Back in the 70s and 80s Radio Shack has inexplicably not-sucky microphones for the money. Don't know if that still holds true. They did all tend to be a bit low in the output though.
Never did do that crazy modification to turn my Radio Shack PZMs into something closer to the Crowns, but people did it, it was cheap, and got great results. Brook _______________________________________________________ Brook Hinton film/video/audio art www.brookhinton.com studio vlog/blog: www.brookhinton.com/temporalab