Coles 4104 Lip Microphone - poor quality after cleaning

paulears

paulears

Veteran
One for the experts here. I've had a Coles Lip mic for quite a while, and it's had fairly hard use, but worked very well. Removing the front guard to give it a clean, I thought that as these get a bit unpleasant, maybe now was the time to dismantle the mic itself and give that a clean. I took off the lip guard assembly, and removed the rounded edged rectangular front grill. Inside were two back to back thin fine mesh screens and I split these up and took them out. I also removed the front and rear hemispheres, but inside, the condition was spotless, and I left the pinkish gauze in place. The two mesh filters when I tried to blow through seemed blocked, so I gently soaked them in some biological cleaner, took them out, blew through them (with little difference, I noted) and then re-assembled. When I plugged it in, the sound from the usual front position was very thin and weedy. The rear and sides have much 'fatter' sound. The normal position was always flatter - on these mics, rather like using an omni mic up close instead of a cardioid - but now the 'flat' has become 'thin' and also very quiet. Speaking into the rear of the mic produces more level than the front, so I also seem to have lost much of the isolation I used to have.

The only think I can think of is that the two back-to-back filters have (had) aligned holes, and my re-assembly has offset them enough to effectively block the sound getting through.

Has anyone experienced this - these filters could have been factory sealed together, and I just pulled them apart thinking they were just stuck together by spit? If I use the filter paper between the metal shield and the removable lip guard plate, as I usually do for hygiene, the sound is even more useless.

I'm stuck - I've no idea what I've done. The internals have not been touched at all - just the filters.
 
From a far distant memory, you might have mucked the ribbon up. 'The corrugated aluminium ribbon is protected by fine woven nylon gauze'.

More recall, Coles is about 2hrs drive from you, a box of sandwiches and a nice day out. HTH.

Cheers.
 
Thanks Allan - I'm pretty certain I've not damaged the ribbon. Removing the front and rear hemispheres revealed the inside was spotless, so the actual innards didn't get touched. Just the shields - which is what confuses me even more!
 
I have never taken one of these apart but it may be that you have nipped something inside and it has affected the ribbon assembly.

I have a couple of old ones here and will have a look later.
 
Nope - I even emailed Coles and got no response, so it's in the box of kit labelled - duff. I always mean to get around to fixing kit in it, not having the need to throw the contents. However, I did find a Sony video 8 handycam in there, with nightshot, and this I have fixed, and it records plays and sees in the dark! The fault that put it in the box was so simple. The battery pack on the back was a dead short circuit. Taking the flat battery off, connecting the mains unit and a different battery it burst into life - shows not throwing things away in anger works!
 
paulears said:
Nope - I even emailed Coles and got no response, so it's in the box of kit labelled - duff.
Click to expand...

Canford Audio sell the Coles microphones and have a superb technical department.

I would give Canford a ring and say that you are having trouble contacting Coles and they should be able to give you contact details so you can maybe ring them instead.

It *is* easy for e-mails to go astray - get blocked as spam, get lost among a large number of e-mails so they get missed / forgotten, get deleted en-route or get stuck in a server that goes faulty, etc...
 
I too have an old sony video 8 camera with nightshoot so if you ever need a two camera retro shoot give me a shout.

I also have two lip ribbons if you need any of those now that yours has sadly demised. :happy:
 
Nobody mentioned this but does anybody here actually take their mics apart? If you are experienced with mic repair maybe, on a toss away maybe. Truthfully out side of the "I'm on location and have no choice" I don't know any professionals who would open a mic to "clean it". You send them to people who know what they are doing. It's not a lawnmower, there are very fragile parts inside that were assembled in near clean room conditions. It's not something you just open up to see if it's dirty.

Just wanted to say that for the less experienced folks who might pop into this thread.

Don't open up the capsules to "fix" things unless you are willing to toss it. The odds are much higher that you will damage the mic than improve it.


I'm someone who has always been on the 'open it up and look" side of things. And I have opened a few mics in my time. And I'm fairly experienced with electronics and clean conditions and have all the little tools to fiddle with tiny parts. But I don't open any mic with out knowing it may well be the last time it works as it should.
 
Having spent the best part of the afternoon repairing a Playstation headset with a broken wire - I'm only to aware of the dangers. I had to go and buy a tiny bit for the iron. Being a non-games player, I assumed the headsets I see people wearing are just like any other headset. Not so! The little box with the volume controls and switches is a USB interface, and is full of surface mounted devices, tiny pads and STILL the little short (1m) cable to the headphones uses multi core tinsel cable - YUK!

John, never thought of calling Canford -- I should have done that first! Thanks.
 
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