The 21st century build of the Telefunken U48, made in South Windsor, CT, is a recreation of the Neumann-built / Telefunken-badged U 48 from the 1950s.

The U48 as seen here features an AMI BV8 transformer, M7 capsule, and a rather odd-duck WE408 glass tube retrofitted into a metal casing. Telefunken designated this tube "VF14k" and marketed it as a direct replacement for the VF14M used in original U 47 and U 48 microphones.

As with the original microphone, the Telefunken U48 features switchable polar pattern (cardioid, figure-of-eight) at the base of the head assembly. U47 microphones have omnidirectional available instead of figure-of-eight. As well, the pattern symbols on the microphone itself are red on the U48, as opposed to the black symbols on the U47.