Considering they are just to keep the mics going they don't want?
to spend a fortune which puts the micparts RK87 out of budget.
We sell RK-87s as an *upgrade* option to many U87i / U87 Ai owners (and TLM103 owners too).?
The cost of an RK-87 is likely to be significantly lower than the cost of refurbishing the Neumann capsule. Seems like testing one might save your client a fair amount of money.
Assuming the refurbishing process would be done by a 3rd party (because, so far as I know, that¡¯s not a service Neumann has ever offered) the refurbishing process won¡¯t deliver an original Neumann capsule anyway, by which I specifically mean those refurb capsules would almost certainly sound different than the originals. At that point, testing alternatives seems like a good idea. YMMV.?
Neumann does not sell bare capsules any more, at least not in the US, although I¡¯m sure they offer repair services for their microphones.
JLI has some 47's. Not sure if that'll work for you. I didn't see the 87's,?
but I just did a quick search.
K47 capsules would work in the sense of being electrically compatible, with the exception that a U87 i (without DC converter) would only be able to create a Cardioid pattern with a single-backplate K47. But more to the point, the U87 never had a K47 capsule, and a K47 capsule would not sound right and probably would sound quite bad given the bandpass filtering in the U87 circuit.
Also worth noting is JLI¡¯s misleading use of the ¡°RK47¡± product name; they are not selling genuine RK-47 capsules, but are merely taking MicParts¡¯ product name. Left as an exercise for the reader is to speculate whether that¡¯s done in hopes of profiting from MicParts¡¯ reputation, or out of ignorance regarding the names of historical European capsule designs.
¡ª
matt.
