In an "interview" on the audionowcast podcast (he was a special guest) Dusty said that basically Dave Royer messed around with some chinese mics and decided he liked the capsules but the electronics were a bit sub par, so he set everything up and shipped parts HE chose over there to get assembled, so quality parts are used and apparently he tests every single mic for his own QC. I'd say chinese mics just (figuratively) went upper class

yes, on all of it.

love mine to death. it makes me smile EVERYTIME i use it.


rich

yes, Mojave mics are all made in china. I have no love for them, but that might change (depending on the quality development in the future).

I onced owned a Mojave MA-200. Gave it a honest shot. My first impression, it sounded too chinese for my taste. Chinese mics are not that bad, especially for the money and you are on a budget.., but they have this common sound in all of them that I don't preferably like to use and I can't help but notice that they all use the same PSU that was made in China.. Some paint them different colors, some put a "big sticker lable" on it to hide the fact its a cheap azz chinese mic psu. Some don't give a shxx and tell you, "thats why the mic is cheaper than the rest". Wunder, Telefunken USA, SE, ADK, Peluso, Pearlman, and more companies use this cheap "made in china" $20 powersupply to cut cost and labor.

To be honest, I am sick of seeing these Chinese PSUs flooding the microphone market. I would really like to see some good quality PSUs being made for mics at a reasonable cost. Like the good old days when Americans were building quality stuff (50s-70s). Like using tubes in PSUs was way cool. Neumann PSUs are also bad to bone, built with quality parts and with sincere love to create something with quality. Nowdays, its all about cost and profit, not quality. That right there tells me to stay away and never buy again if I can so help it.

I don't care what anyone says, the PSU influences the sound. Just like a 9volt carbon battery sounds different and better in a guitar effect pedal vs a DC power adapter. I quickly returned it after listening, testing, and analyzing the guts of the mic. There is alot of chinese parts on that mic (caps, resistors, etc, the capsule??). And that told me why I was hearing "chinese". I personally felt that I overpaid. I bet somewhere in China or Canada you can get that same mic for $200 without "mojave" printed on it..

And IMHO, I believe you are paying for the "David Royer's" name.

But I do love the Royer ribbons. Can't say that for the Mojaves.

I don't think you could get the tube and transformer for $200, let alone the whole microphone...

Not to mention the fact that the MA200 is David Royer's original design, not a rebadged generic model like so many of them...

Here's my take on that "common sound": Sibilance, “eshiness”, excessive high frequency content and harshness in many inexpensive mics can be attributed to inappropriate circuitry following a capsule copied from the Neumann K67 design.

The K67 capsule was designed by Neumann to have a rising high frequency response (see Stephen Paul's classic article). Its rising HF response was then compensated in the U 67 microphone by a shaped, HF de-emphasis HF circuit. This design created an acoustic pre-emphasis / electronic de-emphasis noise reduction system that offered the additional benefits of headroom extension, sibilance reduction and response tailoring - in sum, a revered and iconic sound.

For a number of years some folks have laid the blame for poor sound on "Chinese capsules", but in fact there are some very well executed Chinese K67-type capsules - they just have to be used in conjunction with the proper HF de-emphasis circuit. The K67-type capsule was never intended to feed a flat response circuit such as the transformerless "Schoeps-type" used in many low-cost condenser mics.

Perhaps folks should ask manufacturers of K67-type mics if the circuit after the capsule follows the HF de-emphasis curve necessary to produce a timbre-balance similar to what Neumann intended - and which many recordists and artists find pleasing.

I have a pair of MA-200's... and I LOVE them.

Personally, I couldn't care LESS what part of the world the human's that assembled my gear lived in. I don't care what it cost. I don't care what color their skin is... or whether their President wants to kill me. That is all stuff that I am powerless over. All I care about is gear that allow's me to record music in a quality fashion at a price I can afford.

heh

You are right with part of what you said... Original design?? are you joking? What is that $80 or less in parts? $40-50 for the jensen trannie, and $20-30 for the tube? The rest was manufactured in the Republic Of China. For another $150. Then imported, taxes, etc. They you and I pay $995 for this mic? Royer is making a killing $500-800 a pop. ouch.

I have nothing against china. Or there color of skin. What I do have a problem with is a person aquires a product from them for $100 and then sells it here for 8 times more because is has a person's name on it and they swapped some key parts (tube and transformer).. Now if the MA-200 sold for $600 that would be nice. Like I said, I felt personally that I overpaid. And I don't like the feeling. So that was one major reason I returned it. It didn't sound like a $1000 mic to me. A telefunken USA AK-47 sounds like a $1000 mic to me. And most of it was made in China just like the MA-200..

You've raised the issue of percieved value. There is an LDC microphone sold at every major price increment from $50 to $15,000. There are buyers of mics at every price increment because customer economic means and willingness to spend vary widely. Microphone manufacturers make business decisions about product pricing to appeal to the different market segments that exist. Customers make decisions to purchase a particular mic because the perceived value of that mic is high - for them.

None of this is absolute. Value is relative and subjective. Microphones continue to be sold at all price points because there are buyers who perceive high value at each price point. Though over time, certain mic models acquire a near-universal badge of perceived value due to the expressed consensus of many users - SM7 for example.

Perhaps in the case of the MA-200 there is still a wide variation in perceived value.

excellent points!!!

That's called capitalism. It follows supply and demand.

How much are your services worth? As much as you can charge and still have willing customers.

If you don't like it, don't buy the product. If you have a problem with the system, there are other places you can go.

Jim Williams
Audio Upgrades

Yup, like to China. Land of almost all mics.

I have done the thing where I bought $80 worth of parts and 'built' (if you want to call it that) a 'microphone,' and if you think there's any reality around that concept, be my guest.

amen to that, brother jim!

MA-100 are fantastic. Outperform much more expensive mics on OH.

Try MA-200 on acoustic bass

Which vendor has this for the cheapest? Just curious.

Sells at the same price everywhere. If someone is selling it cheaper, they are not supposed to be.

No, I'm not joking...do you have some evidence to support your theory? I have yet to see anything that indicates that it's not an original design. The microphone's been out for, what, three or four years now, and I haven't seen where anyone has opened one up and found it to be identical to other cheaper microphones...which is not the case with other microphones.

If I'm wrong, though, please do enlighten me...

I've had my MA-200 for about a week now and I love it! It fits my voice perfectly, especially the more baritone style. It is a bit hyped but it sounds good and not harsh at all. So good that I've just been standing in my vocal booth for hours just singing with a smile on my face. It makes my voice sound better, and I could really need that!

I run it through an SSL alpha channel with little compression and warmth from the FATSO.
It was well spent money, and I don't care where it was made or by who.

Yep. If this mic doesn't put a smile on your face when running your vox through it, then chances are you shouldn't be a vocalist, stick to something else.

EXACTLY!!!

there are plenty of tracks recorded professionally with the mxl v67 and v69 and even nickelback uses the rode ntk and k2. with those mics, we are typically wowed at the fact that they chose those mics. why is the ma-200 excluded from this type of "wow" factor? is it because it is just a little more expensive than the mentioned mics? is it because it sounds too good for how much it costs? i mean where does one draw the line? i may be a bit biased considering i bought mine used off ebay for less than new, but i saw the value of it and got tons of info before settling with this mic. it was either this or the tlm-103. lord knows that we ALL have mixed opinions on this mic. in strict comparison, the tlm-103 gets its ass handed to it time and again by other mics in its class: most oftenly by the ma-200 and the bock u195.
maybe we should quit trying to compare the ma-200 and other mojave mics to the $3000+ mics that we think it sounds like/or suppose we think it should sound like, and take it for what it is: a really good sounding mic for the price range it is in. i think that is pretty fair, right?

On a side note, I can tell from that comment alone that you are a heterosexual, white male.

How?

Because you have never had anything to fear.