| MIX VERDICT: SENNHEISER MD 441-U LEGO KIT |
| THE TAKEAWAY: “This Lego set may not capture sound, but it will turn you into an excited eight-year-old again for an hour.” |
| COMPANY: Sennheiser and Numode • www.numode.net PRICE: $106 / €100 PROS: • Fun to build. • More challenging than expected. • Results in great conversation piece. CONS: • Limited edition, so it may have sold out by the time you read this. |
New York, NY (September 26, 2023)—Sennheiser has built the legendary MD 441 dynamic super-cardioid microphone for 50 years—now it’s your turn.
Celebrating the MD 441’s golden anniversary, the German audio manufacturer has partnered with Berlin-based Numode to create a special limited-edition of the venerable mic…made out of Legos. The MD 441-U mic Lego kits went on sale today at 12 EST on numode.net, and even though only 100 were produced, I got my hands on one early to review.
Yes, I spent an afternoon playing with Legos—uh, I mean, working hard reviewing a product for a serious pro-audio magazine.
The MD 441-U kit was created by Arran Hearn, who has been making audio-related brick-building sets for years through his boutique Lego design firm Numode. Some kits have been formal collaborations like this Sennheiser mic and his clever—and long since sold-out—version of Rupert Neve Designs’ 5088 console a few years ago; other sets are unofficial but bear striking resemblances to famous DJ turntables, drum machines and phonograph stylus/headshell combos.
While Numode’s kits are not produced or endorsed by Lego, they all use genuine bricks from the Danish toy company (no cheapo fakes here) and are just as thoughtfully produced.
WHAT’S IN THE BOX?
For such a small box, there’s a lot inside: three bags containing 228 “elements” (bricks of all shapes and sizes, a faux mic cable and more), a sheet of decals and a 36-page manual that shows you how to build the microphone and its desktop mic stand; it also includes the history of the mic, an exploded diagram of the actual MD 441-U and more.
MAKING THE MIC
If you haven’t made a Lego kit in a while, as a reminder, you have to follow a string of sequential diagrams in the IKEA-like manual to build your set. You search through hundreds of similarly colored Lego pieces over and over and over until you find the one piece you need, then add it to your creation and start looking for the next piece. It’s basically 3D “Where’s Waldo” without the helpful red-and-white stripes.
To start, you dump all the bags out on a table so that hundreds of Legos are right in front of you. Somehow you will fail to notice that four pieces fell off the table; this will make searching for them a more advanced challenge. If you still can’t find them after a few minutes, let me offer some advice learned from experience as a dad: Just take off your shoes and walk around barefoot for a moment; a sharp, blinding pain will alert you when you’ve found a missing piece.
I wanted to dive right into building that microphone, but the manual makes you assemble the desktop mic stand first—which makes sense. You wouldn’t leave a real MD 441-U rolling around on a table while you made a Lego mic stand for it. The stand is actually a good warm-up project, and was helpful for reviving my long-forgotten Lego-building abilities—a skill set that includes rarely used capacities like Following Simple Directions, and Using/Destroying My Thumbnail To Separate Legos That Weren’t Supposed To Go Together.
Sennheiser and Numode are both known for their attention to detail, and one of the most surprising things about the MD 441-U set was that I had to build the interior elements of the microphone, even placing stickers depicting coils and more—and then cover them all up with the microphone’s outer shell exterior. You can’t see all that handcrafted goodness inside but you know it’s there, just like a real Sennheiser mic.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Building the kit took longer than I anticipated—a little over an hour—but it was also far more fun than I expected. If you made a Venn Diagram of audio professionals and Lego enthusiasts, I’m sure there’d be a sizable intersection of both groups, and it’s fair to say this set will appeal to all of the above. Costing €85 per kit plus a €15 process fee (roughly $106) at www.numode.net before shipping, the set is not cheap, but it’s a steal compared to the $1,049 MSRP for an actual Sennheiser MD 441-U—providing you overlook the fact that it’s, you know, not a real microphone. This Lego set may not capture sound, but it will turn you into an excited eight-year-old again for an hour, and that’s worth its weight in gold.
