On Dec 21, 2009, at 12:41 AM, Dave Haupt wrote:
I borrowed two D-104s locally - turns out that later production used
either a ceramic or a high-Z dynamic element, and both were quite
insensitive to load.
Dave,
Around 1995, I was rebuilding several Astatic microphones and called
the factory and spoke to an engineer there. There were two versions of
the D-104 made. One had a crystal cartridge, which is the standard
D-104 we all know and love. The other had an optional ceramic
cartridge, which was used not because of its sound quality, but it's
ability to withstand a wider temperature and humidity range. As he put
it, the memory key was "crystal clear".
Astatic never made a D-104 with a dynamic cartridge. The closest they
came to it was (is?) the 10-DA, which instead of the round head has a
bullet shaped head. They fit the D-104 stand and that may be where the
confusion comes from. The 10-DA has an internal transformer, which is
probably why they had the bullet shape, it had to go somewhere. :-)
If you have a round, flat head D-104 with a magnetic element in it, it
was probably a modification done by someone who did not either like
the response of the crystal cartridge (I find they don't have enough
low frequency response for my voice), or rebuilt it and decided it was
much cheaper to tear the mike out of a CB handheld and put it in than
to buy a new cartridge from Astatic. I don't remember the price, but
they were not cheap.
In any case, I'm not sure what kind of low frequency response you are
going to get out of a crystal cartridge anyway. Bear in mind that they
were communication and PA microphones, not for music. People with low
voices that wanted that part of their voice to come through used the
10-DA instead.
73,
Geoff.
--
geoffrey mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
Jerusalem Israel [email protected]
New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge
or understanding, as in he has a sub-wikipedia understanding of the
situation. i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found
in the Wikipedia.
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