No, I am not collecting WW II terror weapons. I have somehow acquired a few ribbon microphones made by Electro-Voice and I've never had them all together in the same place until today. I thought I had one of their first and smallest (V-1) and a couple of V-2s, but it turns out I have three different models.
At least one of the later examples has been crudely "repaired" by bolting in a dynamic element, which has not aged gracefully. Electro-Voice did this after they stopped making new ribbon microphones; building and assembling the transducer is finicky, specialized work and once those skills are gone, you can't count of getting a good result even if you kept a stock of spare parts. The good news is that while E-V's ribbon "motors" are held in somewhat mixed regard, there are at least four different drop-in replacements, (one kit and three fully assembled), all of which sell for far less than the price of a classic ribbon microphone. Are they any good? I don't know, but the creators haven't been pilloried in print yet, which in the picky world of pro and semi-pro audio is a very good sign. Certainly even an average-sounding replacement is better than a paperweight.
Also, it looks like I'm going to need a V-4 to have a good start on completing the set, and there appear to be a couple different V-2 and V-3 versions....
At this point, I am well on the way to equipping the studios of a radio station in about 1937.
At one point I was working on a research project with a European loudspeaker manufacturer who had a model with a ribbon tweeter that was favored as a main control-room speaker by several countries' state-run broadcasters.
ReplyDeleteWe got an impromptu tour of the production floor when passing between conference room and demo room, and there was much jollity around one station. As the banter and explanation on the floor was not in English, I may have this wrong, but what I understood was this: They had a long-time employee who was particularly good at forming and placing the ribbons, so he tended to do all of them. But they had a big order, and this fellow was on holiday abroad, so they'd just had each person working that day give it a try with the jigs and materials, and were in the process of doing a QC check on each persons output.
All of the new ribbon motors failed QC. I later heard that when vacation-guy retired, they discontinued that speaker model.
Electro Voice was in Dolly Parton’s (and mine) hometown of Sevierville, Tennessee. They were across the street from Tenn Tech, builders of ham radios (where my mother worked). Electro Voice once gave Dolly a microphone with a jewel encrusted butterfly (her logo). Both companies closed in the 90s sadly.
ReplyDeleteE-V moved around. It still exists and they still make mics, but they're part of the Bosch conglomerate these days. HQ seems to be in Lincoln, NB and last time I checked, tend to do warranty replacement more than repairs. (Mics are fiddly, tricky gadgets and if you make them by the thousands, simpler and more cost-effective to replace than repair.)
ReplyDeleteTen-Tec and E-V are related, by way of RME. In the 60s (or late 50s), Electrovoice bought Radio Manufacturing Engineers (originally of Peoria, IL), which built and sold ham gear, especially receivers. This lasted a while, but it wasn't part of their core business and eventually dwindled. About the time they moved to Sevierville, a couple of retired E-V engineers formed a new venture, which IIRC, was originally in a building not too far from the EV facility: Ten-Tec! There's a pretty clear throughline from RME to Ten-Tech.
Ten-Tec was kind of still around, last I knew, but much, much smaller. The original owners and staff are long gone. I liked their stuff -- my newer ham gear and kit-built shortwave receiver are all Ten-Tec.
Rebuilding EV mics came up in a discussion last week with a radio station group I work with. According to the group's regional engineer, Bosch has moved mic rebuilding to a third-party outfit out east. I have sent RE20's to Lincoln in the past, but I've sent far more Telex intercom panels to the building on Cornhusker Highway.
ReplyDeleteA local ham passed away last year, and left behind a collection of mics. There were a lot of ham-shack mics of old, but also RCA 44's and 77's. I may have to revisit the collection to look for any small EV ribbon mics.
Grich, as I describe in the linked post at "Retrotechnologist," AEA rebuilds these mics, and most ribbon types. They're a good outfit. There are a handful of workers rebuilding ribbon microphones under various company names and I hear good things about all of them. It appears to be one of those skills at which you're either very good, or you fail quickly.
ReplyDeleteElectro Voice and Tenn Tech were across the street from each other.
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