used body is about $150 of
the aforementioned price. Is it as nice as the Neumann? No. Does it need
to be? No. The 150 one I've seen is plenty substantial. The rest is just
how good the clone of the actual circuit is. And the circuit boards
being used here are EXACT clones of a particular vintage U87 circuit. I
think he cloned a circuit from a 1970s U87.

Again, I suggest you try one of these microphones. Put it in figure-8
and put it in front of a singer with a guitar and see if you can null
the guitar out completely. Put it in a room, set it to omni, then see
how far from the source you can pull it before things fall apart. The
differences between microphones very quickly become evident.

Mr. Weilgosz is pretty much correct that the capsule is the hard part,
but I suggest that most of the companies selling Feilo-style capsules are
not saying anything comparable to a K87. But try it yourself in your
room and see for yourself.

Some of the companies making Feilo-style capsules have managed decent
nulls, but they are not any of the companies you have mentioned so far,
and they manage it mostly through extreme manual skill and high fall-outs.
--scott

I'm sure with modern lathes and manufacturing techniques,
the capsules are pretty much the same these days. They
aren't that complicated, and Mr. Weilgosz seems to agree.

Again, I'd like to see two blind tests:

1) 5 mics. 4 real U87s, and 1 U87 Clone.
2) 5 mics. 4 Clones, and 1 Real U87.

I'm willing to bet very, very few people could correctly pick
out the 1 Clone, and the 1 Real, in two blind audio tests.