The B&H website now shows "No longer available" for the SPC-10, SPC-20, and SPC-25. Only the SPC-15 remains, and is listed as a special-order item.
Fortunately I bought a spare SPC-25 a while ago, in case someone spills coffee into my current one.
The attached image shows the mic capsule in the SPC-10. You can see it is a heavy-duty, well-made, machined solid metal housing carrying the usual Mylar diaphragm.
These NADY hand-held condenser mics seemed to hold a unique market niche as the only good-quality affordable condenser mics designed for live use. Those who were open-minded enough to try them as a vocal mic, usually found them superior to the world's most popular hand-held mic.
But I suspect not enough people were willing to trust their ears, and instead went for the safe choice, and the resulting low sales caused these to go out of production. It's sad to see yet another good product fail, while lower quality items continue to thrive. C'est la vie.
If anyone makes a condenser mic capsule suitable for live vocals, I may end up making my own DIY condenser mic one day. So far, I've only seen capsules designed for studio use (far too delicate and too sensitive for live sound applications.)
-Gnobuddy
Attachments
You really should at least look at the Primo EM-21 and EM-23 capsules that were used in the Nakamichi CM300 mics. It is a little work to use them since they are threaded to screw into the body. We made some very nice recordings with some DIY versions that could be battery or phantom powered.
I went a buying binge of used ones years ago and had one that still worked after someone gobbed their chewing tobacco on it.
I still have a Primo or two (rebadged under the French marque LEM) that were my first modded mics some 30 years ago. Good stuff.
It's amazing what can be found to play with at bargain prices. Take this little gem:
Monoprice Commercial Audio Desktop Paging Microphone with On/Off Button (NO LOGO) - Monoprice.com (cheaper on Amazon). I bought one in May to use as a backstage announcement mic and was pleasantly surprised at it's high gain and very clear sound. You just never know what will turn up.
It's amazing what can be found to play with at bargain prices. Take this little gem:
Monoprice Commercial Audio Desktop Paging Microphone with On/Off Button (NO LOGO) - Monoprice.com (cheaper on Amazon). I bought one in May to use as a backstage announcement mic and was pleasantly surprised at it's high gain and very clear sound. You just never know what will turn up.
Microphones.com has the Nady SPC-10 (large diaphragm, phantom, $70) and the SPC-15 (phantom, $45), as well as the SPC-25(battery, $50):
Wired Handheld Microphones
Wired Handheld Microphones
I expect that has one of the fifty-cent generic electret mic capsules in it, along the lines of the old Panasonic WM-61a. Those inexpensive little capsules tend to have startlingly flat frequency responses. But for live use, the omnidirectional polar pattern tends to be problematic, causing feedback problems unless SPL is kept low and the mic is very far from the speakers.
The Monoprice mic comes with a 25' XLR cable and XLR-to-1/4" jack adaptor; bought separately at consumer retail, those two would add up to more than the price of the entire package!
-Gnobuddy
Thanks for the tip! I wonder if they actually have inventory, or just poor inventory control software that thinks they still have mics in stock!
Looking at the user guides for those mics, the SPC-10 has the flattest and widest frequency response, with a very subtle broad-band treble boost peaking at about 10 kHz (and only a couple of dB tall). It will have the most neutral sound of these Nady SPC-xx mics, closest to a good studio condenser mic.
Meantime, the SPC-15 has quite an ugly bump in its frequency response between roughly 6kHz and 12kHz. The bump is steep-edged (meaning a fairly high-Q resonance that might "ring") and some 5 dB tall, so I would avoid this microphone - it's likely to have quite a strongly coloured sound. Personally, I don't see the point of an inaccurate condenser mic.
-Gnobuddy
I dont doubt they are clone of some microphone or other, being Behringer and all.
I very nearly bought the C1 or C3, but couldn't decide. Heck if I had the cash at the times I'd have thought all three.
Roused by the apparently very good response and fairly good noise level, I plan on buying the C1 and/or C3 for vocals, acoustic instruments.
I very nearly bought the C1 or C3, but couldn't decide. Heck if I had the cash at the times I'd have thought all three.
Roused by the apparently very good response and fairly good noise level, I plan on buying the C1 and/or C3 for vocals, acoustic instruments.
the higher sensitivity capsule is usually a version with less diapragh spacing, hence more sensitivity, more capsule capacitance, hence lower noise.
usually the max SPL is still limited by the electronics dynamic range. it's not an easy job to design high dynamic range out of 48V phantom, supplied by 2 6k8 resistors. I once designed a microphone that could deliver 10V RMS. got many complaints as most amateur users did not have a decent pad on the mic channel. but it could handle well over 150dB spl
usually the max SPL is still limited by the electronics dynamic range. it's not an easy job to design high dynamic range out of 48V phantom, supplied by 2 6k8 resistors. I once designed a microphone that could deliver 10V RMS. got many complaints as most amateur users did not have a decent pad on the mic channel. but it could handle well over 150dB spl
A point which is getting lost:
You do not listen to an SM58 "solo". That's mildly nasty. (I have heard brass-band on a pair of SM57, not as awful as I expected, but there are better choices.)
NO, the point of SM-58 is to fit in the mix!
The bass fills up to 250Hz. Guitar is ALL over the range to 2KHz. The top-rise of the SM-58 puts the vocals "in the clear"; rather, it etches the high overtones of voice so your ear can follow the voices, and it punches-up the sibilances which get lost in high noise, bad acoustics, and cymbals. Prox-effect can beef the voice bass to balance the timbre, at least when the bass axes are not booming.
Yes, less overcrowded genres can expose the fact that the SM58 is a high-honky thing and there are more natural choices.
You do not listen to an SM58 "solo". That's mildly nasty. (I have heard brass-band on a pair of SM57, not as awful as I expected, but there are better choices.)
NO, the point of SM-58 is to fit in the mix!
The bass fills up to 250Hz. Guitar is ALL over the range to 2KHz. The top-rise of the SM-58 puts the vocals "in the clear"; rather, it etches the high overtones of voice so your ear can follow the voices, and it punches-up the sibilances which get lost in high noise, bad acoustics, and cymbals. Prox-effect can beef the voice bass to balance the timbre, at least when the bass axes are not booming.
Yes, less overcrowded genres can expose the fact that the SM58 is a high-honky thing and there are more natural choices.
Sibilance? Sibilance through an SM58 sounds like it came through a stack of pillows to me. About as muffled as a cheap mono cassette-player from 1980, and not a whole lot better than an AM radio.
I think some people are just vastly more sensitive to the SM58's particular brand of awfulness than others. I suspect long familiarity has something to do with this - we stop hearing its awfulness after a while, in the same way you stop noticing the big wart on your neighbour's cheek after you've known him for a while.
Those very pricey Bose column speakers (the L1 is around $1200 Canadian, without the subwoofer, or around $2100 CAD with one) sound a lot like an SM58 to me - shrieky-sounding mids, no high treble, and very little bass, unless you add the subwoofer. If you do, you get swollen woofy undefined upper bass, and no deep bass. Classic Bose psychoacoustic mis-direction, like their infamous "Wave Radio".
In a nutshell, at least to my ears, the L1 sounds a lot like a roomful of cheap TVs all turned up to maximum volume. Loud, cheap, and nasty. Probably because it actually is a collection of cheap TV speakers stuck in a tube, with a $1200 price tag slapped on.
But people are willing to fork out the $1200 or $2100 for one, with or without the subwoofer respectively, for reasons that are quite inexplicable to me. You can get much better sound for that much money, though not such an easy set-up or take-down.
-Gnobuddy
Hmmmm....funny, because that's EXACTLY what the Bose "Hi-Fi" speakers always sounded like, to me......
The SM-57 and SM-58 each has a small 1:1 transformer inside, I'm not sure why other than to "add to the sound." It could be interesting to open the mic and bypass the transformer. Adding a resistor across the output (probably in the preamp, or in a box between the mic and preamp, several resistors on a rotary switch) in the range of 50 to 1000 ohms can change the sound of a dynamic mic as well.
A reason I heard a couple decades ago for its popularity is that every experienced singer "knows what it sounds like," knows about its close-up bass boost, etc., and so feels comfortable when they see an SM-58 on stage. So about every live music venue that knows anything uses SM-58 for vocal mics.
The circuits are for the small electret condenser mic elements such as the Panasonic WM-61A. Electret mics have a built-in FET buffer so it'll drive a 1k impedance. Panasonic quit making ANY condenser mics a few years ago, so the only ones you can find are from random sellers on ebay. The good news is there are still other manufacturers for electret mics on Digikey and such, I don't know how "compatible" they would be with the Panasonic. One thing that made the Panasonics desirable is this mod by the late Mr. Linkwitz, about halfway down the page here:
System Test
I don't know if you can do such a mod to non-Panasonic electret mics.
For the large condenser, that's basically a low-value capacitor. You need to provide the biasing voltage and the tube or FET buffer and associated circuitry. I recall there's a circuit for it in The Art of Electronics, 2nd edition, and it includes something like a 20 gigohm resistor for the bias voltage, because the capacitance is that low, and the impedance is that high. This is where you keep components and connections clean, and use teflon insulation, so the dust and such don't start conducting when the humidity gets up (as it does when someone sings into it).
One more thing, there are new MEMS mics made directly on semiconductors, used in cellphones (and would now be used on telephone answering machines like the ones Panasonic made and included their electret mic elements in), but they're likely "not ready for prime time" when it comes to recording music.
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