We are proud to announce the WA-8000 mod at long last, the final entry in our series of Warm Audio tube mic mods! We saved the best for last, and I'm happy to finally go over all that we discovered and all that we do for this upgrade.
Starting with the power supply, all electrolytic capacitors are replaced with the highest grade capacitors possible. Additional work is done to re-flow and tidy up the board, improving safety and grounding scheme. Some wire is replaced with higher end wire and signal paths are shortened. The internal infrastructure is beefed up, with improved support for the power indicator enclosure and our other usual improvements, and lubrication is used where needed on internal connections (fuse, LED, etc).
We worked with Sparkos Laboratories to create a new and very special discrete regulator just for this application. As some may know, the filament voltage for the 6au6 valve is 6.3volts, however, the Sony C800G schematic calls for a filament voltage of about 5.5v, whether to prolong the life of the tube or to enhance the sound we are unsure. Warm actually do this correctly per the Sony schematic; however one thing that is not practical to do in mass production and which we will do here is to 'activate' the tube by giving it a 12 hour burn-in first at its factory-spec filament voltage of 6.3v, then reducing the filament voltage down to 5.5v for the second stage of the burn-in process. This is essential to fully activate a new oldstock tube when you are going to attenuate its heater voltage in the final design. We worked with Sparkos Laboratories to make a 5.5v discrete regulator which can be temporarily switched to 6.3 by use of a diode, then bypassing the diode for its final heater configuration. This allows us to fully activate the tube, as well as to give the tube the benefits of this world's cleanest discrete regulator for the lifetime of the unit.
The cable is rebuilt and optimized for the WA-8000.
The tube is inspected and left alone if it is fine; however we have seen some reports of noisy tubes in the field and I understand it is hard to 'cherry pick' tubes for low noise in a mass production environment. Therefore we will keep a small stash of NOS 6au6 high quality tubes (military surplus) on hand for use only when we need to replace the stock tube. There will be no additional charge for this service. Please don't ask us to sell you additional tubes; we are only keeping these on hand for internal service/support.
The output WIMA automotive grade film capacitor is replaced with a custom JB supreme axial film capacitor.
We worked with capsule designer Arienne Bloss to create a special new K87 variant specifically for this microphone and only available to us, which will be used to replace the generic K67 capsule that comes stock. This will dramatically fill out the body of the mic and tame some of the shrillness of the top end as well, while still maintaining that signature C800 'crispness', but just in a more subtle and pleasing way. This capsule is very expensive and thus the slightly higher cost of this mod compared to our others. We tried to absorb some of these costs for you.
These mods will round out this mic and make it an absolute reference quality mic that anyone would be proud to own. I feel like this is the best and most worthy mod we have ever done, and I'm really happy to have saved the best for last. We hope you really enjoy this mod!
Chad
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