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Author Topic: M7 Breakthrough Around The Corner?  (Read 43747 times)

marcel

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Re: M7 Breakthrough Around The Corner?
« Reply #30 on: March 18, 2009, 11:57:16 AM »

If somebody suddenly pulled back the curtain to reveal the wizard, the days of selling a replica of a 50 year old mic for $10k may be over.

I tend to agree, although it's a pretty cynical perspective, that many in the industry are happy with the lack of 'modern science' in this.
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Unwinder

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Re: M7 Breakthrough Around The Corner?
« Reply #31 on: March 18, 2009, 02:54:26 PM »

- "Bad analogy, the amp is an extension of the instrument, in this case, an electric guitar. Sonic choices for instruments are always selected on a subjective consideration."


Who cares if it's a bad analogy or not? It's an easy to understand point.


- "I fail to see how understanding how and why a capsule has it's characteristics is a bad thing. If as Klaus suggests that this is the domain of "tuners" and alchemists, there is no hope other than to trust a manufacturer and not question any of the efforts made to get there. I just don't have that much faith in alchemy."

I don't recall Klaus ever implying this or using those words.

"There are exceptions, but the rule applies: the capsule builder must rely on a principal person to 'guide him, through listening tests, in the right direction.' The lack of such a relationship in the current capsule making methodology pretty much explains the lack of any break-though towards a new, exciting, musical, frequency balanced, large diaphragm capsule."


Klaus suggested that critical listeners need to work together with engineers to improve the current state of capsule sound.

He did not imply that ANYTHING was "In the domain of the alchemists".

Sheesh. Peace out.

Let's please keep the conversation civil and without getting personal. Thanks! K.H.

J.J. Blair

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Re: M7 Breakthrough Around The Corner?
« Reply #32 on: March 18, 2009, 06:43:23 PM »

And just to emphasize that point, I think the failure of some of the old mic companies and a couple of the newer ones is that they are not working in concert with certain end user engineers, who really know how to give feedback.  I know that there are some fantastic designers at some of these old companies, but I can't see how the ears of some people might have been used, upon hearing any of the mics they've offered in the last fifteen years.  There are a couple of companies who have made improvements due to my unsolicited, and unwelcomed feedback.  Imagine if when designing these mics, they actually sent prototypes to working engineers, who know what the great mics sound like, and got feedback.  I'm having a really hard time believing that they are doing that.

A friend of mine is the main guide for Tree Tops Lodge in Kenya.  Mercedes flew in three prot0ypes of the ML320, when they were developing that.  They gave them to my friend and said, "break them."  My friend and his cohorts proceeded to drive them into the ground, and then Mercedes came back, analyzed what went wrong, and improved their designs.  

That's the type of teutonic attempt at perfection I expect from these mic companies, but I guess we won't see again.
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jrmintz

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Re: M7 Breakthrough Around The Corner?
« Reply #33 on: March 18, 2009, 08:06:03 PM »

I think the unfortunate fact is that hands-on, full-time, experienced professional users are a miniscule part of the market. Aside from a few folks like David Bock, we're just largely irrelevant to the marketing processes of microphone companies.
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wwittman

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Re: M7 Breakthrough Around The Corner?
« Reply #34 on: March 19, 2009, 06:09:50 PM »

I suspect that's a good part of the problem.

They probably ARE taking "advice" as to what Guitar Centre or Sweetwater "wants" from them.


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William Wittman
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Andy Simpson

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What sells converters must sell microphones, right? Wrong.
« Reply #35 on: March 20, 2009, 08:25:43 AM »

I think that a great part of the problem is that the 'digital revolution' has been leading the microphone industry into trouble it didn't expect.
If we look particularly at the post-digital development of the microphone we see quite a clear progression towards extension of bandwidth into the ultrasonic range.
The problem is that the motivation & justification for extended converter bandwidth is not applicable to the microphone.

What we have is a seriously misled industry, heavily invested in the idea of extended bandwidth.
This heavily invested industry - invested in marketing & development - does not want to consider the obvious fact that ultrasonic bandwidth is clearly not the priority of the ear.

In other words, the well-known microphone companies who have committed all their marketing & development resources to increasing microphone bandwidth on the back of the rapidly moving digital market are extremely reluctant to consider that the fundamental linearity they have traded for wide-bandwidth is actually more important to the ear.

Despite the weight of feedback from engineers who still use the old mics, having so much invested they dare not investigate the old low-bandwidth microphones for fear of what they may find.
To do so would be to contradict themselves, which would mean undermining decades of marketing weight and a further loss of confidence in the market.

Andy
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compasspnt

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Re: What sells converters must sell microphones, right? Wrong.
« Reply #36 on: March 20, 2009, 09:21:34 AM »

...And thereby having some "splaining" to do to their venture capital group/corporate owners.
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jrmintz

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Re: M7 Breakthrough Around The Corner?
« Reply #37 on: March 20, 2009, 09:41:47 AM »

I think we can probably agree that there haven't been many real improvements in sound "quality" in the last forty years or so. Storage media, miniaturization, interfaces, lowering of price point - that's where most of the change has happened. In my view the recording industry, as viewed by most manufacturers, has become almost entirely  semi-professional. That's the direct result of the "improvements" made to gear in the recent past. The mic companies are looking at a very small professional recording market that's largely saturated with product they made thirty to fifty years ago. I'd imagine they're fighting to differentiate themselves from each other in the low- to mid-priced part of the market, where the mass sales are.
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Barry Hufker

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Re: M7 Breakthrough Around The Corner?
« Reply #38 on: March 20, 2009, 11:29:15 AM »

It was made clear to me today that audio may be singular in this regard when it comes to technology.  A email list of used video gear for sale showed me that used video equipment has no nostalgia or benefit other than being cheaper than new.  No one I'm aware of is hanging on to their 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s cameras or videotape decks yet we in audio happily and readily claim gear from the past.

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Klaus Heyne

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Re: What sells converters must sell microphones, right? Wrong.
« Reply #39 on: March 20, 2009, 02:05:52 PM »

Andy Simpson wrote on Fri, 20 March 2009 05:25


If we look particularly at the post-digital development of the microphone we see quite a clear progression towards extension of bandwidth into the ultrasonic range.



Can you cite some published specs to that end? I was not aware that the frequency range of a mic which is defined not by the mic's processor but by extremely band-limited ld capsules, like for example Neumann's K47 or K870,  could be extended  somehow into the ultrasonic range?
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Barry Hufker

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Re: What sells converters must sell microphones, right? Wrong.
« Reply #40 on: March 20, 2009, 02:59:54 PM »

There are examples by DPA, Sennheiser and Sanken.  Schoeps also makes a claim about ultrasonics, but the most dramatic example is linked here, the Sanken CO-100K:

http://www.sanken-mic.com/en/product/product.cfm/3.1000400

Here is Sennheiser's claim: "The frequency response extends to 50 kHz, thus improving the resolution for complex acoustic details."  You can find the microphone here:

http://www.sennheiserusa.com/newsite/productdetail.asp?trans id=502431

I leave it to others to look up DPA and Schoeps.  I don't know of any effort by Neumann or AKG which attempts to capture the ultrasonic.

Barry
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wwittman

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Re: M7 Breakthrough Around The Corner?
« Reply #41 on: March 20, 2009, 06:20:06 PM »

I still think it's less engineering (into "ultrasonics") type choices, and more about marketing to the semi-pro (which is a MUCH bigger share)


I wonder how much Shure makes on each KSM32 versus what Brauner makes on each VMA. Tthen multiply that by the numbers sold...
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William Wittman
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Andy Simpson

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Re: What sells converters must sell microphones, right? Wrong.
« Reply #42 on: March 21, 2009, 06:27:03 AM »

Klaus Heyne wrote on Fri, 20 March 2009 19:05

Andy Simpson wrote on Fri, 20 March 2009 05:25


If we look particularly at the post-digital development of the microphone we see quite a clear progression towards extension of bandwidth into the ultrasonic range.



Can you cite some published specs to that end? I was not aware that the frequency range of a mic which is defined not by the mic's processor but by extremely band-limited ld capsules, like for example Neumann's K47 or K870,  could be extended  somehow into the ultrasonic range?



Hi Klaus,

That's rather the point I was trying to make.

Basically we can't raise the bandwidth of the LDC without trading either noise-floor or linearity (or both) for it.

To measure these old mics is to show how much fundamental linearity has been traded for the useless (even detrimental) bandwidth & noise-floor performance of the modern versions.

Andy
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Andy Simpson

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Re: What sells converters must sell microphones, right? Wrong.
« Reply #43 on: March 21, 2009, 06:52:48 AM »

Barry Hufker wrote on Fri, 20 March 2009 19:59

There are examples by DPA, Sennheiser and Sanken.  Schoeps also makes a claim about ultrasonics, but the most dramatic example is linked here, the Sanken CO-100K:

http://www.sanken-mic.com/en/product/product.cfm/3.1000400



Hi Barry,

This is a great example of the trade-off.

Looking at the frequency response (15dB up at 50kHz) and the quoted distortion spec (<1% @125dB SPL), I would expect really really high levels of distortion in the ultrasonic range where sensitivity peaks.

In this case, the worst thing that can happen is that there actually is ultrasonic acoustic energy, because it will simply 'fold down' to the audible range in the form of intermodulation distortion.

Andy
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MDM,

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Re: M7 Breakthrough Around The Corner?
« Reply #44 on: March 21, 2009, 11:15:23 AM »

the ultrasonic thing is more of a niche.

most mics don't concentrate on that, altough some do.

I think the dumbest technical issue to ruin it for pro users is the concept of euphonic distortion etc.

like having a tube connected to the capsule at low voltages and then driving the output with a chip or something silly like that.

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