From: tonyb@juliet.ll.mit.edu ( Tony Berke )
Subject: Re: Help sought on choosing microphones
Organization: M.I.T. Lincoln Lab - Group 43
Date: 7 Apr 92 13:32:51

In article <1992Apr6.174329.17922@lucid.com> lnz@lucid.com (Leonard N. Zubkoff) writes:

	
   Since last September, I've been recording some simple folk music performances
   with a Sony TCD-D3 DAT Walkman and a pair of Len Moskowitz's Core Sound Mics.
   In December I switched from using spaced omni techniques to using a Jecklin
   Disc I constructed based on Jurg Jecklin's JAES paper...

   ... alas, the venues where these concerts are held generally do
   not have the best acoustics.

   After reading the papers, I thought a microphone like the Crown SASS-P would be
   ideal for my purposes, since I think imaging is very important.  The theory
   behind its operation in the JAES papers I read all seemed to point to a good
   design, and the demo CD I ordered from Crown left me quite impressed with the
   sound quality.  Unfortunately, after I found one locally and brought it home, I
   found construction problems which lead me to seriously question Crown's quality
   control, and so I returned the unit...

I'm curious to hear exactly what was wrong with your SASSP.  While I thought that
mine was a bit flimsy for an $850 (list) item, it was pretty well put together
and has performed well.  The Mk II version is supposed to have, according to
Bruce Bartlett, "A more open (and less harsh) uppper midrange".  If that is true,
it would address one of my only complaints about the device.

As for your particular application, I have to agree with your ex-post-facto
conclusion that perhaps ORTF makes more sense.  The Crown picks up a great
deal of hall ambience (even when in pretty close to the performance).  That's
fine if the hall sounds nice and the audience is quiet, but I've had trouble
in situations where that wasn't the case.

   [more stuff deleted...]

   It seems like the main disadvantage of ORTF and X-Y recording for my purposes
   is that the main performers are off the main microphone axis, and so it is very
   important that the off-axis response of the microphones, particularly in the
   +/- 60 degree range or so, be as flat as possible, and as close as possible to
   the on-axis response.

   Recently, Gabe Wiener mentioned that hypercardiods were a better choice than
   cardiods because they had a significantly flatter off-axis response.  My
   reading of the spec sheets for AKG, Sennheiser, and Audio-Technica microphones
   leads me to believe this comment is true for the Audio-Technica 4053
   hypercardiod versus the 4051 cardiod, and for the Sennheiser MHK50 versus the
   MKH40, but not for the AKG C460B-CK63ULS versus the CK61ULS.  The new
   Audio-Technica 4033, even though it doesn't appear as flat as some of the other
   microphones, claims to have an off-axis response virtually identical to the
   on-axis response, so it might also be a good choice.

I just got a cut-sheet on the AT-4033 from Full Compass.  If AT isn't fudging
the data, the off-axis response (60 degrees) that they publish is quite amazing.
And the things are cheap as hell!  Kinda noisy, though.

   [more stuff deleted...]


Tony Berke