microphone death

[Dubmaniac]

I was given a Sennheiser 421 several years ago. I was super excited to finally get one... until I got it home and plugged it in. It had almost no signal at all, and what there was sounded like a bad imitation of a telephone. At least the price was right.

[frans_13]

Beyer M380s died in the early 90s. These thin wires in the 600 ohms coil can die as much as those in all the crappy AKG D12s that go on close to undead.
Sennheiser MD409s die because the foam turns to sticky goo and it craps all over the membrane. Had a Sennheiser MD441 go dead because the little circuit board inside insisted on having a bad solder joint. Had some more AKGs die, had a horrible EV mic die, good riddance. An expensive U87 clone died because it's membrane wasn't fixed properly in the capsule and it got wrinkly. Had some mics go dead because the switches/filters inside got bad contacts - pulled the parts out and went on without switches, always a good idea with so small signals.
That's what you get for having a lot of mics for a long, long time. Vintage is another word for "soon to be fixed".

[vvv]

I just remembered, I bought at a great price a very nice large ribbon (23 lundahl) that went bad from corrosion on the motor and ribbon stretching.

Shinybox did an awesome and reasonably priced restoration. I use this mic on guitar amps frequently, room and sometimes 1' away.

Once, I bought an expensive ADK tube mic that sounded wonderful. Opened it up as I always do and found corrosion all over the inside, as though it had been in a flood. Sent that one back to the Ebog flogger.

So, not dead, but gravely wounded category.