I must confess, I've made a mistake. I've jumped to conclusions, and it came back and bit me.
The recent SM57 acquisition is a much tougher nut to crack.
I did all of the soldering I had mentioned before, using shrink tubing to ensure a good connection and no shorting. After doing all of that work, nothing. No signal.
I eventually got to the point where I had to remove the R57 capsule from its housing and discovered the real culprit: a coil wire had broken.
Anyone who has worked on SM57s know it's a death sentence for these microphones if the coil wire breaks, especially right near the diaphragm. The only way to restore the microphone would be to remove the diaphragm, unwind the coil a couple turns, re-secure the coil wire, and find some way to precisely return the diaphragm. Near-impossible, and if you pull it off, you have a slightly underwound coil. Probably not enough to make any difference, but this is the sort of work that needs to be disclosed to any would-be buyers and would undoubtedly sell for less. There's just no longer any profit in it.
So what I've done for now is tabled the SM57. My plan is to eventually buy a replacement R57 capsule and wire it into the body, whose transformer should likely influence the sound and make the closest thing to vintage as possible, and keep it. Better yet, buy a used SM57, just in case there is a transformer issue too. Unfortunatly, I have no way to know for sure since the capsule is beyond repair.
Ugh, this is the first time I've had something that's been deemed "un-fixable" -- heck, even Shure's service work with that type of issue consists of sending you a replacement microphone. I could actually do that, but it'd cost $55 and I'd lose the Unidyne and gain a MIM Shure SM57. Just not what I'm up for.
Besides, I already have a sweet instrument microphone. I'll probably put this microphone aside and wait until the right opportunity presents itself. I was hoping for a tech article, but alas. Such is the way things work.
~C
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