Built to be fixed
Two separate boards, standard parts, no glue anywhere. If something fails, you replace a part, not the mic. A V1-to-V2 trade-in scheme is planned.
Open-hardware audio · Designed in France
A studio mic
you can repair
for life.
The Talas One is a large-diaphragm condenser microphone. Open schematics, off-the-shelf parts, a published production cost, and a five-year warranty as the goal. Target price: €150. The measurements are public too — including what isn't right yet.
For now it's a research project: one measured prototype, public plans, no production run yet. This page is where the first one gets prepared — here's exactly where things stand.
- Type
- Large-diaphragm condenser
- Preamp
- OPA1642 · open design
- Power
- 48 V phantom
- Repairable
- No glue · 2 boards
Open schematics
Public KiCad files, the full bill of materials and a repair guide. You know exactly what you're buying — and you're free to improve on it.
A published cost
Every euro is accounted for: parts, labour, margin. We're not trying to be the cheapest — just the most honest.
Hand-built in France
Each unit assembled and tested by hand. We're aiming for a five-year warranty, where most rivals give you one or two.
How the Talas One compares at €150
| RØDE NT1 | AT2035 | Lewitt 240 | Talas One (target) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | €108 | €150 | €149 | €150 |
| Repairable | No | No | No | Yes |
| Public schematics | No | No | No | Yes |
| Warranty | 10 years* | 1 year | 2 years | 5 years |
| Made in | Australia | China | Austria | France |
* when you register the product. This table says nothing about sound — our measurements are just below, flaws and all. It also pits a prototype against three mics you can buy today: for the Talas One, the price and warranty are targets, not offers.
Our measurements, flaws included
Measured on 3 and 4 June 2026, on our only prototype (one working channel), side by side with a RØDE NT1-A, in an untreated room. We keep what's established apart from what isn't yet — that's how you can tell a measurement is honest.
| Established | Talas One (prototype) vs NT1-A |
|---|---|
| Sensitivity | within 0.1 dB of the NT1-A |
| Character | warm and dark: +6 to +13 dB in the low mids, −11 to −19 dB above 10 kHz (four methods agree) |
| Phase, clipping | clean phase, no clipping up to −1 dBFS |
| Distortion | 1–2 % residual around 500 Hz, source not yet found |
Not yet measured reliably: absolute self-noise, absolute frequency response, maximum SPL and polar pattern. And nothing on how one unit differs from the next — a single prototype can't tell you that.
Measurement report → · Known limitations → · Measurement tools (AGPL v3) →
Check it all yourself
The guided tour takes the Talas One apart, stop by stop: photos of the prototype, the two circuit boards, the test bench we built to measure it, what went wrong, and a glossary if you're new to all this.
It's much longer than this page, and that's on purpose. A sales page makes claims; the tour shows the evidence — so that's where you can prove us wrong.
The price, with nothing hidden
Hardly anyone in audio does this. Here's where your €150 would go in a first production run — figures taken from our actual Mouser & PCBWay invoices.
Social security contributions & payment fees−€23
Materials−€60
Packaging, cable, after-sales reserve, depreciation−€21
Left to pay for the work€46
That leaves €46 to pay for assembly, which nobody has timed yet. At €12 an hour, two hours of work would leave €22. There's no hidden margin: whatever's left pays the person who builds it and keeps the workshop going.
Why €60 of materials when the repository says about €78? The €78 is what one mic costs if you build it yourself, buying parts one at a time and taking the capsule from an off-the-shelf mic. The €60 is the production-run target, with bulk prices and a refurbished body.
— The Talas manifestoAudio gear is built to die.
Joints you can't reach, proprietary parts, locked-away schematics.
Talas won't do that.A tool you can open, understand, repair and hand on — made to outlast whatever trend sold it.
Talas isn't only about microphones
Talas is a workshop, not a product line. The mic is the first thing it makes, but it won't be the last.
The rule is the same everywhere: publish the plans, publish the costs, and never build anything you can't take back control of. For a microphone, that gives you the Talas One — open schematics, standard parts, repairable for life.
For an online service, it gives you Veza: a platform where musicians share their tracks, work on them together and sell what they make. It's self-hosted, never sells your data, has no algorithm deciding who deserves to be heard, and shows its commission up front instead of burying it in the small print.
Different things, same stance: no gear designed to break, and no services designed to lock you in.
Where things really stand
Right now the Talas One is a research project: a prototype that records, published measurements, and a third version of the boards, checked and ready to manufacture. Nothing is for sale, and nothing can be yet.
Three things stand between this project and a first production run:
| What's needed | Where it stands |
|---|---|
| Version 3 of the boards, manufactured and measured | Manufacturing files published on 29 September 2026, with every automated check passing. No board has been made yet. |
| A mic body designed for this project | Not started. The prototype lives in a salvaged body. |
| The workshop, officially registered | We're registering the business now. Until that's done, we can't legally take a deposit. |
None of the three is done. Until they are, all we can offer is a waiting list — and the €150 above is the target price for that first run, worked out from real invoices. It isn't a price anyone can pay yet.
First run · nothing for sale yet
Be there for the first run.
The first run starts once enough people want one for it to make sense — not on a date picked in advance. Leave your email and you'll hear first, get the launch price, and have a say in the finish.
Rather not just wait? We're giving away fifty mics to fifty people who share what the project stands for. The Founders programme →