In our days „vintage-microphone“ has become a well-known word and I started collecting mics, too. I started looking around for mics in 1984, when I found one in my grandpas celler. I was lucky, it was a Telefunken moving-coil microphone and I’m proud to say that it’s still in my collection. In the beginning it was just a useful thing, and I was glad to have a vocal mic in my first band. But I was fascinated by the design of those old mics and so things started. I was a well known visitor on flea-markets, looking for mics, and started wheeling and dealing in the United States. There I found my first American made mics at Antique mals and traded some german stuff with collectors. It was a shame, some of the microphones were in such a bad shape that I wasn’t able to use them. Nobody was there to help me restoring them. Of course, even the broken mics had a value for me, but I wasn’t satisfied. As a singer in a band, I always wanted to use the “original” mics from the 40ies and 50ies, but those ones that were in good and working shape. That’s why I started doing the restoring work myself and in the beginning some of the mics lost their lives. I began with “body-work” and easy jobs, but later on, I risked repairing the heart of the mic: the cartridge. By talking to other collectors and employes of well-known microphone producers, I gained my experiences. Bill Hayes from Annaheim CA, was one the guys I will always remember. Bill is a retired microphone engineer with knowledge of the first microphone years. He spend some years of his live working for “Altec”, the microphone company. And it was him, who showed me how to change a moving coil at a „Western Electric / Altec 633“. Also Jim Webb from Los Angeles CA, a famous sound engineer in the movie business, gave me some tips and told me how to change the ribbon of an RCA mic. Those of you, who already tried to change this tiny little thing in a ribbon-mic, know how hard this job is, the ribbon is more than fragile.
Today I’m happy to say that more and more people from all over the world contact me and ask for assistance, and usually I can help. I love this microphone hobby and it always gives me a variation to my job as a professional singer on stage!
And this is why I built this page, to give more “microphone-nuts-people” the chance to contact me and help them with questions concerning „vintage-mikes“.
So if you have any questions or suggestions, please send me a mail with the “contact” button.
Trying to finace my hobby I listed some double mics from my collection under “microphones”, for trade or sell. There you will find famous brands, such as: Neumann, Telefunken, Sennheiser, Siemens, AKG, RCA, Altec, American, Shure Brothers, Western Electric, Electro-Voice, Remler, Universal, Turner, Astatic, Brush, Tannoy, Reslo, Amperite, Continental a. o. If you are looking for something you can’t find in my “microphone” list, please send a mail.
During the years I stocked so many parts, such as connectors, switches, tubes, stands, transformers ,microphone-parts, adapters, spare-parts for mikes and other things concerning mics and recording, that I listed some of it at the page „miscellaneous“. Again, if you are looking for weired stuff, please mail and I will try to help.
And now enjoy the “vintage-microphone” homepage!