anyone know http://microphonedeals.com/ ?

[jrp]

Hi
These guys sell their mics on ebay, prices are quite low.
Has anyone got some experiance with them?
Their ribbons look interesting to me.
Microphonedeals.com - Home

[DeadPoet]

Same old chinese reseller... The birdcage is the same as the oktava ribbon (at thomann.de €290, so a little more expensive) but the Big Mama is the same as the tBone SCT700 which sells for €159 at thomann...

(they even use the same pictures..)


Buyer beware


Herwig

[minus-sounds.com]

Originally Posted by DeadPoet

Same old chinese reseller... The birdcage is the same as the oktava ribbon (at thomann.de €290, so a little more expensive) but the Big Mama is the same as the tBone SCT700 which sells for €159 at thomann...

(they even use the same pictures..)


Buyer beware


Herwig

Hallo Herwig. Did you have any personal experience with the company?

I have a couple of Birdcages. They use the body of the Octava ML52 but the ribbon and transformer are different. I have asked for the internal grill to be removed, to open up the sound, and they did it at no extra cost. I don't know what other improvements they are making.

My other ribbons include Beyer M130, M160, M260.80, M500, Bang and Olufsen BM5 stereo (the father of the Royer SF12) and T.Bone RB100.

The Birdcage is phenomenal. It has a huge sound with balls the size of melons. Also a Lundahl would be awesome. Still it has an open sound. I don't have access to a R84 but sonically I guess it wouldn't be far.

I just show on their site that they are going to offer the "Birdcage Active".

I have also a MK319. They make it transformless with the Scott Dorsey mod (Toshiba FET). Switches are working. Again I don't know what other improvements they are making. This mic has an open sound, not harsh, but still has some character.

They use the anechoic chamber at Pearl Microphones to measure every single microphone and they supply that actual graph. They also offer a matching of pairs based on those actual, individual graphs. How many manufactures are offering that especially at these prices?

I am very impressed from all of those three mics.

But delivery over here was a mess. Still there is good communication. The first delivery of the Birdcage pair got lost, but they did recent another pair with the addition of the MK319 as a compensation (I had ordered another pair of 319s). How many manufactures are doing that?

Again the delivery of that MK319 pair got lost or something and we are in talks about sending them with a courier service this time.

Also every mic is coming with a spider mic holder that is like a Neumann copy. They are very impressive. I have at the studio pairs of M149 and TLM103 and the holders are almost identical.

As for the Big Mama I have ordered one. I don't think it has much to do with the SCT700. From the photos you can see the Big Mama PSU that offers continuous variable diagrams. The SCT700 is only cardioid. They told me that it is the same source and they do the same improvements as the Peluso 2247. Well, I don't have a Peluso to compare it to when it arrives, but a friend of mine has an original, mint, short body, prototype U47 (as Mr Gunter Wagner has concluded) which is the real deal.

I have ordered the Little Brother too, which they say is identical to the P12 and even better than Big Mama.

We will see.

P.S. I don't have any affiliation with this company.

[DeadPoet]

Hi,

I didn't know they gutted the more standard-looking mics and put in other/better circuitry. Looks promising, but allow me to be sceptical to the statement that the Little Brother will be at the same level as a Peluso P12 (in other words: a mic sounding like a mic costing 5 times as much, which is as well a mic sounding like a mic costing 10-15 times as much..)

Let us know your findings though !


Herwig

[Transducers Swe]

Hi guys!

This is my first post here.I 'm one of the guys behing microphonedeals.com. I'd like to interpolate some points below.

Originally Posted by minus-sounds.com

I have also a MK319. They make it transformless with the Scott Dorsey mod (Toshiba FET). Switches are working. Again I don't know what other improvements they are making. This mic has an open sound, not harsh, but still has some character.

The electronics has nothing to do with the Dorsey mod. We just use the same FET's in the design of our amplifier stage. Or rather, we use the Linear Systems LS170 which in this application is even more silent than the 2SK170.
In this case we tried to mimic the Oktava MK319 sound. Many people needs a mic which is not overly bright like most chinese OEM's. We managed quite well and we have customers owning Oktava MK319's that e-mailed us abiut the incredible similarities between the two.

They use the anechoic chamber at Pearl Microphones to measure every single microphone and they supply that actual graph.

We know the people at Pearl very well and they help us out in measuring and testing since we do not have our own anechoic chamber. The design of the mics though has nothing to do with Pearl. We do all customizations ourselves.

As for the Big Mama I have ordered one. I don't think it has much to do with the SCT700. From the photos you can see the Big Mama PSU that offers continuous variable diagrams. The SCT700 is only cardioid. They told me that it is the same source and they do the same improvements as the Peluso 2247. Well, I don't have a Peluso to compare it to when it arrives, but a friend of mine has an original, mint, short body, prototype U47 (as Mr Gunter Wagner has concluded) which is the real deal.

I never said we did the exact same improvments, but much of the things Peluso does, we also do. We change tubes and parts of electronics and we also select and tune capsules (for equal on/off axis response)

I have ordered the Little Brother too, which they say is identical to the P12 and even better than Big Mama.

I might have said I like it better. This is always a question of personal taste... It's not identical to the P12, but I believe we base it on the same OEM mic. I'd guess it sounds similar, but I never found any frequency diagrams on the P12.

Next week I will get a Peluso 2247 on loan. I will take it the the Pearl labs for measuring. I'll be sure to bring our similar mic to make comparisons. I'll post results on this forum of course.

[DeadPoet]

[minus-sounds.com]

Originally Posted by Transducers Swe

...

Said it all better than me.

[Transducers Swe]

Originally Posted by minus-sounds.com

I have a couple of Birdcages. They use the body of the Octava ML52 but the ribbon and transformer are different. I have asked for the internal grill to be removed, to open up the sound, and they did it at no extra cost. I don't know what other improvements they are making.

Actually the Birdcage II is housed in a 30% larger casing than the ML52. We lso use a long single ribbon capsule for this. The Birdcage I use the ML52 housing but another x-former and a double ribbon capsule. The ribbons are the same length as the russian capsule, but we use other magnets.

The Birdcage is phenomenal. It has a huge sound with balls the size of melons. Also a Lundahl would be awesome. Still it has an open sound. I don't have access to a R84 but sonically I guess it wouldn't be far.
I just show on their site that they are going to offer the "Birdcage Active".

You are right. The R84 do sound very similar. We have customers that pointed that out too. We were not modeling them after the AEA's though, it's just concidence.

The active version has a miniature tube stage installed. It sounds similar to the other birdcages but it needs less gain. Of course you get some noise from the tube, but it's really not a problem. It's noise is comparable to tht of a good tube mic.

[francis]

any word on those charts from from the Pearl chamber?
i'd love to hear more about your company.
i (also) found out about you on ebay.
and they DO seem very nice - and i AM in need of a great(!!) and cheap-ish vocal/acou gtr mic.

[GravityRobert]

Yes, I've been eyeballing this thread as well. Anybody with experiences with these mics?

[Transducers Swe]

Originally Posted by francis

any word on those charts from from the Pearl chamber?
i'd love to hear more about your company.
i (also) found out about you on ebay.
and they DO seem very nice - and i AM in need of a great(!!) and cheap-ish vocal/acou gtr mic.

The charts are from the measuring at the Pearl Microphone Labs. We use their anechoic chamber and their MLSSA measuring system when making the measurements.

[francis]

Originally Posted by Transducers Swe

The charts are from the measuring at the Pearl Microphone Labs. We use their anechoic chamber and their MLSSA measuring system when making the measurements. Microphonedeals is a part of the Swedish Transducer Company and we also design and produce studio monitors and hifi loudspeakers under the name "Guru Pro Audio".

hi

i wrote you an email from your website, regarding getting some custom modifications done to a microphone at your site.
will you get back to me soon?
or are you backed-up on orders? :)


i'd love to get a BIG MAMA!

[Transducers Swe]

This is a discussion forum and not a forum for customer relations. We would very much prefer if you could drop an e-mail or a PM if you need to talk to us. :)

[francis]

Originally Posted by Transducers Swe

This is a discussion forum and not a forum for customer relations. We would very much prefer if you could drop an e-mail or a PM if you need to talk to us. :)

and i did :)
i wrote your an email from your email-service at your website...

[Huptus]

I bought two birdcages from them.

Good communication and a more than fair price for an unusually good service and two really impressive sounding microphones - where is the problem!?

[montanasan]

Originally Posted by Huptus

I bought two birdcages from them.

two really impressive sounding microphones

What do you use them for mainly and are they versatile?
Thanks, joe.

[Blast9]

Originally Posted by Huptus

I bought two birdcages from them.

Good communication and a more than fair price for an unusually good service and two really impressive sounding microphones - where is the problem!?

... and did you get the active ones?

I'm gonna get a pair E199 each (or a ribotwice E299)) mainly for drums and elec gtr - so I'm thinking I probably don't need the active's higher output.

[Huptus]

Sorry for delay, was off duty for medical reasons...

No, i did not get the active ones but i use an old analog console which can handle the low output without any problems. Actually i am sure it is too low for a lot of cheap preamps.

So far we used them on some acoustic guitars together with a Schoeps condenser and to get a really nice full and bright piano sound. I am still waiting for the first real guitar player - Glen Turner - to drop in in mid december.

BTW: i just remember, the last acoustic guitar player asked me how i got such a full and warm sound from his instrument.

I definitely like them.

Huptus

[Transducers Swe]

We actually have two versions of the Birdcage. One is based on a long single ribbon capsule, this has a sensitivity of about 1.6-1.9 mV/Pa. The other version is based on a dual ribbon capsule and has a sensitivity of about 3mV/Pa.
The long single ribbon capsule version has a bigger enclosure.

The dual ribbon version is also available in an active version (tube).

[Transducers Swe]

I have started to write about the development of the Birdcage Active ribbon mic, including photos of prototypes. Maybe this could be of some interest to you... :)
Check this out at: Microphonedeals.com - Home

[Blast9]

Nice!

Can you outline the difference between the Ribocop/ribotwice and teh Birdcage?

Also do you have any spec sheets for the mics?

Wow - ribocop has a high max SPL - 165db!

[Transducers Swe]

Originally Posted by Blast9

Nice!

Can you outline the difference between the Ribocop/ribotwice and teh Birdcage?

Also do you have any spec sheets for the mics?

Wow - ribocop has a high max SPL - 165db!

The Ribocop is a long single ribbon capsule and the frequency response rolls of at about 16kHz. The Birdcage rolls off earlier. On the other hand the sensitivity of the passive Birdcage is about 3mV/Pa, significantly higher than that of the single ribbon mics (and the Oktava ML52, which is about 1,6mV/Pa).
The 1%THD at 165dB specification of the Ribocop comes from the capsule supplier. Usually we are more careful to specify figures, but we didn't have time to make all measurements yet.

[twilight]

Does anyone have experience with the bicmic mics? They call them the oktava 012 killers so i'm really interested for that low price!

[to-pse]

Originally Posted by twilight

Does anyone have experience with the bicmic mics? They call them the oktava 012 killers so i'm really interested for that low price!

In the last couple of weeks that I had kept an eye on their MSP6s
(because I saw this original post here), the price seems to have been
raised twice...

For the original price I was about to give those "nonames" with no
reputation whatsoever a try... now I'm getting less and less inclined
to do so...

Tobias

[scottUK]

I've got 2 Oktava 319's i bought of them around May of this year, i only ordered 1 but as it took them forever to send it, they sent me 2, which was nice i suppose. They sound fine to my ears, but i'm only a bedroom recording sort of dude so i can't give any professional opinion on them compared to anything else. Pays yer money takes yer chance.

[Transducers Swe]

Originally Posted by to-pse

In the last couple of weeks that I had kept an eye on their MSP6s
(because I saw this original post here), the price seems to have been
raised twice...

For the original price I was about to give those "nonames" with no
reputation whatsoever a try... now I'm getting less and less inclined
to do so...

Tobias

We raised the price mainly for one reason: we did not take into account the measuring costs when we started selling these. Matching six capsules on and off axis (which means that twelve diagrams has to match) is VERY time consuming. We prefer keeping this service and raising the price a tad. Renting the labs is not an insignificant cost either.

It's still less than 1/2 the price of the benchmark budget SD - Oktava MK012.

[drBill]

I'd love to find out a little more about these mics, but after investigating the website, I've got to say that it's one of the worst I've ever been to. Some basic info on the mics before buying might be in order.....

I'll check ba ck again in a couple months.

bp

[Transducers Swe]

Originally Posted by drBill

I'd love to find out a little more about these mics, but after investigating the website, I've got to say that it's one of the worst I've ever been to. Some basic info on the mics before buying might be in order.....

I'll check ba ck again in a couple months.

bp

I agree. We're working on this. Our profession is really loudspeaker design and manufacturing. Microphonedeals.com is a side thing that we do because it's fun. I'll have a couple of days off during the holidays - I'll be sure to put some more info up then! We're also working on getting some music samples on there.

[pfo]

Originally Posted by jrp

Hi
These guys sell their mics on ebay

A quick ebay search didn't return anything -- do you know their ebay seller ID?

Thanks,
Pete

[Transducers Swe]

We have some auctions on ebay.de