Mics blind test

[Recording Engineer]

I like A (I think it was. Or was it see? Now I don’t remember, crap!) and B… B seems to give more focus and presence in the mids and tames the top; all good things.

Thanx for participating.
So what's your "finishing line" ?
1 A / 2 B / 3 C ?

Alright, listening on my EMES Black tv HR active monitors at home, I confirmed I like B, A, C in that order. There are times I like A just as much as B, but B’s authority of mid focus and presence, plus the handling of the top-end when pushed, takes the cake by far.

 

[Emmathom]

Alright, listening on my EMES Black tv HR active monitors at home, I confirmed I like B, A, C in that order. There are times I like A just as much as B, but B’s authority of mid focus and presence, plus the handling of the top-end when pushed, takes the cake by far.

Thank you @Recording Engineer for your participation

 

[MicMan]

I think all of the sound is - sorry - awful. Partly because it's mono, but mainly because it sounds - to me, anyway - dull and dead. Sorry, again.

Mic A sounds 'dead' to me because it has no 'sparkle' ..it's pedestrian, plodding, and may perhaps be reproducing sound 'accurately', but leaves me completely un-interested in what I'm hearing. It has a touch more bass than Mic B.

Mic B ..no comment. I wouldn't want to use that mic. It's like Mic A, but with less bass.

The third mic has a bit more ..that's to say more pleasant.. sibilance than the other two, especially than Mic B , in which the 'S' sounds of Spanish Harlem are pretty much missing (like the missing sibilants in Linda Ronstadt's 'You're No Good' (not included here, but missing on all issued recordings).

I'm listening on a pair of Titum cans, and trying all six available profiles to try to get the best out of these recordings. (The 'Tt 770x' setting seems to deliver the best - for me - out of these recordings.)

But I have no idea what your "fairly dull living room" actually sounds like; I've never been there, so I have no idea how these recordings compare with actually being there ..so I don't know if they're 'accurate' or give a completely false impression of what the sounds actually sounded like when you were recording them! ..So I can only guess what the original sounds were like, and how much each of these mics delivers the original sounds.

But recording from loudspeakers is nothing like recording an actual singer, or a person speaking, or live musicians ..so what's the point? Why didn't you set up the three mics in front of (a) a person speaking, (b) a person - or persons - singing, (c) a few musicians? All these tracks sound - to me; YMMV - terribly compressed, as if there's no real range to the various frequencies of the audio, and also terribly ..well, 'muffled', as if recorded through a sock.

I don't know what it actually sounded like 'live' in your living room, but - I'm sorry to say - I wouldn't use any of these mics, unless your room really DOES sound like these mics deliver!

What would I use to capture audio out of speakers in a living room? ..A pair of M-Audio 'Sputnik' tube mics (about £250, that's about US$318, each). They sizzle! ..And rather closer than 2.3 meters away. But so much processing seems to have gone into playing these sample sounds that there's next to no life left in them. "..normalized.." ..that's what's killed them. Why ever would you do that? ..Sorry. ..G'nite.

 

[Recording Engineer]

MicMan… Honestly, I’m not sure my expectations are all that high for ANY recordings made by ANY mics in some random living room I know nothing about and 7.5 feet away from speakers.

 

[Emmathom]

Reading @MicMan comments I realized that I did something wrong : I should have played the sample much louder to get less room effect and more "pure mics sound". Under these new conditions (to come soon) even the defaults of the sound system (speakers mainly) are not so important since every mic has to deal with it. Same source should allow to compare different mics (?) I guess so.

My apologies.

I was stuck in my "preamp test proceed" where I want to level up the input gain to be able to judge noise, natural tube compression, circuit weakness, etc... and so play the music sample at a rather low level...

So I will redo this session asap and add a recording of my folk (steel strings) guitar by an acoustic take. (I must warn that I'm far from a good guitarist)
About a voice sample, well I've had a throat disease some years ago and my voice is no more "normale" (it lacks bass). But I'll boost myself to record a (short) voiceover. I think it'll be french spoken (no matter I Guess)

 

[k brown]

Louder playback would have no effect on direct/room balance; only putting the mics closer to the speakers can do that.

 

[Recording Engineer]

Louder playback would have no effect on direct/room balance; only putting the mics closer to the speakers can do that.

And with those 3-ways, you can only get so close. And speaking of those, it seems like they might benefit from more power. 50 seems low for them.

 

[rock soderstrom]

So I will redo this session asap and add a recording of my folk (steel strings) guitar by an acoustic take.

much better!

 

[Emmathom]

And with those 3-ways, you can only get so close. And speaking of those, it seems like they might benefit from more power. 50 seems low for them.

Well my DIY MOSFET amp is punchy and much more open than most of other amps I've ever heard. No kidding. No tone set nor balance nor whatever : signal goes (almost) straight to the power mos...

SX911 from JVC are high-end speakers from the 2000's dedicated only for Japan market (never been sold outside Japan). They could be compared to Yamaha NS1000 in a certain way. Closed speakers about 80 liters.

Anyway, let's go on with this thread...

 

[Emmathom]

Ok I Will record closer to speakers
1 meter max. to capture a good melt of the 3 speakers (I mean tweeter - medium - woofer)

 

[k brown]

I have gotten some value from this kind of mic'd speaker PB, but always use full range single driver speakers (but NOT Auratones, yuck!), and mic quite close.

Single driver speakers eliminate phase mangling of the sound being played back by crossovers, and issues with the mic's position relative to the multiple drivers.

 

[Emmathom]

I have gotten some value from this kind of mic'd speaker PB, but always use full range single driver speakers, and mic quite close.

Single driver speakers eliminate phase mangling of the sound being played back by crossovers, and issues with the mic's position relative to the multiple drivers.

For sure but I ain't got full range sp.

 

[thor.zmt]

Folks,

I decided to nix my original post and to repost a slightly expanded version:

For me, I like A best, it seems overall to do well with everything, no obvious weakness, good "universal mic".

My take on where each microphone makes more sense:

A) Good all around mic (would mind recording classical or acoustic jazz)

B) Midband focused, good vocal mic, maybe better on male vocals than female.

C) Drum overheads so we can tell Paiste from Zildjan crash cymbals

If we record drums, pick C, which I think is bright for vocals. Use as overheads, AKG D12/D112 on the Kick, Sennheiser 421 (beige plastic original) on snare and hihat. SM57/whatever if we need individual Tom's.

If we record Vocals we might go straight for B.

If we were recording a raucous live Jazz evening at "Ned Kelly's Last Stand" in Kowloon * we might take a pair or quad of A.

I'd like to hear each mic pushed with high SPL Vocals (Joss Stone or Janis Joplin belting out about their broken hearts), as drumkit overheads and with a small classical ensemble.

Thor

* Ned Kelly's Last Stand is small basement place with a really loud, mostly acoustic jazz band and many famous honkie singers doing impropmptu PA's for a song or three.

It's in Kowloon at Tsim Sha Tsui in a back street a bit away from the tourist haunts.

I have no idea if it survied Hong Kong's recent string of misfortunes or if it is now, like the Jumbo floating restaurant, just a memory of colonial Hong Kong. Which would be a goshdarn crying shame.

 

[k brown]

For sure but I ain't got full range sp.

I have several of these - they're surprising good through the critical midrange.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/326161696459?itmmeta=01J0CFF4S1VQHR73DEWGHN3TAY&hash=item4bf0c086cb:g:wtUAAOSwpcZl4Nwy&itmprp=enc:AQAJAAAA4HCGsQuP7ikow9Te3PM7I1kedibxC9LoId+UWrtheThIKVPdZ9iydQolSWhzu2mD1ByN3B8tOfVw+0FE9bS3qdCpXRw+oj4DE+qbHT8ezoteTe19N45FJhy0uzjgrbHPEGmBr3rgGhrDDe6qK/fsvd+cOTpVuTXIx3n6o7KDfmPbWIffcHYu+7lTb+rKYZQ4ydaus4MTnO449saG+8uBuF5D4eGAJF8gkc4Ujj+cs0+wKsj4DtRMt3FKNHJeh7Vpq7Qcza0j9KuwPEKkBf73bZE6MKK5OwAcmobtUurCV1VK|tkp:BFBMzsy8j4Nk

 

[thor.zmt]

For sure but I ain't got full range sp.

The typical big japanese 3Way's tend to have a low lower crossover and cross in the tweeter high.

The Japanese also had a tendency towards minimum crossovers and carefully designing the drivers. As japanese flats and modern houses trmd towards small and solid wall, they tend to have overdamped bass response, which got them the moniker "Kabuki" in 'murica.

ET's JVC's are no exceptions, with 500Hz & 4kHz crossover points. They look like Mitsubishi/Diatone OEM BTW. Sealed box.

Utterly revolting late 80's early 90's shiny trim rings.

So I'd not worry unduely about the crossover.

Closer placement may help a little to reduce the room reverb.

Pink noise is best to judge the relative tonal balance of each mic.

Thor

 

[Emmathom]

Bass's are... how to describe... deep & fast. Dry ? But not thin at all
Tweeters (from diamond original ones) have been replaced by SEAS 6 ohms pair far more suitable to these speakers (which are set @ 6ohms)
Mids are a bit to present (for my taste)

So I use a FIR eq in a kinda "smile curve" way : +2dB to 300Hz / -1,5dB 300 - 2K / +1,5dB from 2K. Using this kind of filtering only available with demat' music of course (my case).
Turntable records pass thru an ADC and then to ESS9018 DAC...

But we're out of the subject one more time

 

[Emmathom]

Pink noise is best to judge the relative tonal balance of each mic.

Thor

That's why I put a 15 seconds of pink noise, for every listener to be able to "see" the F response of the file and eventualy eq it according to his system, his taste, before listening...

 

[joulupukki]

If I had to choose which mic to use, I'd choose, in order of preference, A, B, and last, C. A seems to have more low content and feels flatter. C has a little too much high boost.

 

[garp]

The room , the speakers, there are far too much issues in this test to be significant IMHO. If you want to record speakers use a coaxial tannoy at least and record closer to the source (for me recording a speaker with LDC and use it as valid test for performance is waste of time), even with those precautions this kind of test reveals just tiny aspects of the relative differences between mics but in no way the absolute behaviour in front of a "real" source ... again IMHO. In a word, the "winner" of your test is maybe the worst in front of a Bendir drum, offering everything but a realistic presentation of this delicate assembly of wood, skin and goat guts.

 

[Emmathom]

The room , the speakers, there are far too much issues in this test to be significant IMHO. If you want to record speakers use a coaxial tannoy at least and record closer to the source (for me recording a speaker with LDC and use it as valid test for performance is waste of time), even with those precautions this kind of test reveals just tiny aspects of the relative differences between mics but in no way the absolute behaviour in front of a "real" source ... again IMHO. In a word, the "winner" of your test is maybe the worst in front of a Bendir drum, offering everything but a realistic presentation of this delicate assembly of wood, skin and goat guts.

Thanx. As I already said I'm gonna redo the recording with the mics closer (40-50cm) to the speakers AND add an acoustic guitar and a my voiceover