dooley or sank? reribboning

[eeldip]

anyone ever try both.. i have an RCA varacoustic with a 60 year old ribbon in it. just noticed it gets a little uh.. stressed out at unacceptably quiet levels (acoustic guitar at 8 inches is too close).

i seem to vaguely remember soundguy dave dissin the sank reribbon.

is wes dooley still the man?

anyone?

[cgarges]

Clarence Kane at ENAK Microphone repair in NJ rocks. Clarence used to work for RCA.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[TomS]

Sank did my 77DX, I have no complaints, although I'm nothihng like an expert on ribbons. I have praise, in fact. the mic had a non-standard piece where the yoke attached to the stand when I bought it, and the way it was set up was pretty wobbly, and when it came back with the new ribbon and "silk" (which he will tell you is not silk ) he had also made a better (if still non-standard) attachment for it. Free. He's a good guy and his work seems good to me. FWIW.

[Preslav]

Clarence at ENAK did a truly righteous job on an RCA 77D. Truly.



Preslav.

[E-cue]

is wes dooley still the man?

anyone?

Of those 2, Wes is DEFINATELY the guy to goto. He's also not too far from you.

I'd also suggest calling the cats at Royer Labs. David Royer has done an exception job on a lot of my mic's- both ribbon, and LD condenser. I highly recommend him.

[KFT]

FWIW, I haven't had any RCA's done but Stephen Sank re-ribboned a Beyer M260 for me and did a fantastic job. Quick turnaround time, mic sounded great and he was a nice guy to deal with.

[ubertar]

anyone ever try both.. i have an RCA varacoustic with a 60 year old ribbon in it. just noticed it gets a little uh.. stressed out at unacceptably quiet levels (acoustic guitar at 8 inches is too close).

I have a varacoustic too, and the same thing started happening. I opened it up and found the ribbon had gone a bit slack. It's not that hard to loosen the clamp at the top that holds the ribbon and pull it tighter (but not too tight). It sounded fine after that. It's worth a try-- the worst that could happen is you'll need to send it to get re-ribboned and you were planning on doing that anyway.

If you do decide to have work done on it, you may as well get a new transformer while you're at it. According to Dave Royer, the varacoustic has a very good element but a crappy transformer.

[swingdoc]

you may wish to pm me before sending mics to Mr Sank.

[eeldip]

anyone ever try both.. i have an RCA varacoustic with a 60 year old ribbon in it. just noticed it gets a little uh.. stressed out at unacceptably quiet levels (acoustic guitar at 8 inches is too close).

I have a varacoustic too, and the same thing started happening. I opened it up and found the ribbon had gone a bit slack. It's not that hard to loosen the clamp at the top that holds the ribbon and pull it tighter (but not too tight). It sounded fine after that. It's worth a try-- the worst that could happen is you'll need to send it to get re-ribboned and you were planning on doing that anyway.

If you do decide to have work done on it, you may as well get a new transformer while you're at it. According to Dave Royer, the varacoustic has a very good element but a crappy transformer.

this is the kinda advice i like to hear!

ok. now i fuck wit it.

[aurelialuz]

...

[soundguy]

I used sank to do three mics. got them back and thought they sounded funny, so I sent them back to him (he was really great abou tthe whole affair) he said they were fine, I got them back and they still sounded funny. I wound up eventually having AEA redo them and they sound great now. Ive used AEA for reribboning for about 8 years with no problems, after reading the praise up here for sank I gave him a shot and thats my story.

dave

[tylerbcrawford]

Does anyone know if AEA will re ribbon a beyer m260? I was going to get Sank to do it but there seems to be alot of mixed feedback.

[prince turbo lung]

i have had ribbon mics done by sank...my opinion is mixed. the beyers came back looking great in a timely matter..but their sound changed. i have original m160s and sank m160s. the sank mics have a more open top end/ more detailed top end..brighter overall. the originals are darker (in a good way) and have a bigger low end. sank does top notch work but definately tailors the sound in his own way, so be prepared for your mic to sound slightly different.

[tiger vomitt]

i thought that sank doesnt replace beyer ribbons with the same type of ribbon.

wouldnt that explain why they sound different after he's done his thing?

[tylerbcrawford]

i thought that sank doesnt replace beyer ribbons with the same type of ribbon.

wouldnt that explain why they sound different after he's done his thing?

yeah he replaces them with RCA ribbons. for the beyer m260 it's replaced with the same ribbon as an rca dx77. and that's why I want to send it to sank but i have heard some things that make me hesitant.

Anyone else have any feed back about Stephen Sank?