A year ago I purchased a Rode K2. The day it arrived, I fired it up and was
dissapointed with it. It was very dull and quiet from the address side. In
figure-8 mode, it was *much* brighter and hotter from the back of the mic.
There was also a constant rumble that made it unuseable.

After contacting Rode, I was told to "bake" the mic for 10 minutes in an
oven at 100 degrees celcius to rule out a moisture problem. After 10 mins,
the mic did indeed seem to sound better. Soon after, I packed all my mics
up with silica, and stored them in a chest fitted with a closet heater to
keep them nice and dry while I built my home studio.

Recently the home studio was completed, so out came all my mics.
Immediately the Rode proved to have the same problems as before. So I
contacted Rode again, and was told to send it on to the local agents, which
I did. The local agent decided the problem was with the tube and replaced
it with a new one from Australia. The mic ran out of warrantee a couple of
weeks after I sent it for repair and I was asked to pay for the new tube,
etc, which I did.

Several weeks later, I have received the mic back. I'm finding consistantly
that I have to have the mic on for an hour to an hour and a half for it to
be stable enough to use, otherwise the rumble and other noises are just too
loud. It is now brighter and louder from the front, but still nothing like
as loud as the rear diaphragm when in figure-8. The mic has the highest
self-noise of any condenser mic I own (this includes a couple of nasty
chinese mics). Another problem is that any slight movement of the mic
generates an electronic sounding buzz.

I'm just totally un-impressed with this mic. With the power supply, it's
heavy and expensive to ship, and to be honest, after a year, I'm sick of the
hassle. I'd sell it, but could not do so without feeling guilty for
slipping someone a dud. I honestly feel like taking a hammer to it.
Needless to say, I don't see any more Rode mics in my future.

Some news on this case...

After a frustrating couple of days trying to get my K2 to perform since it's
"repair", I phoned Rode directly. The guy I spoke with was *very* concerned
and *very* helpful. To save me shipping they are sending me out a new
circuit board and capsual. He assured me that there would be no charge for
the parts, even though my mic ran out of warrantee this month.

I'll let you know how it goes, but I'm feeling much better about things.
I'll send you a private email with the contact details of the guy at Rode
that I'm dealing with - hopefully we will both get positive outcomes.

NS.

wrote in message
oups.com...
I sympathize with your plight. I, too, have a very sick Rode K2 mic
and will never buy another Rode mic again, although my NT3s and NT5s
are holding up OK...for now.

The Rode K2 mic is a very hyped up piece of junk that the reviewers
seemed to go bonkers over, so I bought one. Every review was wrong. The
mic has a thin, harsh sound when it worked. And don't blame the
preamp...it's a Grace Design 101. Then the K2 started going bad, so I
replaced the tube to no avail. Now that mine is totally sick, as yours
is, it is completely unusable. Mine crackles and makes a lot of noise.
We both coughed up a lot of loot for a paper weight.

I sent an email to Rode's service center a couple months ago. They told
me to send it to their lab in California. It'll cost me a lot of cash
to ship the big heavy parcel, and I'm only 400 miles away. So I sent
them another email four days ago asking for their hourly rate. No
response.

So, has anybody on this board had their out-of-warranty Rode mic
serviced in their lab? If so, do they charge by the hour and how much?
Did they do a good job?

I figure if I can get this mic reliably fixed and working, I should be
able to sell it and buy a Shure KSM 27, which isn't an expensive mic.
In other words, because the K2 is junk, it doesn't have much resale
value, and I'd be honest about the problems. If it's too expensive to
fix, then really it would be totally inappropriate to try to sell it
except for parts or target practice for the homeboyz. A 9mm handgun
should take care of it.

Neon Sound wrote:
A year ago I purchased a Rode K2. The day it arrived, I fired it up and
was
dissapointed with it.

On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 09:51:06 -0400, Neon Sound wrote
(in article ):

A year ago I purchased a Rode K2. The day it arrived, I fired it up and was
dissapointed with it. It was very dull and quiet from the address side. In
figure-8 mode, it was *much* brighter and hotter from the back of the mic.
There was also a constant rumble that made it unuseable.

After contacting Rode, I was told to "bake" the mic for 10 minutes in an
oven at 100 degrees celcius to rule out a moisture problem. After 10 mins,
the mic did indeed seem to sound better. Soon after, I packed all my mics
up with silica, and stored them in a chest fitted with a closet heater to
keep them nice and dry while I built my home studio.

Recently the home studio was completed, so out came all my mics.
Immediately the Rode proved to have the same problems as before. So I
contacted Rode again, and was told to send it on to the local agents, which
I did. The local agent decided the problem was with the tube and replaced
it with a new one from Australia. The mic ran out of warrantee a couple of
weeks after I sent it for repair and I was asked to pay for the new tube,
etc, which I did.

Several weeks later, I have received the mic back. I'm finding consistantly
that I have to have the mic on for an hour to an hour and a half for it to
be stable enough to use, otherwise the rumble and other noises are just too
loud. It is now brighter and louder from the front, but still nothing like
as loud as the rear diaphragm when in figure-8. The mic has the highest
self-noise of any condenser mic I own (this includes a couple of nasty
chinese mics). Another problem is that any slight movement of the mic
generates an electronic sounding buzz.

I'm just totally un-impressed with this mic. With the power supply, it's
heavy and expensive to ship, and to be honest, after a year, I'm sick of the
hassle. I'd sell it, but could not do so without feeling guilty for
slipping someone a dud. I honestly feel like taking a hammer to it.
Needless to say, I don't see any more Rode mics in my future.



Who at Rode told you to bake the mic? Nevermind. I think you just got a bum
mic. It happens.

As to the front/back thing. You're not using your own voice and headphones to
determine this are you? The backside of a figure of eight ALWAYS sounds
wonky with headphones on if you're speaking because the back diaphragm is
reversed polarity.

Ty Ford



-- Ty Ford's equipment reviews, audio samples, rates and other audiocentric
stuff are at www.tyford.com

On Sun, 28 Aug 2005 19:19:51 -0400, Neon Sound wrote
(in article ):

Some news on this case...

After a frustrating couple of days trying to get my K2 to perform since it's
"repair", I phoned Rode directly. The guy I spoke with was *very* concerned
and *very* helpful. To save me shipping they are sending me out a new
circuit board and capsual. He assured me that there would be no charge for
the parts, even though my mic ran out of warrantee this month.

I'll let you know how it goes, but I'm feeling much better about things.
I'll send you a private email with the contact details of the guy at Rode
that I'm dealing with - hopefully we will both get positive outcomes.

NS.


It has been my experience that they DO take care of their customers.

Ty Ford





-- Ty Ford's equipment reviews, audio samples, rates and other audiocentric
stuff are at www.tyford.com

The oven thing is a little much, since I wouldn't trust my oven to be
within 75 degrees of what the knob says. My opinion is that a better
starting point for seeing if condensation has crept in is to hang it
over a light bulb for an hour.

"Ty Ford" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 09:51:06 -0400, Neon Sound wrote
(in article ):


Who at Rode told you to bake the mic? Nevermind. I think you just got a
bum
mic. It happens.

As to the front/back thing. You're not using your own voice and headphones
to
determine this are you? The backside of a figure of eight ALWAYS sounds
wonky with headphones on if you're speaking because the back diaphragm is
reversed polarity.

Ty Ford

Yes, I'm well aware of the phase difference between the front and rear of a
dual diaphragm mic. That's why I record when testing the mic and listen to
the playback before coming to a conclusion. Believe me when I tell you that
the rear diaphragm is *much* hotter that the front, and much brighter too.

NS

Neon Sound wrote:
"Ty Ford" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 09:51:06 -0400, Neon Sound wrote
(in article ):


Who at Rode told you to bake the mic? Nevermind. I think you just got a
bum
mic. It happens.

As to the front/back thing. You're not using your own voice and headphones
to
determine this are you? The backside of a figure of eight ALWAYS sounds
wonky with headphones on if you're speaking because the back diaphragm is
reversed polarity.


Yes, I'm well aware of the phase difference between the front and rear of a
dual diaphragm mic. That's why I record when testing the mic and listen to
the playback before coming to a conclusion. Believe me when I tell you that
the rear diaphragm is *much* hotter that the front, and much brighter too.

I'll buy that it's brighter... but if it's much hotter, something is broken
and the mike isn't really a figure-8 at all but a sort of hypercardioid.
This could be the result of a damaged capsule or pattern control switch.
Knowing the Rode construction, I would suspect a diaphragm tensioning issue.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...

I'll buy that it's brighter... but if it's much hotter, something is
broken
and the mike isn't really a figure-8 at all but a sort of hypercardioid.
This could be the result of a damaged capsule or pattern control switch.
Knowing the Rode construction, I would suspect a diaphragm tensioning
issue.
--scott

I have a strong suspicion that it's a diaphragm issue. The K2 doesn't have
a pattern control switch per se, but a continuously variable pattern pot on
the power supply unit, which goes from omni, to cardioid, to figure-8 as you
rotate the pot from left to right.

In cardioid mode the mic has low output and high noise. In figure-8 mode,
the front of the mic is *way* too quiet, the back sounds fine.

I'll let you know how it goes once I receive the new circuitboard and
capsual that Rode have promised me.

N.S.

Neon Sound wrote:

I have a strong suspicion that it's a diaphragm issue. The K2 doesn't have
a pattern control switch per se, but a continuously variable pattern pot on
the power supply unit, which goes from omni, to cardioid, to figure-8 as you
rotate the pot from left to right.

In cardioid mode the mic has low output and high noise. In figure-8 mode,
the front of the mic is *way* too quiet, the back sounds fine.

That could still be an electronics issue. Basically the signal off of
each of the diaphragms is amplified seperately and if one of those
amplifiers is wonky, you'll get something like this as well.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."