[Nate Najar]

a friend of mine brings over her super 55 that stopped working, asking me to fix it. it's a current model with a beta 58 element in a 55 style birdcage. no switch. this one he

http://www.shure.com/americas/produc...cal-microphone

it has a coiled "spring" that runs from the transformer through the swivel joint and down to the xlr connector. The spring connects to a tab on the connector. that jumpers to pin 1. there are a black and yellow wire that travel in the middle hollow part of the spring and connect to pins 2 and 3 respectively. When she gave me the mic and I plugged it in, it just hummed and buzzed with no "transducing." I opened the face and nothing was wrong so I went to the connector. The yellow pin 2 had disconnected and the pin 1 jumper to the ground tab was disconnected. If I touched pin 1 to the metal case the mic performed properly. in my yanking and screwing around, pin 2 black also disconnected, so the only thing connected is the spring to the tab.

It's a simple repair: feed the black and yellow wires back down to the connector and solder them and then re-jumper the ground to pin 1. the problem is that it's on this stupid spring (which as I said, is the ground). I can't for the life of me figure out how to get it all out to where I can work on it. The black and yellow wires are just long enough to reach the connector and then a small bit. I though about clamping the mic to the desk and then putting the connector in a vice, but that puts the whole thing under tension, until the spring snaps or disconnects and then I'm done.

Anyone have any ideas on how to access it? I almost want to tell her to just send it to shure since I imagine they have something in the shop they can just put it on for assembly and testing, but it's technically such a simple repair I'd like to fix it for her if i can....

thanks,

N