The body he chose is a little smaller than most of the “karaoke” electrets, but is very much like a Universal China Mic in construction. There are a couple of changes. The chassis base, side rails, and capsule mounting plate are a single zinc casting instead of a base casting with stamped steel side rails and top plate. The headbasket has a single layer of heavy mesh lined with a couple of millimeters of open cell urethane foam. These changes don’t affect the usability as a donor chassis, and lower cost. I’ve seen the Neewer NW-700 under $15 with free shipping. It even includes a shock mount! The OEM internals are similar to the karaoke mics I’ve covered previously.

Alex used Scott Helmke’s “Alice” circuit with the addition of a pair of resistors to bias the FET gate and a Transound TSB2555B large diaphragm electret capsule.

Something like this if I remember. He used a type J305 FET, and this bias resulted in the best combination of headroom and harmonic distortion.

Our Hero

Other modded UCMs

So the all-important question, what does it sound like? IMHO it sounds like an expensive and sophisticated mic. The standard test sample is here. Mono, this time since there is only one mic.

This combo of capsule and circuit certainly bears further investigation. Lots of bang for your buck.