As long-time Hackaday readers will know, there’s a lot garbage spouted on the planet of audio about perceived tone and efficiency of various hi-fi elements. Normally this comes from audiophiles with, we’d dare to counsel, extra money than sense. However oddly there’s an area by which the elusive tone has much less of the garbage about it and it in reality, fairly vital. [Jim Lill] is a musician, and like all musicians he is aware of that totally different combos of microphones impart a distinct sound to the recording. However because it’s such a troublesome property to quantify, he’s got down to study all he can about the place the tone comes from in a microphone.
He’s coming to this from the point of view of a musician reasonably than an engineer, however his methodology just isn’t diminished by this. He’s placing every mic on check in entrance of the identical speaker on the identical place, and taking part in an ordinary piece of music and a tone sweep by way of every. He doesn’t have an audio analyser, reference speaker and microphone, or anechoic chamber, so he’s provide you with a real-world customary as an alternative. He’s evaluating each mic he can discover with a Shure SM57, the go-to basic goal customary on the planet of microphones for so long as anybody can keep in mind, being a Nineteen Sixties improvement of their earlier Unidyne sequence. His reasoning is that whereas its response just isn’t flat the sound of the SM57 is what most individuals are used to listening to from a microphone, so it is sensible to measure the others in opposition to its efficiency.
Alongside the best way he checks an enormous variety of microphones together with well-known and costly ones from unique studios and eventually one he made himself by mounting a cartridge atop a soda can. You’ll have to observe the video beneath the break for his conclusions, we will promise it’s price it.
Thanks [Michael Field] for the tip.
