CM Ribbon
Manufacturer:
CMModel:
RibbonCountry of Manufacture:
ItalyMicrophone Type:
RibbonPolar Pattern:
Figure 8Production Start Year:
1950Rarity:
5
Technical Description:
MoMics view
We know almost nothing about this microphone or the company that made it, except that it was acquired from an Italian seller in Milan in 2013.
This design is broadly based on the RCA 74B, with a long broad ribbon and large magnets at the rear. It has a high impedance output transformer and an unbalanced amphenol type connector. It is however a lesson in how not to make a ribbon microphone. Perhaps the major flaw is the positioning of the magnets, the poles of which do not make intimate contact with the steel pole pieces that connect to the ribbon. Consequently the magnetic field measures about 600 gauss, and the output signal is very weak. The high impedance transfomer is large and inefficient too.
Milan seems to have been a hotbed of creativity for the Italian audio industry in the 1950s, with other brands and models such as DoReMi and VAAM also working in the city. Perhaps the M in CM stands for Milan?
