kudzurunner
2766 posts
Oct 22, 2011
8:08 PM
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Thanks to the tip of a friendly harp-mike angel, I bid on a lot of--count 'em--FIVE Shure PE5H mics, the only mic I've played for the past 25 years, and won the entire lot for $54.
Ten bucks a mic, plus postage.
I am now officially permitted to die a happy man. I've got a lifetime supply.
I'm giving one free mic to the guy who gave me the tip. That's a no-brainer.
The two PE5H's I've used for these past 25 years are in good working order, so it's possible, after much reflection, that I will be willing to part with one of the four new ones I'll have left.
Now for the champagne.
Last Edited by on Oct 22, 2011 8:12 PM
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eharp
1527 posts
Oct 22, 2011
9:23 PM
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nacoran is in serious need. check out his slobbering thread.
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Mojokane
463 posts
Oct 22, 2011
10:38 PM
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...share the bounty!
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Why is it that we all just can't get along?<
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Greg Heumann
1308 posts
Oct 22, 2011
11:58 PM
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I've worked on Adam's mic - these are indeed good harp mics. They don't get talked about much so you might not be familiar with this model- here is the data sheet in case you're interested.
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/Greg
Last Edited by on Oct 22, 2011 11:58 PM
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kudzurunner
2767 posts
Oct 23, 2011
5:16 AM
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Brandon has contacted me and I've told him that I'll give him first shot at one of the four I'll have left after I tip my informant with a freebie.
That will leave me with three. I think I need to keep those three for a while.
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eharp
1529 posts
Oct 23, 2011
5:27 AM
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jeepers, adam! you need 5 of these mics? when 2 "are in good working order"? do you see a stretch of mic dropping in your future or what?? surely 4 mics will suffice as well as 5.
isnt nate one of the moderators on this site? or at least a one of the sane voices during the occasional full moon blow-ups? help him out, please, with part of your good fortune that basically fell into your lap.
imo, nate's ocd is more debilitating than your hoarding(?) disorder.
i'd even pay the postage!
just a thought.
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walterharp
733 posts
Oct 23, 2011
10:08 AM
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congrats! and aren't you a bit old to use sick as a positive adjective? :-)
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nacoran
4789 posts
Oct 23, 2011
10:44 AM
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eharp, that's okay. Greg's link to the microphone sanitizer should solve my problems for under $10. :)
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Nate
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eharp
1530 posts
Oct 23, 2011
11:16 AM
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STFU!
i'm working on a mic for you, nate!
lol.
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kudzurunner
2782 posts
Oct 29, 2011
9:46 AM
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The five mics came yesterday. One doesn't work very well and four work extremely well. All five are in very good to excellent condition, with pristine original tape IDing the mic (Shure PE-5H hi-impedance), almost pristine windscreens, and original cords.
I A/B'd them against my own, which has a shortened cord and was brought up to spec by Greg Heumann. (I used a HarpGear2 set on 7.5, which is where my mic likes it.)
You won't be surprised to learn that the GH mic sits at the top of the heap--but by a barely discernable amount. The new set are all great mics. I'm giving one to the guy who tipped me off, as I told him I would, and selling one to Brandon. I'm keeping the other two good ones. At some point I'll send the third one to Greg.
The guy who sold them to me said that his uncle had used them as vocal mics when he played with Bill Monroe in a bluegrass band.
Last Edited by on Oct 29, 2011 9:47 AM
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MN
111 posts
Oct 29, 2011
3:13 PM
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Adam: Has the permanently affixed cord on your mic/s ever given you problems? Those give me the willies. Seems like "permanently" affixed is anything but.
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didjcripey
147 posts
Oct 29, 2011
7:31 PM
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I'm curious; I don't expect Greg to give away any trade secrets, but knowing a bit about mics myself, I wonder how Greg brings a working mic 'up to spec'?
If the connections are sound, the screen and diaphragm clean, what else can you actually do (unless you can affect magnet strength or diaphragm elasticity)?
In my limited experience, it seems that a dynamic microphone is a pretty simple piece of technology which either works or doesn't.
I wonder if perceived differences might be more due to a 'placebo' effect?
(honestly no offence intended here Greg, I know you are at the top of your game, and I just would really like to know).
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Lucky Lester
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kudzurunner
2786 posts
Oct 29, 2011
8:02 PM
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I can assure you that the placebo effect is not at work. I brought my HG2, my current mic, and the four new trophy-mics, into my empty garage. I set the amp at 7.5. I played my own mic first, and I stood at a specific distance directly in front of the amp--a distance that I carefully observed with each mic I tested. I've used only two mics--the same make and model, and I've still got the first one--for the past 25 years. I know the sound well. I wanted nothing more than to discover that the mic I've been playing, and that was worked on by Greg, was the pale shadow of the Platonic ideal of a PE5H and that I now possessed that ideal. I would have been delighted to discover that one or more of the new trophy mics was noticeably stronger than what I've been playing. Hell, I was HOPING that was the case. It wasn't.
One of the five mics I purchased was noticeably weaker; I didn't even bring it into the garage. A bad mic, that needs Greg's attention at some point in the future.
The other four were all very closely matched and sounded great. I A/B'd them repeatedly with each other and my own. The difference between my mic and those other mics was, I'd estimate, a 2-3% difference. A very small difference in volume and crispness in the high-midrange frequencies that would make no effective difference on the bandstand. I believe, as I note above, that this very small difference is mostly attributable to the difference between a 20-foot cord and a 13-foot cord. On hi-Z mics, a 33% difference in cord length makes a difference.
It's not fair of me to answer for Greg, but obviously one thing that most people would do when working on an old mic is blow the dust away and make sure that all soldered connections are good and solid. When Greg worked on my mic, it had an intermittent short, located somewhere within a foot of the cable/mic connection, that cut effective signal strength by quite a bit when it kicked in. Simply doing whatever it took to remedy that is most of what needed doing.
Last Edited by on Oct 29, 2011 8:10 PM
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Greg Heumann
1318 posts
Oct 29, 2011
9:41 PM
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Adam is right - in his case there was a bad connection and the windscreen foam had deteriorated and a good bit of it had lodged itself in/on the diaphragm. You can clean, you can make sure connections are good, you can change connectors for usability - but there is nothing you can do to tweak/tune up a mic's true sound reproduction guts. That is a myth. It either works or it doesn't and dynamic mics just don't seem to wear out. (On mics with transformers you can try a transformer of different value, but that isn't a tune-up - that's re-engineering.) Damage can be done to the diaphragm, of course - but it is virtually impossible to repair.
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/Greg
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didjcripey
148 posts
Oct 29, 2011
10:55 PM
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Cheers guys, I thought that was pretty much the case.
Good point about cable length, I am usually in a pretty confined space, and find long cables a hassle anyway.
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Lucky Lester
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Steamrollin Stan
210 posts
Jan 01, 2012
5:00 AM
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Last Edited by on Jan 01, 2012 5:01 AM
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