OK DIY'ers... here's some food for thought.
I had a look at the Aurycle info Manning sent me... looks fine if you just want to build a cheap chinese mic for the fun of the exercise... and it will probably sound OK... not great, but useable. Looking at the parts list I don't think the finished product will be much different to a garden variety MXL.
So I guess you need to make a decision as to why your doing this. If it's for the fun of making your own mic then this kit is probably a good way to go.
If you want to improve on it then throw out the caps that are in the audio path and replace with some quality parts... $10 - 15. More info on that later if the group buy goes ahead.
Next... throw in a hand selected Fet and bias it correctly.... under $5
Next improvement is to replace the transformer... $50 - 100.
Then the biggest improvement... The capsule. Good consistent quality... not Chinese... $200 and up.
So if you're going to go that far you may as well buy the U87 Clone PCB set on Group DIY and get it right from the start.
So for under $500 you could have yourself a very serious mic... not a Neumann, but definitely a contender.
That being said... you're basically paying $69 for the case, headbasket and hardware... still, that's a pretty good deal.
If you're going to do a full upgrade then I'd nearly be inclined to buy the constructed version that comes with a shockmount and aluminium case for an extra $20 and rip out the internals... but I guess that would push the postage up.
http://aurycle.com/aurycle-a460-large-d ... phone.htmlI myself prefer to grab just any chinese clone, rip out the the internal electronics and build my own thing on a perf or veroboard. The reason for this is you find that the PCB's, like the Aurycle, are designed for cheap small components, so when you try to upgrade the cheap ceramic caps to larger film caps, the lead spacings aren't right and it all gets messy.
If you're serious about it and think you'll end up doing a full upgrade then I'd get the U87 Clone PCB's... it will make life a lot easier plus the guys over at GroupDIY have put a lot of effort into arriving at that solution.
Of course there's also the Schoeps circuit, no transformer involved, so works out a bit cheaper.
I'm pretty sure these are hand selected Chinese capsules. Probably 797's.
I think there's somebody on the Micbuilders forum that's going to be manufacturing a small diaphragm capsule for under $100 if he gets enough orders. Nothing wrong with a side address SDC mic if it's got a good capsule.
Hope this helps