{"id":3554,"date":"2017-07-08T13:48:00","date_gmt":"2017-07-08T03:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2017\/07\/08\/stop-me-before-i-commit-an-electronic-atrocity\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T15:41:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T05:41:07","slug":"stop-me-before-i-commit-an-electronic-atrocity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2017\/07\/08\/stop-me-before-i-commit-an-electronic-atrocity\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop Me Before I Commit an Electronic Atrocity!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
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Sadly, not mine<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

I like the D-104 mic. I bought one from Astatic shortly before they went under and it has provided good service with many different rigs for a long time. <\/b>

<\/b> I wanted another one, primarily for my DX-100\/HQ-100 station. I saw one on e-bay and a few days later it was here. Unfortunately the seller was correct when they warned that it showed no output. I had hoped it was a problem with the amp in the base, but no, it seems that the crystal element is quite dead. It is an MC320 cartridge marked 7-77. There is an aluminum sheet at the front that is apparently supposed to be riding atop a center support that connects mechanically with the magic crystals. But it looks like a circular tent that has poked through the center support and collapsed around it. <\/b>

<\/b> Just a few years ago there were some options for replacement elements, but it seems that most of these are gone. Bob Heil does have a dynamic element replacement kit for about 68 bucks. <\/b>

<\/b> There are many schemes for putting electret elements in the old D-104 head… I was reaching for the junk box but I stopped myself. NO! I will try not to commit this kind of electronic barbarity. (I have already sinned by killing several QF-1 Q multipliers and a couple of Benton Harbor lunch boxes.) I will instead turn to the SolderSmoke brother\/sisterhood and ask if anyone out there has a crystal element that could bring this old mic back to life. My DX-100 deserves nothing less. <\/b>

<\/b> Anyone have a D-104 crystal element in their junk box?<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sadly, not mine I like the D-104 mic. I bought one from Astatic shortly before they went under and it has provided good service with many different rigs for a long time. I wanted another one, primarily for my DX-100\/HQ-100 station. I saw one on e-bay and a few days later it was here. Unfortunately … Continue reading “Stop Me Before I Commit an Electronic Atrocity!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344,219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-heil-bob","category-microphone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3554"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3556,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3554\/revisions\/3556"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}