WA-8000 full upgrade

Furthering the modifications developed by Signal Art, the WA-8000 full modification expands on what was done before, simplifying in some ways while expanding in others, to affect the best performance to price ratio possible. This upgrade is for the black edition or gold edition.

Almost every part of the WA-8000 is rebuild from end to end, with the PSU being fully re-capped, re-wired, cleaned up, tidied up, and solder/board re-flowed. All electrolytic caps are replaced with high performance parts and and all electrolytic caps are additionally bypassed using high grade multilayer ceramic (H+ rail) or film (B+ rail) capacitors for lowest noise performance. The exposed wirewound inductor is sealed and secured to the board, and a ground modification is added to the 7 pin XLR section for improved ground contact. Any stripped screws are replaced, steel washers are added to better secure the power supply transformer internally, and everything is tightened back down well. Thermal paste is added to the voltage regulator heatsink for better heat transfer, a strip of Kapton heat reflective tape is added around the adjacent two capacitors, and it is tightened back down well. 105 degree C rated Nichicon caps are used on the capacitors adjacent to the regulator.

The cable is fully rebuilt on both ends for better reliability and to ensure that the heavy gauge leads are assigned propery to the highest current pins (heater and circuit ground). The cable is then labeled, cleaned up, and re-tested.

The microphone is fully opened up and inspected. A ground modification is added to the XLR input for better ground contact. The electrolytic capacitors in the mic circuit path are replaced with audio grade capacitors if needed (on some specimens they are already high grade components, but if they are not then we ensure that they are). The WIMA box-type output coupling capacitor is replaced with a custom made, audiophile grade axial JB film capacitor. Both the new film capacitor and audio grade electrolytics are all damped down with a touch of PerfectGlue adhesive to reduce any internal resonance.

The capsule mount and saddle are replaced as needed. On at least half of the specimens we've examined, the capsule mount is a hard plastic part that is highly resonant and is replaced with a custom made part that is more acoustically damped. On some models, it is already OK; so this is done as needed. The generic capsule is replaced with a custom made, historically correct K67.

As with all of our mods, this is a service product where you send in your microphone to be done, and we ship back. We include USA return shipping via UPS GND/Signature in the price of the mod; but you are responsible to ship the microphone/cable/powersupply to us, packed well. All units are taken in the order rec'd, and normal turnaround time is about 30 days or less, although some parts of the year are more intense (usually 3'd and 4'th quarter) and wait time may be slightly longer.