Crystal Balls & Hot Rods

[elliott@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

A Cyrstal Balls/Hot Rod Hybrid Mic  --  A "Crystal Rod"
--------------------------------------------------------
With all the questions (including mine) about the Crystal Balls and Hot Rod
mics... low and behold, a friend of mine has asked me to fix the connector
on his mic.  The mic was originally purchased from Kevin's as a Crystal Balls
mic.  My friend didn't like the sound, and took it to a Rod Piazza show.  
Before the gig, Rod blew through it, then blew through his mic... my friend
said the difference was night and day.  (I know what you are thinking... I'm
thought the same thing... was it REALLY the mic or did Rod blow differently or
did the amp need to be adjusted slightly for the different mic... I don't know,
but it sounds fishy...).  So, Rod offered to "Hot Rod" the mic for $65 dollars.
My friend jumped at the chance (probably not realizing that he would have
$215 invested in this mic... "Damn the money, man... I want TONE!").   He's
had the mic since October and thinks it is the best sounding mic he's ever
heard.  (I never heard him blow through it.)  Now the connector is giving
him trouble so he asked me to fix it.

How does it sound?
------------------
I haven't had much time to play with it, but I did do a 5 minute A-B test
against my original (50's?) JT-30.  The "Crystal-Rod" was louder/hotter and
feedback like crazy with the volume wide open.  With the volume turned
down a little, it didn't feed back as much and had a volume level about
the same as my JT-30 wide open.  The "Crystal-Rod" was brighter.  Also, I
did an A/B test w/my old JT-30 and my friend's old JT-30, and I couldn't
tell the difference between the two.  They sounded EXACTLY alike to me.
One had a 500K pot for volume, one had a 220K pot.

What's Inside the "Crystal-Rod"?
--------------------------------
I only had a minute to peak inside.  The element is an Astatic crystal.
There is a smear of blue paint on the back of it... makes me wonder if Rod
buys a bunch of elements and has a way of cherry-picking the "good ones"...
or if he spec'ed certain characteristics to Astatic and buys these special
elements... or maybe someone just got a smudge of paint on it.  As for the
pot, it may be a 5 MEG pot... I'll measure it later.  And there is a capacitor
in there... not sure of the value.  It seems to be wired as a treble-pass
cap.


After I have more time to play with it, I'll post more.  Also, I'll find
out what value the cap and the pot are.  BTW, the thing is a real ugly
yellow/orange color.


Later,
Elliott New