Apex 460 as body/grill/PSU for G7 or other DIY mic

This is the cheapest multi-pattern tube mic I know of, and I think it would be the perfect candidate for using as a base for a G7 or other DIY design. I've had some experience with one and although it sounds like total crap, the build quality is absolutely fantastic. Plenty of room inside for the most complex circuits and the tube is suspended inside the body between two pieces of rubber for decreased microphonics (awesome idea IMO). It comes with the best shockmount I've ever seen on a Chinese mic and a PSU with a 9-pattern switch (not sure if it uses the same technique as G7 though). I didn't get a chance to look inside the PSU or figure out what voltages it gives unfortunately. The mic looks totally gorgeous in person.

Mind you I would only use this mic if you're planning on ripping everything out of it and starting from scratch major-component-wise, because I think the capsule is crap (this mic is seriously quite bad sounding, at least on my voice.. it seems to inject tons of 9Khz fuzziness into everything).
Just a heads-up!

..and a PSU with a 9-pattern switch (not sure if it uses the same technique as G7 though)..

Click to expand...

It will probably be fine - there's not many other ways to do this..

But for the heater power, you'll probably need to change the psu to 6.3V - there's a good chance that it is 12V if this mic uses a 12AX7 tube..

Jakob E.

Did that conversion already. It's a C12-like body that works well with the AKG C12VR replacement capsule, though you'll need to replace the capsule mount. It's easy to do that though. I simply removed the plastic saddle and replaced it with a piece of perfboard with holes drilled to accept the AKG capsule.

The PC boards can be retained as they are - remove the parts and modify them as needed. You don't need to build new boards or perfboard it - the G7 mic's circuitry is so similar to this mic that it works well.

The PSU supplies 6.3 volts already, as it uses a 12AY7 (I think) but with the heaters wired in parallel. The second tube is used as a buffer to drive the rather bad sounding transformer... A Sowter transformer fits in there really nicely. I ended up with the original C12 circuit, using a NOS 6072. I believe the power supply sends around 130 or 150 volts to the mic.
To help the sound a lot, you can remove the inner grill easily - that gets rid of some of the spitty qualities of this mic.

I used the original capsule out of this mic to practise gold coating diaphragms and installing them. I think with some machining work, these capsules could actually be made to sound good, but you'll need to install new diaphragms if you do this. They are not glued to the retaining ring on this mic.

How much does the 460 cost?

To answer my own question, they're about $275 on eBay.

In Canada, $265 CDN at Long and Mcquade.

$230 from MusiciansBuy.com. Keep in mind, I know nothing of this company and don't know of their reliability. But it was one of the cheapest prices for the Apex 460 I could find.


Daniel