Big shout out to Neumann and especially Dawn Birr- The defective finish km184 described in the previous thread was fixed within a week and is back in service : ) I am one happy customer and want to say Neumann stepped up, addmitted a flaw in its production and resolved it very quickly - very professional response- for the curious, they replaced the body of the mic and kept the guts the same since this is a pair I'm speaking of...back to work Thanks again