I just ordered one from DIYrecordingequipment.com. I'll try to put it to use and share some feedback when I've got it.

If you're on a tight budget and you really want a ribbon mic I'd buy a stock fathead and not worry about any mods or "upgrades". Even cheap ribbon mics are great for certain things, and have a naturalness and smoothness to them that's harder to come by in other types of mics. And they usually respond well to EQ, so you can brighten and "open" them up a bit fairly easily. That said, I think the overall best microphone you could get in the $500 or under range is a used 441 , at least that I've heard.

+ a zillion for the NoHype mics! I've had many opportunities to work in studios that have ribbon mics in their lockers that are quadruple the price of the upgraded NoHypes and I still prefer my LRM-2's. JP is one of the finest guys to deal with and makes amazing mics somehow for a fraction of the cost. If you request when you buy you can get matched stereo pairs, which is what I did. I am still waiting for him to make some other designs so I have an excuse to buy more mics from him! I have even considered getting a few of the even less expensive LRM-1's since I already have 2 of the "cleaner" LRM2's and am tempted to get the "more colorful" LRM-1's....

SE Electronics VR1 voodoo is killer on guitar cabs!!!

I just put my DIYAC RM-5 (I got mine from Diyrecordingequipment.com) together today. I've only gotten to run a couple of quick tests but I got to say I'm really impressed with it so far. I did some vocal tests and have been pleased with how it handles my voice. While many low end condensers add to much high end and make my voice sound thin, and many dynamics are muffled and lacking high end definition, the RM-5 seems very balance.

On guitar I set it about 9" from my cab and right in front; it sounded excellent on clean guitars but with heavy guitars it was super woofy with overwhelming low end. I'm sure this had a lot to with placement and floor reflections from my cab, however the big takeaway is that it took EQ amazingly! With a heavy high pass and a judicious cut in the offending frequencies I actually got a nice detailed heavy guitar tone out of it.

Again this is just my first impressions from no more than 20 minutes playing with the mic but I'm really impressed and excited about it.

m160

I dig the Avantone CR-14. It's about $250. If you have a soldering iron and 5 minutes you can pop in a Lundahl transformer, and notch it
up to the same thing the more expensive ones are. Much of the very expensive mics just use the same parts that are made in China.
Wow, that gives me a great idea....
Also, there is a super cool company called Austin Ribbon mics, which offer DIY mics kits. If you have a few hours and a strong will, and
want to impress your friends with a mic, you made with your own hands. This is the jam.

Sounds like you made a wise purchase. There are people who think ribbon microphones are a silly idea, a flawed technology surpassed in every way by both condensers and dynamics, then there are others (like myself) who think they sound great and classy.

There's a thread somewhere on this site where they did a blind test of a modded vs un-modded cr-14. If my memory serves, there wasn't a single vote for the modded version.

Personally, I have two of them... and I don't know what I'd want changed.. other than I'd like to have a couple more of them.

I suppose a cloudlifter would be nice when recording quiet sources.