Tranasaurus Reks
Member
Are there other Proximity-Effect mitigating technologies that achieve a similar or better result than Electrovoice's Variable-D? I own an Electrovoice RE-20 myself, and while I can notice the lessened Proximity Effect, I could not explain it.
Electrovoice describes their Variable-D technology on their website and claims, "On the rear side of the diaphragm there is a perforated pipe (interference duct) with precise sonic slots at set distances. The duct provides maximum damping that is completely uncolored and undistorted at 180° off-axis, ensuring the same frequency response as if the source was nearly on-axis." They clearly state their patent with "Electro-Voice’s patented Variable-D", but I doubt this is the only way to achieve Proximity-Effect mitigation.
I'm not sure if Variable-D changes the tone of the microphone's low end, or if it's simple hardware without any colorization like sE Electronic's titanium capsule used in their sE T2 Microphone (which is supposed to just speed up the transient response to make it faster). On Electrovoice's website they say "An added benefit of the Variable-D technology’s low-frequency stabilization is the resulting personality of the low-frequency content. Variable-D microphones produce a tight low-end...", but I'm not sure how much of this is just marketing and how much of this is actually accurate.
I'm sure there are other similar techniques implemented in other microphones, but obviously not named "Variable-D". I'm definitely interested in this Proximity Effect mitigation technology out of curiosity and I already own the RE-20 so I don't need another one, but it's also important not to forget that there's a time and place where the presence of a microphone's proximity effect is useful, especially for voiceover.
Electrovoice describes their Variable-D technology on their website and claims, "On the rear side of the diaphragm there is a perforated pipe (interference duct) with precise sonic slots at set distances. The duct provides maximum damping that is completely uncolored and undistorted at 180° off-axis, ensuring the same frequency response as if the source was nearly on-axis." They clearly state their patent with "Electro-Voice’s patented Variable-D", but I doubt this is the only way to achieve Proximity-Effect mitigation.
I'm not sure if Variable-D changes the tone of the microphone's low end, or if it's simple hardware without any colorization like sE Electronic's titanium capsule used in their sE T2 Microphone (which is supposed to just speed up the transient response to make it faster). On Electrovoice's website they say "An added benefit of the Variable-D technology’s low-frequency stabilization is the resulting personality of the low-frequency content. Variable-D microphones produce a tight low-end...", but I'm not sure how much of this is just marketing and how much of this is actually accurate.
I'm sure there are other similar techniques implemented in other microphones, but obviously not named "Variable-D". I'm definitely interested in this Proximity Effect mitigation technology out of curiosity and I already own the RE-20 so I don't need another one, but it's also important not to forget that there's a time and place where the presence of a microphone's proximity effect is useful, especially for voiceover.
