Mic Rehab KM-84 Matched Pair: Master Builder Created & Upgraded (Please Read the Description)

These were rebuilt from the ground up (including fully custom designed, handmade, hand-matched, hand-tuned, and hand-sputtered proprietary capsules, with both screw on cardiod and omni pairs) from one of the most renowned microphone builders in the entire world. Shannon Rhoades is in my personal opinion, the bar none best and most obsessive microphone builder + scientist the world has seen in decades. The inexpensive Rodes (no relation) microphones were simply a doner body to build within. Shannon Rhoades was formerly the owner of Mic Rehab in Nashville, having built custom microphones for everyone from Taylor Swift, T-Pain, The Black Keys, Kings of Leon, to nearly every country superstar in the world. He was also the resident microphone builder and restorer for Blackbird Studios, the studio with the largest and most prestigious gear collection in the world. Before that, funnily enough he was a lead builder on American Chopper before discovering his true calling. When he was operating Mic Rehab, it was hard to tune to literally any radio station and not hear his work front and center. To this day you still do, and many pop artists would come in to have him custom tailor microphones to their particular voice. His wait times were often months if not over a year, nearly every studio and star in the world coveted a custom build from his workshop. Thankfully we were friends and he was able to squeeze a couple through for me over the years. I’ll likely be listing a large diaphragm tube mic of his shortly after this, which he’d regularly tune to particular voices for me before tuning back to general purpose. I’d argue more Grammy and platinum record earning music has been recorded through his microphones than anyone’s but perhaps Neumann or Telefunken (due to their sheer volume in comparison to Mic Rehab creations). But frankly, Shannon’s work is better and anyone who ever met him would attest to this. To say these are leagues above the modern, mass produced Neumann KM-184s is a gross understatement. In my opinion (and everyone I’ve ever worked with’s) they blow even original KM-84s ($5k+ per mic for cardiod only in passable condition) completely out of the water. Shannon quite literally had a full factory in his house-turned-workshop. Massive metalworking machines the size of cars where he later even began milling and etching his own bodies, but that’s not where the magic and reputation came from. He personally designed, built by hand, and gold sputtered every single capsule he created and was a researcher + trailblazer when it came to capsule design. Really microphone design in general, circuit and all. He was the first to experiment with different capsule metals such as platinum or even molecularly perfect graphene, the latter he literally synthesized by hand for that process. He would listen to and spectrum analyze every single product he built for days on end, tuning and tweaking until he would personally guarantee you it’d exceed whatever sound you were going for. These are no exception, he built the ultimate small diaphragm condensers that he designed to be “KM-84 killers”, inspired by but superior to in nearly every way. Additional patterns included without having to spend tens of thousands for an additional omni pair, simply by screwing on a 2nd set of fully custom built capsules. Superior clarity, headroom, and noise floor without losing any of the magic that makes vintage Neumann vintage Neumann. Which let’s be honest, is a fantastic brand but is currently a far cry from their glory days of hand building mics. Almost everything they have comes off of a factory line nowadays, meanwhile Shannon put literally hundreds of hours into the creation of these small diaphragm condensers I have for sale here. Unfortunately Shannon later experienced some health + personal issues that caused him to suddenly retire from the industry, almost certain to never create another mic. I’m sure the stress of an endlessly growing waitlist didn’t help, in terms of client patience or his own wellbeing. This may be the only time a pair such of this is ever listed again from now until forever, and I swear to you I’m not just trying to sell these mics when I give them this high of praise. I was hesitant to even list them because I know they are irreplaceable and even after their creation, they were tuned to be the perfect general purpose stereo pair on nearly any applicable source. For the cost of a single Neumann KM-84, you’re able to buy not just a matched pair but a full 2nd set of capsules that had all of the care and attention to detail put into them that the first pair did. In my opinion, these quite literally are the best small diaphragm condensers in the entire world. Which was the stated goal of Shannon going into it. Now that I’m no longer engineering professionally, it’s time to pass them on. Feel free to ask any questions, I know it’s odd to see such an expensive product in the body of a standard Rode mic. But…