Nice mod - I'm not too surprised that supply voltage doesn't have much effect on sensitivity with an electret capsule, it's a far bigger deal with an externally polarized capsule. Looking at the schematic I was initially surprised at the lack of a source resistor on the FET, but it seems that the 2SK596 is a trick JFET with a built-in bias resistor - neat.
Done!!! It work well. That kind of strong white noise was considerably reduced at 70%! Next step is to try to replace the 16 mm capsule with a 34 mm gold plated milar one. Thank you!
This isn't so easy. That capsule is a true condenser one and needs to be polarised by something like 60-100V to work. So microphones that come with those have a second companion board to boost to higher voltage. It's probably less confusing to rebuild the electronics altogether. There is a different capsule that you can try, it's a 26mm electret condenser capsule, it should work as a direct drop in replacement. Just as long as your microphone has a JFET on the board rather than in the capsule. Neewer seem to be using one in the capsule, and also disguised a smaller capsule as a larger one.
@@SianaGearz I mounted the 34mm wide diaphragm capsule and it works well. I don't know which capsules you are taking, but this one works with 48 up to 96 V. These only the characteristics of the capsule: Specification: Element: Φ34 mm Pressure Gradient Transducer Gold-plating: Single-faced Polar Pattern: Uni-directional Frequency Response: 20Hz-20KHz Sensitivity: -33dB ± 3dB (0dB = 1V / Pa at 1KHz) Equivalent Noise Level: ≤15dB A Max. SPL input: 138dB (at 1KHz ≤1% T.H.D) Power Requirement: 48V Phantom Power Package Includes: 1 * Capsules DataCaciques
@@lucianoruggieri Well this board doesn't apply any power to the capsule itself, maybe there is some several V off the JFET bias, but certainly the 48V reach nowhere near the capsule. I'm surprised that it works.
I have a BM-700, that had no zener diode there only a little black smd part that I couldn't recognize, but the circuit looked the same apart from that. I added the capacitor and the resistor and it made the necessary improvement but later I removed the tiny black whatever it was and replaced with the 11V zener. I don't hear any difference in the recording from this last step but I'm not a measurement tool, but when I changed the speakers to a earphone I can hear some constant background noise, not very loud but it is there. Sadly it would be impossible to put the original tiny black part back to test if that had it as well because it is so tiny (probably it had) but overall I'm very happy with the results because I don't hear that in the recording. Before I had awful lot of noise I couldn't know how to remove. This is a huge improvement. Thank you! I have a new big capsule I plan to try with this. Hopefully that would improve the sound even more.
With a good preamp, it would probably be still useful even at 3 volts. Most electrets are quite happy to run at a variety of voltages, provided there is a preamp with clean gain.
I'm happy, there used to be a high pitched noise and now is gone, plus some kind of noise immunity when touching the mic. I harvested a low ESR cap from a router and ordered zener diodes, tin solder paste and a matching 1k ohm resistor. The resullt is great! There is still noise but I think it is because of my motherboard's soundcard. I'm a newbie in electronics and I really liked this little mod, it cost me more effort than necessary but hey I ended soldering a freaking 0204👍
For some reason my specific unit has an extra pcb completely unconnected from the main pcb. It just so happens that this board has a 470 Ohm resistor on it. Very convenient, I only need the capacitor now!
I have done the mod on a nw800 that is the same or the bm, the circuit is the same Just few differences in component position. The result is appreciable, I obtained that the microphone can works with less gain on the mixer/audio interface then the sound is more natural and clean. Nice idea but you don't expect a miracle mod because you have to remove the noise by post-editing if you want a very clean and perfect audio track.
Wow! I just did the hack. I used a 470ohm resistor and a 100uf 25v capacitor. So I did not changed the zener. WHAT A DIFFERENCE! The BM-800 was good, usable, but not great. Now, it is perfect! Thanks! It was a fun project!
Сделал этот мод и реально - шум снизился, а громкость поднялась. Вот теперь думаю - что ещё можно доработать, чтобы стало ещё лучше? Шума немного конечно, но хотелось бы ещё меньше. I made this mod on my chinese BM-800 and it's working! Noise reduced and volume of mic increased! So, i'm wondering - what can i do to make it more better? There is a small noise with this mod, but I'd like to reduce it more.
I surprisingly have the same exact microphone, I am considering doing this modification since the sound quality is good but there is some noticeable background noise.
So i was barely able to follow along, but I understand the idea, sort of. The bottom line, besides the modifications is that your have to run it with phantom power? 20 volts subtract the 3 from the computer , so 17 volts of phantom power? Or is it 20? And if i am assuming correctly, can you advise an affordable phantom power device that can supply the correct voltage? And the mod parts? Amazon or any local electronics dealer?
Looks like the Neewer NW-700 has a circuit that while not entirely the same, appears virtually identical in the portions relevant to this mod (Podcastage is showing board shots in his recent NW-700 re-review: ruclips.net/video/LmRFi16KTys/видео.html ). Here's a little trick: You can potentially reduce zener noise by orders of magnitude by going with a stack of 4x 2.7V in series rather than the single 11V (even 3x 3.6 V or 2x 5.6 V would be an improvement). Around 3 V it's almost entirely zener effect at work, while at higher voltages the much noisier avalanche effect is increasingly dominant. This is why zeners have a near-zero temperature coefficient around 5 V in the first place, both effects' tempcos cancel out. The downside of this trick is that zener impedance goes up considerably at low voltages, i.e. regulation becomes noticeably less tight in the face of varying zener current. It could be a factor of 3 worse with 3x 3.6 V and a factor of 6 with 4x 2.7 V, and that's compared to the 11 V which would be about a factor of 2 worse than the 9.1 V to begin with (MMBZ5221-5259BW datasheet). I am not worried about PSRR as filtering is good, but the variation of zener voltage in the whole
Im now curious how different mine would be after the mod. Becuase ive already connected a 10uf capacitor at the 2nd pin of the XLR and im planning on adding another 10k resistor on the bridged connection of the pins 1 and 3 instead of just wire.
Did you not find this mic overloads very easily? I get output clipping if the singer is closer than 0.6m from the capsule. I'm currently working on getting more volts across the collector-emitter of the two output follower transistors. Also my mic has only 0.6V across the 2k2 drain resistor (48V phantom supply). I would like to increase that.
Very clear and precise explaination. So it seems the 48v phanton power value is for antique mics. Your pc supplies just barely enough power to run the mike adequately, and about 9-12 volts are ideal. I have a czn-15n condenser mic for my presentations and plan to do similiar mode. Thanks for this.
No. Every high quality condenser microphone (ie any microphone you would actually find a studio or live sound engineer actually using) made today still requires phantom power. www.sweetwater.com/c105--Condenser_Microphones
I just did this mod but with the 470R series resistor and 100uf capacitor (no zener mod) the supply voltage for the FET is around 8.3v with this and does not appear to adversely affect sensitivity. I also doubled the 22uf and 47uf capacitors whilst I was there. The noise is now virtually undetectable when I run this on a 48v phantom, where previously it was atrocious. Thanks for the video !
Really cool hack! Have you considered soldering a 10...100nF Foil Capacitor paralell (with lower ESR an less parasitic Inductance) to the 100uF Elko in order to reduce the higher frequency part of the noise?
I'll try to do this, it's a cheap mod anyway. So I'm wondering if you just put 470 Ohm resistor as it was in the original mod you're just fine with a resistor and a 220uf 16v capacitor without the need to change a zener? - Also what's the size of the resistor so I won't have to measure it in order to find out
The higher voltage zener is necessary to make up for the voltage drop across the resistor. Without a higher voltage zener, you run the mic capsule at a lower voltage and reduce your sensitivity. The higher value resistor and higher voltage zener you run, the more damping you get, and the better noise floor you get, until you start running into resistor noise issues. My version of the mod is what worked best for me.
Just did a mod on BM 800 with 470 ohm resistor and 16v 100mF capacitor. I also did some measurement. Voltage on capacitor after the zener is 8.8v and voltage on added 16v 100mF capacitor is 7.7v. Is that 7.7v feeding the capsule with that voltage? Or should I go with 11v zener and 1Kohm so I get closer to 9v on that added 16v 100mF capacitor? I'm using Focusrite interface with 48v phantom power (funny though measuring voltage on connectors on interface is 43v, and 33v on 'entry point' on the circuit of the microphone). Circuit on the microphone is not the same layout (but same Schoeps design) with just one difference, resistors labeled 82k and 130k on original mod circuit design, are both 50k on my circuit when I measure it. I've got lower noise but not so much as I would expected. My circuit is labaled as 'HZ-002A1 2016-08-22' instead of letter 'M' like in original circuit of this mod. I have put 470 ohm resistor on the back side of the circuit board (almost impossible to put it like in original circuit layout due to elements on my board being too close to each other). If somebody has same circuit like me, feel free to contact me for info and pictures of my circuit after mod. Russian youtuber EdVanAmator did a good job by placing 16v 100mF capacitor on the more suitable position on the opposite (back) side of the circuit ("Доработка микрофона BM-800 - убираем шум и поднимаем чувствительность | Low noise hack") and he got really good results also. FFcossag, thank you so much for this mod, it is really appreciated.
I did the modification on the BM-800 with the newer HZ-002A1 2016-08-22 board. I changed the zener to a 12V one and used a 1K resistor and a 220mF 16V capacitor. De voltage over the capacitor is about 9.6 Volt. I also added a second extra capacitor of 220mF 16V parallel with the zener diode.
I have the same board on the BM800 id like more info for this Mod on this board Have you got any pics and instructions for the mod .Id really appreciate some help ..Thanks
I did part of this hack i tracked down with the 50v cap and 470ohm cap. It drops the voltage down from 9.06v to 7.44v... Next I'm going to try and replace the noisy zener with a 10v Schottky which should give a cleaner, more responsive signal.
Would 10v Schottky diode also work? and what mV or current one should choose when selecting this 11v or 10v diode? Thank you for this mod. Is noise floor now completely gone or up to par with AT2020 mic? Just curious.
Hi, i received a bm-800 for christmas but the pcb that it came with is way smaller than the one in the video. can anyone tell me where i can buy a pcb to make it sound better?
Have you tried shunting the 1k resistor and using 5-6V zener instead of 9.1V/11V? I got even lower noise this way. By the way, the PNP in phase splitter cascade is upside down (polarity reversed).
I haven't really experimented much beyond the result in the video, it's good enough for me. A lower voltage should drop your noise, but it should also wreck your sensitivity.
No, hence my first post hinting how to improve your "hack". You probably hacked the microphone blindfolded, knowing little what you are actually doing. When I hacked my BM-800, I ran a few SPICE models, then experimented a bit, now my BM-800 can easily compete with top of the line Sennheiser and Behringer models. Obviously, it wasn't just a zener and a resistor, but on your scale of understanding, I gave you a tip how to improve your hack further.
Alright, have fun with it. Assuredly you can't blame me for not assuming such effort to lie behind a mere RUclips comment, as this lowly channel rarely is graced by the likes of your expertise. Please accept my sincerest apology for this most rude misunderstanding on my part. lol.
Well im half deaf and use a crappy laptop, but lower than 5v it sounds much quieter. The noise i never noticed on your audio anyway, can you hear it on your videos?
Hi just found this mod and the two BM800 Microphones I have have.a 3.1V zener instead of 9V otherwise the circuit is identical ? Added the Cap and resistor not sure if I should change the Zener ?
Hello, I have performed this mod and tested It with with my Behringer 802 mixer and UM204 interface - in both cases, mic worked okay (Note: phantom power needed to be ON). Though being unsatisfied with this particular mic (seeking for better quality), I bought the original BM-800 (which costs 5x more) and now I am trying to modify it, or rather rebuild the circuit board from scratch. I researched and found similar circuit schematics to this fake BM-800 and what's been bugging me is that the schematic shows this strange rectangular area, similar to what this BM-800 has (on both sides of the board). Do you know what the purpose of this rectangle is?
Could i use a 12v zener and increase the resistor value? i don't have a 11v zener... also, i heard there 2 types of zener, and one of them is much more noisy (on eevblog series of mic design). also, if using a 470ohm resistor, do i need to change the zener? or it will reduce the sensitivity? thanks! (PS: some bm-800 are coming with a new capsule, with the fet inside the capsule, any info on those?)
I haven't tried any of the new BM-800s. As for your modifications, the goal is to have as clean a 9 V supply as possible for the capsule. The resistor and capacitor just form an RC filter, and the higher value resistor the more damping you'll get - you just need to adjust the zener to match the voltage drop across the resistor.
Hello, i have a Alctron mc410.In Europe is this a Fame cm2. i have the same problem...noise. is it posible to mod this mic? (Super mod for the bm800 mic)
After watching this video, thinking about modifying my cheap bm 800, hoping it might sound like $$$ type microphone... listening to your instructions and all... to be honest... I have no clue whatsoever or rather I am a clueless clown trying to be a smartass... I gladly buried my intention of doing it, knowing the fact that I can never understand what you were saying and fearing being electrocuted and accidentally blowing the entire house down... Thank you for your video but no thanks... I decided to save up as much as I can and hope to get meself a real $$$ microphone, 5 years later😁
Hi. I did your mod, but the noise increased a lot and the mic gain reduced. I guess that is either because I used not an "original" cable, or because I didn't put a 11v zener, I left a 9v one. What do you think could the noise increasement and gain reduction be about? Thanks
Well, yeah, forgot to mention that I have an ESI maya 44 card which produces about 52v of phantom. And I got that leaving a 9v zener was kinda naive) So I'll go ONLY with an 11v zener, probably will test it tomorrow. But could you tell me about the cable? The thing is that I resoldered the XLR connector of the "original" cable that came with the mic into a TRS balanced for my Maya. I was thinking like 1-ground 2-tip 3-ring But this seems kinda wrong, am I right? What is the proper cable wiring, could you please tell me?
Probably you tested mic after modification without aseembling it back into it's metallic tubing case. I got the noise too when mic was disassembled. Just assemble all parts together and the huge noise will dissappear! MAGIC!))) (not really, just a Pharadey cage)
Hi Tomxico here from Portugal. My studio condenser mic works just fine but sometimes then the signal is very low or even vanish away. Is there a bad capacitor or something ? It's not about fantom Power cos I have oneother condenser mic and works just fine. Can someone help me ? Please I am locked a home due to the virus. Heath to you all. Thanks
I agree. There is no capacitor after the emitter follower, and the noise in the voltage regulating transistor is not bypassed in any way. I suggest a combination of an electrolytic capacitor (e.g. 10µF) in parallel with a ceramic capacitor (e.g. 470pF). The reason why is that electrolytic capacitors have some reactance at higher frequencies were the ceramic type will compensate. Beside that - this is a great microphone with a quite large membrane electret element for it's price.
So, err... I bought a Floureon BM-800 and mine came with an additional blank circuit board. As if it's meant to be there for "repair" purposes. I'm wondering what to do with it!
Could you post links on where to get the required circuit components for those of us who never bought such things I.E mouser links. Last time I bought any circuit components I was in middle school and went to radio shack xD. It would be a tremendous help I don't want to end up getting the wrong stuff.
hi... tks lot i have this mic and i love his sound but it is unasble becose his floor noise like sssssshhhsssssss.. so my question is.. i must just replace 3 things like u descrive in video.. and i still put the mike in my card focusrite via xlr cable with phantom power on? tks lot for ur video..!"
@@FFcossag Why would that be? They work fine without modification, if anything, it puts out a more powerful signal than ideal, they gain on the interface needs to be very low to get a good signal strength.
Hi, please help. Today I got my BM 800 and was immediately disappointed because of the high noise level and low signal level (i have phantom power 48v and sound card Asus). According to your instructions, I added a capacitor of 16 volts 470 microfarads and a resistor 1k (also tried 360 ohm but did not notice the difference). I did not change the zender because I dont have it. Then I checked and was disappointed, the noise remained, exactly the same. But I noticed that I have 6.7 volts on the capsule and I think the whole problem is in this?
I'll gonna do this.. :D good thing I have ECE background way back when I was still studying... :D Tnx man.. :D What would be the rating of the 1K ohm resistor? how much WATT is it?
I wonder if you add a decoupling capacitor, like a 100nF ceramic one over the 100uF one if it would improve even more. I used to place lots of those 100nF caps at nearly every active component since they seem to 'clamp' more HF noise. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoupling_capacitor
I tried having a small film cap in parallel with the big one, and it did nothing. I figure that a 100 µF elco will have decent performance even well above the audible band, so damping further HF stuff wouldn't bring forth much gain.
A film cap doesn't have the same small 'resistance' as a ceramic one. Anyway you can easily salvage them from dumpster pcb's and add them. I've seen some nice spikes being destroyed by these little fellows, so what doesn't hurt ... . Just stay away from Tantalum capacitors. Those have very nice specs but will fail ugly most of the time, like in shorten all at once.
Decoupling never hurts, but we're talking about a linear regulator here. There's going to be very little HF noise in it to filter out unless it's broken.
The 78XX series regulators are way more hi-tech than the circuit in this microphone, and they're prone to oscillating without some input and output capacitance - you'll notice that they usually only spec a tiny capacitor on the output. Quoting TI's datasheet, "Although no output capacitor is needed for stability, it does help transient response." Again, I'm not arguing that an extra 100 nF cap would be BAD - I'm saying that it'd be superfluous in this circuit. There's nothing there to generate HF noise (there isn't even a feedback loop), and noise above 20 kHz in a microphone is barely worth considering on its own unless it's causing more severe issues.
@@FFcossag what components should i use for the same purpose as the comment above, would any standard set of parts work or would I need to hunt down higher end parts?
From the sound tests I have heard the NW actually sounds a little better than the BM, I might buy both with hopes that they have similar circuits, enough to make this mod good for both at least. Need some options for recording guitar cabs!
@@ballsrgrossnugly I got one recently myself, and the noise isn't too bad unmodified as long as you're using an audio interface I'll let you know if I ever open it up
I did find this teardown, it looks like some of this might have already been done on the NW, there are a couple of chunky elec caps on the back of the board. ruclips.net/video/lA-7ngwqg3s/видео.html
@@CleggyCool Awesome, good to know! I am going to have a closer look at the teardown and compare, but I think I'll have to look up specific mods for the NW, as it seems to be different enough!
@@stevensanju Hi! Can you tell me, what's the difference between standart capsule in chinese BM-800 and TSB-2555B? Did you make this modification? Can you record sound before\after mod?
When you talk you use some other microphone and I constantly hear constant electric white noise and even AC power supply frequency in my headphones. You show voltage meter instead. Of course it's seen visually, but it should be supported with some audio change. What the point? Anyway thanks for the video
Hi. I don't know enough of electronic stuff. ...Actually I don't know anything. Anyway, I can't find a 100μF - 16 V capacitor. I found a 100μF 35V cacapitor. Can I, however, use it for this hack?
i have the same mic ,but i use this without 48v phantom ,because im using a USB sound card betwen mic and my computer , better sound ,and NO noise , you can try test this in audacity with and without usb sound card . ;)
I did this mod , but the 100ohm and new zener did not work for me so i did the orignal mod and it works a treat . The noise floor was so bad i had to use a high pass filter and a 26db pad, and the pre amp maxed. Now both are off and the pre amp is down to 30% . Before instaud.io/1c8M After instaud.io/1c8L Please excuse the church bells in the background.
I have no idea what anything you were talking about was.
kkk.Approved change to microphone. Thank you!
Hahaha I was thinking the same thing .. you typed my comment for me ... lol
Really have no freaking idea whatsoever you're blabbing about...
This modification worked so well for me! The quality of the sound sky rocketed. I am using a focusrite as phantompower.
This mod works very well in my use cases. Now I can use BM800 at group calls without annoying noise
Thank You!
Nice mod - I'm not too surprised that supply voltage doesn't have much effect on sensitivity with an electret capsule, it's a far bigger deal with an externally polarized capsule. Looking at the schematic I was initially surprised at the lack of a source resistor on the FET, but it seems that the 2SK596 is a trick JFET with a built-in bias resistor - neat.
"calibrated snake oil detector" good one right there =)
Done!!! It work well. That kind of strong white noise was considerably reduced at 70%! Next step is to try to replace the 16 mm capsule with a 34 mm gold plated milar one. Thank you!
This isn't so easy. That capsule is a true condenser one and needs to be polarised by something like 60-100V to work. So microphones that come with those have a second companion board to boost to higher voltage. It's probably less confusing to rebuild the electronics altogether.
There is a different capsule that you can try, it's a 26mm electret condenser capsule, it should work as a direct drop in replacement. Just as long as your microphone has a JFET on the board rather than in the capsule. Neewer seem to be using one in the capsule, and also disguised a smaller capsule as a larger one.
@@SianaGearz I mounted the 34mm wide diaphragm capsule and it works well. I don't know which capsules you are taking, but this one works with 48 up to 96 V.
These only the characteristics of the capsule:
Specification:
Element: Φ34 mm Pressure Gradient Transducer
Gold-plating: Single-faced
Polar Pattern: Uni-directional
Frequency Response: 20Hz-20KHz
Sensitivity: -33dB ± 3dB (0dB = 1V / Pa at 1KHz)
Equivalent Noise Level: ≤15dB A
Max. SPL input: 138dB (at 1KHz ≤1% T.H.D)
Power Requirement: 48V Phantom Power
Package Includes: 1 * Capsules
DataCaciques
@@lucianoruggieri Well this board doesn't apply any power to the capsule itself, maybe there is some several V off the JFET bias, but certainly the 48V reach nowhere near the capsule. I'm surprised that it works.
I've been looking for this for years
I actually wanted to see a review of this mic, but stumbled over this video.
Very informative, you just got yourself a new sub.
Glad to hear it.
I have a BM-700, that had no zener diode there only a little black smd part that I couldn't recognize, but the circuit looked the same apart from that. I added the capacitor and the resistor and it made the necessary improvement but later I removed the tiny black whatever it was and replaced with the 11V zener. I don't hear any difference in the recording from this last step but I'm not a measurement tool, but when I changed the speakers to a earphone I can hear some constant background noise, not very loud but it is there. Sadly it would be impossible to put the original tiny black part back to test if that had it as well because it is so tiny (probably it had) but overall I'm very happy with the results because I don't hear that in the recording. Before I had awful lot of noise I couldn't know how to remove. This is a huge improvement. Thank you!
I have a new big capsule I plan to try with this. Hopefully that would improve the sound even more.
Did the capsule work well?
With a good preamp, it would probably be still useful even at 3 volts. Most electrets are quite happy to run at a variety of voltages, provided there is a preamp with clean gain.
I'm happy, there used to be a high pitched noise and now is gone, plus some kind of noise immunity when touching the mic. I harvested a low ESR cap from a router and ordered zener diodes, tin solder paste and a matching 1k ohm resistor. The resullt is great! There is still noise but I think it is because of my motherboard's soundcard.
I'm a newbie in electronics and I really liked this little mod, it cost me more effort than necessary but hey I ended soldering a freaking 0204👍
For some reason my specific unit has an extra pcb completely unconnected from the main pcb. It just so happens that this board has a 470 Ohm resistor on it. Very convenient, I only need the capacitor now!
Really nice mod, sounds better. Thank you for the info.
I've done the mod but...will it continue to work with phantom or do I change the value of the condensers (60V) and the zener (what voltage?)?
I have done the mod on a nw800 that is the same or the bm, the circuit is the same Just few differences in component position. The result is appreciable, I obtained that the microphone can works with less gain on the mixer/audio interface then the sound is more natural and clean. Nice idea but you don't expect a miracle mod because you have to remove the noise by post-editing if you want a very clean and perfect audio track.
Wow! I just did the hack. I used a 470ohm resistor and a 100uf 25v capacitor. So I did not changed the zener. WHAT A DIFFERENCE! The BM-800 was good, usable, but not great. Now, it is perfect! Thanks! It was a fun project!
Well done!
Instablaster...
Approved, improved signal-to-noise ratio.
Can you provide the PCB schematic picture?
Сделал этот мод и реально - шум снизился, а громкость поднялась. Вот теперь думаю - что ещё можно доработать, чтобы стало ещё лучше? Шума немного конечно, но хотелось бы ещё меньше.
I made this mod on my chinese BM-800 and it's working! Noise reduced and volume of mic increased! So, i'm wondering - what can i do to make it more better? There is a small noise with this mod, but I'd like to reduce it more.
I surprisingly have the same exact microphone, I am considering doing this modification since the sound quality is good but there is some noticeable background noise.
Be sure to use 48V phantom too, as the circuit design has the lowest noise at this voltage.
I do, I have a phantom that injects 48VDC from a 9VAC power supply.
I know this is old, but I'm planning on doing the same and replacing the microphone capsule to boot
Why don't you just buy a better mic if you're going that far with the mods?
where did you get new microphone capsule?
So i was barely able to follow along, but I understand the idea, sort of. The bottom line, besides the modifications is that your have to run it with phantom power? 20 volts subtract the 3 from the computer , so 17 volts of phantom power? Or is it 20? And if i am assuming correctly, can you advise an affordable phantom power device that can supply the correct voltage? And the mod parts? Amazon or any local electronics dealer?
Looks like the Neewer NW-700 has a circuit that while not entirely the same, appears virtually identical in the portions relevant to this mod (Podcastage is showing board shots in his recent NW-700 re-review: ruclips.net/video/LmRFi16KTys/видео.html ).
Here's a little trick: You can potentially reduce zener noise by orders of magnitude by going with a stack of 4x 2.7V in series rather than the single 11V (even 3x 3.6 V or 2x 5.6 V would be an improvement). Around 3 V it's almost entirely zener effect at work, while at higher voltages the much noisier avalanche effect is increasingly dominant. This is why zeners have a near-zero temperature coefficient around 5 V in the first place, both effects' tempcos cancel out.
The downside of this trick is that zener impedance goes up considerably at low voltages, i.e. regulation becomes noticeably less tight in the face of varying zener current. It could be a factor of 3 worse with 3x 3.6 V and a factor of 6 with 4x 2.7 V, and that's compared to the 11 V which would be about a factor of 2 worse than the 9.1 V to begin with (MMBZ5221-5259BW datasheet). I am not worried about PSRR as filtering is good, but the variation of zener voltage in the whole
Im now curious how different mine would be after the mod. Becuase ive already connected a 10uf capacitor at the 2nd pin of the XLR and im planning on adding another 10k resistor on the bridged connection of the pins 1 and 3 instead of just wire.
Did you not find this mic overloads very easily? I get output clipping if the singer is closer than 0.6m from the capsule. I'm currently working on getting more volts across the collector-emitter of the two output follower transistors. Also my mic has only 0.6V across the 2k2 drain resistor (48V phantom supply). I would like to increase that.
Very clear and precise explaination. So it seems the 48v phanton power value is for antique mics. Your pc supplies just barely enough power to run the mike adequately, and about 9-12 volts are ideal. I have a czn-15n condenser mic for my presentations and plan to do similiar mode. Thanks for this.
No. Every high quality condenser microphone (ie any microphone you would actually find a studio or live sound engineer actually using) made today still requires phantom power.
www.sweetwater.com/c105--Condenser_Microphones
I just did this mod but with the 470R series resistor and 100uf capacitor (no zener mod) the supply voltage for the FET is around 8.3v with this and does not appear to adversely affect sensitivity. I also doubled the 22uf and 47uf capacitors whilst I was there. The noise is now virtually undetectable when I run this on a 48v phantom, where previously it was atrocious.
Thanks for the video !
Glad it worked out.
You replaced the 2 caps on the back ? I may try that if i can be botherd :P
Hey @Mark Herbert can i get a picture of your mod .. and what do you mean by you doubled the capacitors
Really cool hack! Have you considered soldering a 10...100nF Foil Capacitor paralell (with lower ESR an less parasitic Inductance) to the 100uF Elko in order to reduce the higher frequency part of the noise?
do you know what type number of the JFET transistors used on that board....3x PNP transistors and the one NPN transistor?
I'll try to do this, it's a cheap mod anyway. So I'm wondering if you just put 470 Ohm resistor as it was in the original mod you're just fine with a resistor and a 220uf 16v capacitor without the need to change a zener? - Also what's the size of the resistor so I won't have to measure it in order to find out
The higher voltage zener is necessary to make up for the voltage drop across the resistor. Without a higher voltage zener, you run the mic capsule at a lower voltage and reduce your sensitivity. The higher value resistor and higher voltage zener you run, the more damping you get, and the better noise floor you get, until you start running into resistor noise issues. My version of the mod is what worked best for me.
Just did a mod on BM 800 with 470 ohm resistor and 16v 100mF capacitor. I also did some measurement. Voltage on capacitor after the zener is 8.8v and voltage on added 16v 100mF capacitor is 7.7v. Is that 7.7v feeding the capsule with that voltage? Or should I go with 11v zener and 1Kohm so I get closer to 9v on that added 16v 100mF capacitor?
I'm using Focusrite interface with 48v phantom power (funny though measuring voltage on connectors on interface is 43v, and 33v on 'entry point' on the circuit of the microphone). Circuit on the microphone is not the same layout (but same Schoeps design) with just one difference, resistors labeled 82k and 130k on original mod circuit design, are both 50k on my circuit when I measure it. I've got lower noise but not so much as I would expected. My circuit is labaled as 'HZ-002A1 2016-08-22' instead of letter 'M' like in original circuit of this mod. I have put 470 ohm resistor on the back side of the circuit board (almost impossible to put it like in original circuit layout due to elements on my board being too close to each other). If somebody has same circuit like me, feel free to contact me for info and pictures of my circuit after mod.
Russian youtuber EdVanAmator did a good job by placing 16v 100mF capacitor on the more suitable position on the opposite (back) side of the circuit ("Доработка микрофона BM-800 - убираем шум и поднимаем чувствительность | Low noise hack") and he got really good results also.
FFcossag, thank you so much for this mod, it is really appreciated.
I did the modification on the BM-800 with the newer HZ-002A1 2016-08-22 board.
I changed the zener to a 12V one and used a 1K resistor and a 220mF 16V capacitor.
De voltage over the capacitor is about 9.6 Volt.
I also added a second extra capacitor of 220mF 16V parallel with the zener diode.
@@JohnD022 Hi! Can you tell me pls - why did you add extra capacitor in parallel with the zener diode? Is there any difference with\witout it?
I have the same board on the BM800 id like more info for this Mod on this board Have you got any pics and instructions for the mod .Id really appreciate some help ..Thanks
@@JohnD022 как вам написать
I did part of this hack i tracked down with the 50v cap and 470ohm cap.
It drops the voltage down from 9.06v to 7.44v...
Next I'm going to try and replace the noisy zener with a 10v Schottky which should give a cleaner, more responsive signal.
How did that 10v Schottky diode worked out for you? Also what are mV you guys are choosing when buying that diode?
What upgrades would you recommend to the Avantone Ck-6 microphone? Schematic would help?
Would 10v Schottky diode also work? and what mV or current one should choose when selecting this 11v or 10v diode? Thank you for this mod. Is noise floor now completely gone or up to par with AT2020 mic? Just curious.
Hi, i received a bm-800 for christmas but the pcb that it came with is way smaller than the one in the video. can anyone tell me where i can buy a pcb to make it sound better?
Hello sir i havebm 800 but mine circuit is slightly different can you please help me with this
Have you tried shunting the 1k resistor and using 5-6V zener instead of 9.1V/11V? I got even lower noise this way. By the way, the PNP in phase splitter cascade is upside down (polarity reversed).
I haven't really experimented much beyond the result in the video, it's good enough for me. A lower voltage should drop your noise, but it should also wreck your sensitivity.
Right, sensitivity drops approximately as if the original mike was powered with 9V, but it also notably reduces distortion.
I'd wager your noise drops by about as much as your gain, so you end up with nothing but attenuation.
No, hence my first post hinting how to improve your "hack". You probably hacked the microphone blindfolded, knowing little what you are actually doing. When I hacked my BM-800, I ran a few SPICE models, then experimented a bit, now my BM-800 can easily compete with top of the line Sennheiser and Behringer models. Obviously, it wasn't just a zener and a resistor, but on your scale of understanding, I gave you a tip how to improve your hack further.
Alright, have fun with it. Assuredly you can't blame me for not assuming such effort to lie behind a mere RUclips comment, as this lowly channel rarely is graced by the likes of your expertise. Please accept my sincerest apology for this most rude misunderstanding on my part.
lol.
Where have I seen that "calibrated snake oil detector" sticker before??
Thank you! This mod is cheap and it is working)
Well im half deaf and use a crappy laptop, but lower than 5v it sounds much quieter.
The noise i never noticed on your audio anyway, can you hear it on your videos?
can I use 1000uF capacitor?
Thanks so much! Very informative!
my bm800 has a different pcm board do u have it for different boards
Hi just found this mod and the two BM800 Microphones I have have.a 3.1V zener instead of 9V otherwise the circuit is identical ? Added the Cap and resistor not sure if I should change the Zener ?
A 3.1 V zener would just make it incredibly insensitive. It could be that yours is using a different capsle that wants a lower voltage, though.
What if the microphone is running 48v phantom power?
Good shit, thank you, just ordered the parts..
or just use a 470k resistor instead of the 1M?
Can i use 12 v zener diode?
Hello, can you help me dissect the microphone I am importing from the factory? I can send you the photos. hope you can help me
Is 20 extra microvolts of noise really that bad considering you get about 2 dB more gain at
Hello, I have performed this mod and tested It with with my Behringer 802 mixer and UM204 interface - in both cases, mic worked okay (Note: phantom power needed to be ON). Though being unsatisfied with this particular mic (seeking for better quality), I bought the original BM-800 (which costs 5x more) and now I am trying to modify it, or rather rebuild the circuit board from scratch. I researched and found similar circuit schematics to this fake BM-800 and what's been bugging me is that the schematic shows this strange rectangular area, similar to what this BM-800 has (on both sides of the board). Do you know what the purpose of this rectangle is?
I really don't know what a "strange rectangular area" in a schematic would be, sorry.
@@FFcossag Welp, okay then :D. Thanks
I have the same mic. Will try this hack. Thanks :)
Did it work
@@juliannawelch4629 a bit.
Could i use a 12v zener and increase the resistor value? i don't have a 11v zener... also, i heard there 2 types of zener, and one of them is much more noisy (on eevblog series of mic design). also, if using a 470ohm resistor, do i need to change the zener? or it will reduce the sensitivity? thanks! (PS: some bm-800 are coming with a new capsule, with the fet inside the capsule, any info on those?)
I haven't tried any of the new BM-800s. As for your modifications, the goal is to have as clean a 9 V supply as possible for the capsule. The resistor and capacitor just form an RC filter, and the higher value resistor the more damping you'll get - you just need to adjust the zener to match the voltage drop across the resistor.
Thanks. I got one of the "old ones" (like yours on the video) and will test the mods to see the results once it arrives. thanks again!
dear behringer c1 u usb mic volume very low please help us and make soloution
Hello, i have a Alctron mc410.In Europe is this a Fame cm2. i have the same problem...noise. is it posible to mod this mic? (Super mod for the bm800 mic)
After watching this video, thinking about modifying my cheap bm 800, hoping it might sound like $$$ type microphone... listening to your instructions and all... to be honest... I have no clue whatsoever or rather I am a clueless clown trying to be a smartass... I gladly buried my intention of doing it, knowing the fact that I can never understand what you were saying and fearing being electrocuted and accidentally blowing the entire house down... Thank you for your video but no thanks... I decided to save up as much as I can and hope to get meself a real $$$ microphone, 5 years later😁
hello interesting video,will this mod work on other mics?
Hi. I did your mod, but the noise increased a lot and the mic gain reduced. I guess that is either because I used not an "original" cable, or because I didn't put a 11v zener, I left a 9v one. What do you think could the noise increasement and gain reduction be about? Thanks
For the 1K resistor, you NEED to use an 11 V zener. Else the voltage across the mic capsule becomes too low.
You also NEED to use a phantom power supply for this modification to do you any good.
Well, yeah, forgot to mention that I have an ESI maya 44 card which produces about 52v of phantom. And I got that leaving a 9v zener was kinda naive) So I'll go ONLY with an 11v zener, probably will test it tomorrow. But could you tell me about the cable? The thing is that I resoldered the XLR connector of the "original" cable that came with the mic into a TRS balanced for my Maya. I was thinking like 1-ground 2-tip 3-ring But this seems kinda wrong, am I right? What is the proper cable wiring, could you please tell me?
Probably you tested mic after modification without aseembling it back into it's metallic tubing case. I got the noise too when mic was disassembled. Just assemble all parts together and the huge noise will dissappear! MAGIC!))) (not really, just a Pharadey cage)
are you using bm-800 in this video?
"Calibrated snake oil detector" - ROFLOL!
Hi Tomxico here from Portugal. My studio condenser mic works just fine but sometimes then the signal is very low or even vanish away. Is there a bad capacitor or something ? It's not about fantom Power cos I have oneother condenser mic and works just fine. Can someone help me ? Please I am locked a home due to the virus. Heath to you all.
Thanks
I agree. There is no capacitor after the emitter follower, and the noise in the voltage regulating transistor is not bypassed in any way. I suggest a combination of an electrolytic capacitor (e.g. 10µF) in parallel with a ceramic capacitor (e.g. 470pF). The reason why is that electrolytic capacitors have some reactance at higher frequencies were the ceramic type will compensate. Beside that - this is a great microphone with a quite large membrane electret element for it's price.
Can you show what parts i need and where to add them? Does you mod compatible with mod described in video?
hey what do I need to study o what course shoud I take to understand and apply this kind of stuff?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohm%27s_law
Neat mod there, I have one of these just sat in a box (because it was utter crap), so may just do this mod myself too... :)
So, err... I bought a Floureon BM-800 and mine came with an additional blank circuit board. As if it's meant to be there for "repair" purposes. I'm wondering what to do with it!
Let it sit there, it's likely some kind of shielding.
Same Pcb with no SMDs
it's must have any battery?
Great video. Does this mod help in getting a higher max spl before distortion?
No, it shouldn't.
Could you post links on where to get the required circuit components for those of us who never bought such things I.E mouser links. Last time I bought any circuit components I was in middle school and went to radio shack xD. It would be a tremendous help I don't want to end up getting the wrong stuff.
For this project, pretty much any components with the written values will work fine. It's not critical at all, you can't go wrong.
@FFcossag I would like to do this on my mxl 770, do you know how ?
I'm not familiar with that model.
hi... tks lot i have this mic and i love his sound but it is unasble becose his floor noise like sssssshhhsssssss.. so my question is.. i must just replace 3 things like u descrive in video.. and i still put the mike in my card focusrite via xlr cable with phantom power on? tks lot for ur video..!"
Yes.
I got a buzzing noise when i did this.. Help!!
use a phantom power more than 12 volts, use a quality xlr cable, use a usb sound card too, reduce microphone gain from pc/mac/dslr
will this modified mic work fine with an audio interface?
Yup, but it might not like 48 V phantom power.
FFcossag ahh i see thanks!
@@FFcossag Why would that be? They work fine without modification, if anything, it puts out a more powerful signal than ideal, they gain on the interface needs to be very low to get a good signal strength.
can i install common resistor for 1K ohm R (not SMD)?
There's no difference between SMD and through-hole resistors, other than the size.
@@FFcossag okay thanks
can you do a video on how you have connected to the PSU
I built a magic black box to do that, lol. I don't remember exactly which circuit I used.
15v phantom power or more. Would the 48v on most interfaces be too much?
I'd imagine it's fine.
Hi, please help.
Today I got my BM 800 and was immediately disappointed because of the high noise level and low signal level (i have phantom power 48v and sound card Asus). According to your instructions, I added a capacitor of 16 volts 470 microfarads and a resistor 1k (also tried 360 ohm but did not notice the difference). I did not change the zender because I dont have it.
Then I checked and was disappointed, the noise remained, exactly the same.
But I noticed that I have 6.7 volts on the capsule and I think the whole problem is in this?
Use XLR Audio Interface
Why not? It's depicted on scheme.
Just assemble it into it's metal case, and noise will dissappear!
This stuff is not dedicated to musicians. They recognize only a shape and a brand. Otherwise excellent upgrade.
hey, can you use this mod together with phantom power or audio interface that has 48v
No, it'd go up in smoke.
@@FFcossag welll, okay.... i mean, if i want to use it with phantom power, should i change the cap to at least 50v ?
@@FFcossag WTF? works perfectly fine on 48V. the cap can never see more than Zener voltage anyway.
I'll gonna do this.. :D good thing I have ECE background way back when I was still studying... :D Tnx man.. :D
What would be the rating of the 1K ohm resistor? how much WATT is it?
The current is so small that it hardly matters, I used an 0603.
Is there any difference if I use a 12V zener diode... 11v is quite rare here in my place.
I'd say it's probably fine.
Thank you very much m8 ... :D
I wonder if you add a decoupling capacitor, like a 100nF ceramic one over the 100uF one if it would improve even more.
I used to place lots of those 100nF caps at nearly every active component since they seem to 'clamp' more HF noise.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoupling_capacitor
I tried having a small film cap in parallel with the big one, and it did nothing. I figure that a 100 µF elco will have decent performance even well above the audible band, so damping further HF stuff wouldn't bring forth much gain.
A film cap doesn't have the same small 'resistance' as a ceramic one. Anyway you can easily salvage them from dumpster pcb's and add them. I've seen some nice spikes being destroyed by these little fellows, so what doesn't hurt ... . Just stay away from Tantalum capacitors. Those have very nice specs but will fail ugly most of the time, like in shorten all at once.
Decoupling never hurts, but we're talking about a linear regulator here. There's going to be very little HF noise in it to filter out unless it's broken.
Just look up some 7805 reference schematics ;-)
The 78XX series regulators are way more hi-tech than the circuit in this microphone, and they're prone to oscillating without some input and output capacitance - you'll notice that they usually only spec a tiny capacitor on the output. Quoting TI's datasheet, "Although no output capacitor is needed for stability, it does help transient response."
Again, I'm not arguing that an extra 100 nF cap would be BAD - I'm saying that it'd be superfluous in this circuit. There's nothing there to generate HF noise (there isn't even a feedback loop), and noise above 20 kHz in a microphone is barely worth considering on its own unless it's causing more severe issues.
почему неправильная схема ? резистор 2.7К должен идти с коллектора а не с эмиттера
Can I used it directly on PC? Pls reply
Yes but it doesn't work very well.
@@FFcossag thank you
Hi new sub here. I use one of those mics on my ham radio. Is this mod worth doing if it's run from a full 48 volt phantom power supply?
As long as you use components capable of handling the voltage, you could achieve lower noise, yes.
@@FFcossag what components should i use for the same purpose as the comment above, would any standard set of parts work or would I need to hunt down higher end parts?
Does anyone know if the circuit is the same in a NW800? It seems like it's a clone of this mic, but it's a bit cheaper
From the sound tests I have heard the NW actually sounds a little better than the BM, I might buy both with hopes that they have similar circuits, enough to make this mod good for both at least. Need some options for recording guitar cabs!
@@ballsrgrossnugly I got one recently myself, and the noise isn't too bad unmodified as long as you're using an audio interface
I'll let you know if I ever open it up
I did find this teardown, it looks like some of this might have already been done on the NW, there are a couple of chunky elec caps on the back of the board.
ruclips.net/video/lA-7ngwqg3s/видео.html
@@CleggyCool Awesome, good to know! I am going to have a closer look at the teardown and compare, but I think I'll have to look up specific mods for the NW, as it seems to be different enough!
Is a 11v Zener or 2v Zener?
It's definitely not a 2 V zener.
So weird question but would I blow something if I install a 16v 1000uf capacitor instead of 100uf if I salvage it from a pc motherboard?
It'd likely work fine.
Thank you I wasn't sure. In your linked pics you replaced it with a 25v 10uf capacitor and I was wondering if that improved anything?
I don't recall exactly what I did. The value of the capacitor is not critical.
Yes, the Transsound capsule will improve it immensely.
@@stevensanju Hi! Can you tell me, what's the difference between standart capsule in chinese BM-800 and TSB-2555B? Did you make this modification? Can you record sound before\after mod?
When you talk you use some other microphone and I constantly hear constant electric white noise and even AC power supply frequency in my headphones. You show voltage meter instead. Of course it's seen visually, but it should be supported with some audio change. What the point? Anyway thanks for the video
My set-up was really bad back when I made this video.
DO YOU STILL HAVE THE PARTS OF THAT DEAD PROJECTOR?
NO I DO NOT, THAT VIDEO IS TWO YEARS OLD.
+FFcossag okay anything else you have to giveaway?
If I do, you'll see it in a video.
+FFcossag okay boss
Good Job
Hi. I don't know enough of electronic stuff. ...Actually I don't know anything.
Anyway, I can't find a 100μF - 16 V capacitor.
I found a 100μF 35V cacapitor. Can I, however, use it for this hack?
If it fits, sure.
thank you
does the bm 800 work on win 10?
I want to say yes, but if there's one thing which could be incompatible with something as simple as an analogue XLR mic, it'd be Windows 10.
legend
Calibrated Snake Oil Detector hahahahaha
We use it!
I didnt understand anything
After this, upgrade the capsule to 25mm back electret one, then it will be the big different...
Did it work? Pls reply, I need you
didnt work. still noisy
i have the same mic ,but i use this without 48v phantom ,because im using a USB sound card betwen mic and my computer , better sound ,and NO noise , you can try test this in audacity with and without usb sound card . ;)
It works better than tiny mics on sound card power, but sensitivity is way down compared to when it's used with a real PSU.
I done that and I heard exactly nothing. Switched to my Behringer audio Mixer and got extremely good audio
I did this mod , but the 100ohm and new zener did not work for me so i did the orignal mod and it works a treat . The noise floor was so bad i had to use a high pass filter and a 26db pad, and the pre amp maxed.
Now both are off and the pre amp is down to 30% .
Before instaud.io/1c8M
After instaud.io/1c8L
Please excuse the church bells in the background.
Oh and funny story i was testng it out of the case and there was a loud hum , i put the case back on and it went away .... no idea why.
@@andljoy Yes, the case used as a Pharadey's cage for this schematic.
Just plug your xlr cable in the back of your pc