Sennheiser ME 64
A screw-on cardioid capsule that turns one powering module into half a mic locker.
Overview
The ME 64 is a cardioid condenser capsule built for Sennheiser's K6 modular microphone system, and the whole point of it is the thread at the bottom. Screw it onto a K6 or K6P powering module and you have a handheld condenser; unscrew it and the module takes a shotgun, an omni lavalier, or whatever other capsule is in the case. Sennheiser's own distributor literature describes the capsule as having a tight cardioid pattern with high gain before feedback, and singles out speech as its natural application — the frequency response is quoted as 50 Hz to 20 kHz across the retail listings that carried it.
The capsule uses back-electret condenser technology, and like every capsule in the line it ships in black. That's the plain description. What it means in practice is a mic you can hand to a presenter, point at a lectern, or clamp to a boom without much thought, then swap the head for a shotgun when the room gets noisy. Distributor copy from the period framed the whole system around exactly this flexibility — one module plus a few interchangeable capsules as the sensible way to build a kit.
Key Features
Cardioid Capsule with Tight Pattern and High Gain Before Feedback
The ME 64's directional characteristic is the reason it exists. Sennheiser's own announcement of the capsule emphasized its uniform directional behavior, giving what the company described as highly consistent attenuation of sounds arriving from the rear axis. For anyone who has fought a monitor wedge or a PA stack, that's the useful part: the pattern holds together off-axis rather than collapsing, so the mic stays predictable when it isn't pointed straight at the source. The same announcement positioned the capsule for studio recording and sound reinforcement alike, and the distributor listings lean harder on the speech and ENG side, calling out high gain before feedback as the headline virtue.
50 Hz – 20 kHz Response
The retail listings consistently quote the ME 64's range as 50 Hz to 20 kHz. That's a full-band figure on paper, and it's worth reading as a specification rather than a promise — a cardioid head intended first for speech doesn't need to flatter a kick drum. What the range does tell you is that nothing obvious is lopped off at either end, which is why the capsule turns up in ENG kits and podium work rather than being pigeonholed as a voice-only head.
High Output and the Tape-Saturation Claim
Sennheiser's announcement of the capsule made a specific argument about level: the ME 64's high output was said to provide superior tape saturation, yielding maximum signal-to-noise. That's a period-appropriate way of saying the capsule hits a recorder hard enough that you're not fighting hiss on quiet sources. It's marketing language from the manufacturer, not an independent measurement, but it points at a real design priority — a hot capsule in front of whatever deck the job put in front of you.
K6 Modular Mounting and Powering
The capsule itself carries no power supply. It threads onto a K6 or K6P module, and the module handles the rest. According to Sennheiser's distributor documentation, the K6 runs on 12–48V phantom power or for roughly 150 hours on a single AA cell — a figure repeated across the retail listings — and includes a bass roll-off switch to tame proximity effect in close work or wind rumble in the field. Output from the modules is balanced, low impedance at 200 ohms, and terminates in a standard 3-pin XLR. Sennheiser's announcement of the ME 64 confirmed the same arrangement: battery power via the K6, phantom via either the K6 or the K6P, balanced low-impedance output, XLR termination, and the bass roll-off switch for proximity effect and wind.
Capsule Swapping Within the K6 System
The system's logic is simple enough to state plainly: capsules screw off and on. The distributor catalogs list the ME 64 alongside the ME 65 supercardioid handheld, the ME 66 short shotgun, the ME 67 spot shotgun, and the MKE 2-60 omni lavalier, all sharing the same module. A single K6 and a couple of heads covers handheld ENG, podium, and lavalier duties without buying three complete microphones. That's the argument the catalogs made, and it's the reason the ME 64 is usually encountered as part of a kit rather than on its own.
Historical Context
The capsule arrived as an addition to an existing line rather than as a new platform. Sennheiser's announcement described the ME 64 as the newest addition to the K6 modular condenser microphone system, which places it after the module and its sibling capsules were already established. The retail listings that carried it show the capsule priced separately at $159–$169 depending on the catalog and the year, with the module listed at $219–$239 and the complete ME 64/K6 handheld system running $399–$425. Those figures drift across the catalogs — the same capsule appears at $169 in two listings and $159 in another, and the system price moves from $399 to $420 to $425 — which is what you'd expect from dealer sheets printed at different times rather than a single stable price list.
The capsule's period reputation was built partly on its place in Sennheiser's assembled drum microphone sets. Sound on Sound (March 1996, p.32) reviewed one such set — built around the MD 504, MD 421, and the K6P/ME 64 — and the magazine's summary of the package was positive on practical grounds: an all-in-one solution to drum miking, with the caveat noted in the same review that buyers supply their own XLR leads. That's a useful corrective to the idea that the ME 64 was purely a speech capsule. It shipped in kits aimed at drum work as well.
Collectibility & Value
The ME 64 turns up most often as a loose capsule rather than a complete system, which is both the good news and the bad news. The good news is that a capsule alone is cheap relative to a full microphone, and if a K6 module is already in the drawer, the head is the only purchase. The bad news is that the capsule is useless without a module, and buyers who don't already own one should price the pair together rather than being surprised at checkout.
The period catalogs put the capsule at $159–$169 new and the module at $219–$239, so a complete ME 64/K6 system ran $399–$425 depending on the sheet. Collectors should treat those as historical list figures, not current market values — the archive has no reliable modern transaction data for this capsule, and the price drift across the catalogs is a reminder that dealer sheets are a poor substitute for sold-listing research.
On condition: the capsules are simple threaded assemblies with no user-serviceable parts beyond the exterior, and the failure points in the system live in the module — the battery compartment, the phantom/AA switching, and the bass roll-off switch. Buyers evaluating a used ME 64 should confirm the threads are clean and undamaged, since a cross-threaded capsule is a paperweight, and should test the module separately if one is included. The archive has no documentation of common ME 64 capsule failures specifically, and nothing here should be read as a repair guide.
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