Haha, may seem ridiculous but I actually have to force myself to quit looking at gear and just play. I've modded my strat, ProVla, and a few other things over the year. I do love to tweak but my studio is pretty good now for a home/project studio so I do less of it now, but I bought the 460 specifically for doing these mods and it turned out great.

Just another quick question, has anyone had success taking out the inner basket on a 460? Thought if it was simple enough I'd do it to open it up a bit.
Thanks.
Michael.

Michael,

I used the soldering gun to soften the solder that holds it in place and some needle nose pliers to pull them out.

Now I know many here removed both inner layers, but I put the fine mesh layer back in, just removing the inner most course screen because just the outer screen leaves the capsule quite vulnerable to dust and such and I spent too much on the capsule to risk it.

It's your choice of course, but leaving the fine mesh screen in opens the sound up nicely without risking the capsule. Just my opinion.

Lucio

Hi guys. I am a 1st time poster here. I am a regular over at gearslutz. I found this board when I decided to start checking into modifying my AMI FT58 which is essentially a rebadged Nady TCM1050. The power supply, shockmount, wood box and case are identical to the Pelusos. So far I have installed the new Peluso P-K67 capsule and a 3.3uf Metalized Polyester ERO MKT1813 cap in the C8 position. I am already in love with the sound and will continue to try stuff. I have the cinemag 2480 on order along with a couple of tubes. Idecided to pimp the look as well as the guts and buffed it on a wheel. Check it out....

Oh, another quick question. I've noticed playing around with the mic now that in omni and figure 8, the back of the capsule seems to have a little less gain than the front. Is this normal? Pattern selector still works and the patterns are correct, but it's definitely a tad quieter on the back side of the capsule. More noticeable in Fig8 than omni but a little less in omni too.
Thanks.
Michael.

......that's what I've noticed as well. One thing that I've been wondering is that with all these mods are we not changing the voltages enough to change up the relationships between the front and back capsules? Is there anything that the mod does that changes the proportions between the front and back voltages? I.E. in fig. 8 the voltages should be equal in the front and back?

Not an answer, but maybe that's the cause.

Well maybe if someone's got a stock one they could do a test to see if this is what's going on. The only electronic mod I did was new cap in C8 (same basic values as original 1.2ufnew, 1uf old) and snip out c9-c10. Stuck in new tube, 12at7 vs original 12ax7 and of course, new capsule and transformer.

I also noticed this right away but I wouldn't call it less gain on mine. It's more like a different EQ response. Less mids on the back in figure 8

Hmmm, well now I'm curious, I'd really like to know if the mic was like that stock, or if it's the mod that affected the difference. If so, is there a component that we can add to get it back?

One thing to check is whether the capsule is sitting straight up and down. I know I spent some time making sure that the capsule was vertically straight and facing squarely with the basket openings, not off to the side at all. If it's even slightly facing downward on one side or sideways it'll change the response quite a bit.

Something to check at least because just mounting it on the mic doesn't mean that it's automatically straight.

Lucio

Good point, I'll look at that later and report back...

I made sure that the capsule was straight and even when I installed it. I doubt it's that.
Here are my results after playing around quite a bit. I settled on these mods.
1) Peluso P-K67 capsule
2) 3.3uf 250V ERO polyester metalized cap in C-8
3) Removed the cathode follower
4) JAN Phillips 12at7 tube
I found that using an EH 6072A gave me a little more bottom but wasn't quite as smooth as the Phillips in the mids. (You can use both and change them out to taste)
The largest difference in sound came from the new capsule.
I still haven't swapped out the tranformer for the Cinemag 2480 and I'll post my opinion on the difference once the change has been done.

I had it apart last night and the capsule was a hair off of vertical so I straightened it up and tested again and while ever so slight, there's definitely a "loss" on the back of the capsule. I haven't removed the cathode follower, don't plan to at this point. Johnnyjellybean, the cinemag 2480 was the last mod I did and I was surprised at how much it "opened" up the sound. Made it a little, I dunno, "bigger"?, hard to describe but very noticeable in a good way.

OK so I am ready to do the transformer install. Does anyone know what the color coding would be for the 2480 as compared to the Nady 1050? The colors of the tranny wires on the 1050 are not the same as the 460.

I'm not sure but the green/black wires on the 460 come right from c9/c10. There is c9/c10 on the Nady as well so you could see what color are coming off of those. Also, the 460 +/- is red/white. Not sure but the + is likey red still on the Nady and if the - isn't white, it may be brown/black? I found this hand drawn schematic from prodigy pro and it shows the 1050 as having the same color coding on the xfrmr as the 460:
http://home.comcast.net/~markfuksman/nadytcm1050.gif
Hope this helps

The schematic for the 460 is available on the Apex webpage (in the service manual maybe), and I believe it shows the wire color.

I just finished installing a Peluso Cek-12 and a 6072A in mine. I did a few quick tests at home to make sure it was working before I brought it to the studio. From what I can tell, it is going to sound sick. The only problem I'm having is with polar patterens. When it's all the way to Omni, it's definetly working in Omni. Then as you go towards Cardiod, it seems to go straight to Figure 8 and has no rear rejection. Did anybody else screw this up too? I don't really see anything that could cause this problem. (Both backplates are grounded, is this cool?)

Likely a solder bridge/cold joint or something. The CEK-12's grounds go to a single ground point and each hot lead just goes right to the original hot wires or contact points. On mine, I have to wait a couple of secs after switching for the polar pattern to change, it's not "immediate". Hope this helps.

I installed the Cinemag 2480 today. WOW. I went back to the 1uf ERO polyester cap and went with the 6072A tube It smoothed out REALLY nicely. I love it.

I went back to the 3uf cap. I find it smoother, more open and less"radio" sounding. This mic is now staying the way it is and I'm on my way to doing the next one. I think I'm going to try the P-K47 cap this time.