Resources
This is where I post mod-tips and whatever information that I feel might be helpful to the music making community abroad.

Will replacing my tube mic 7 pin cable improve the sound of my mic?
Usually changing a 3 pin XLR cable to a better quality one will benefit your sound in some measure. However, with tube microphones there is another consideration that could actually make your mic sound worse with a 'better' cable. 12A_7 vacuum tubes are typically designed to run with a 6.3v heater voltage; this voltage is where their response is most linear. If you change this voltage, you change the behaviour of the tube. Because of the amount of current drawn by the tube and the small gauge of most 7 pin cables, calculations have been put in place to account for the voltage drop from the power supply to the mic through the cable. To add to the equation, however, the quality of the connectors of these off-shore mics can vary greatly, which further affects the resistance of the cable and therefore the heater voltage. If you measure, for example, an Apex 460 power supply at the supply, it will measure about 6.8vdc. With the stock cable, at stock length, with the stock connectors (without any deoxit treatment), by the time you get to the tube itself, you typically will measure about 6vdc - almost 1 volt of loss. What this means is that usually a stock Apex 460 is running a 'starved filament' style design, whether it is intended to or not. In my modifications I set the tube heater voltage to the specified 6.3vdc (within ~2%) when measured at the tube and, to my ear, it gives a more musical response to the microphone. This is done, depending on the mod, with some combination of the followin: a new cable with new connectors, new connectors on the stock calbe and power supply, contact treatment of the stock cable with Caig DeOxit, adjustment of the cable length, or the adding of resistance to the heater voltage line if necessary (such as with a shorter Mogami tube cable). If you change the 7 pin cable on a stock mic, or partially modded mic to (for example) a Mogami cable, which has larger gauge wires for the heater circuitry, you will raise the voltage above the specified amount. This can be compensated for by putting a high wattage resistor of the correct (and very low) impedance in line either in the power supply or microphone, but you'll need to crunch some numbers with Ohm's law first and also do some measurement at the microphone (please don't try this at home, tube voltages and current can be enough to kill you if they are not dealt with properly).