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johnsonic

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Saw these guys put out a microphone, wondering what you all think: https://teenage.engineering/products/cm-15

Someone gifted me a pocket operator almost a decade ago, and surprises me the LCD has been on that whole time with just one AA, and it fires right up and makes noise. I also like that they have some cool takes on familiar forms.

Anyway, thought it was interesting.
 
At 1,200 bucks it better sound bloody awesome, and not just like typical Chinese-capsule mic (but then it does have built-in pre and A/D).

Interesting that they call it a supercardioid, when the pattern shown is much closer to hypercardioid.

Anyone reco-nose the capsule? One internaut claims it's a Peluso.

Probably it's most impressive feature is that it appears to have separate output for the mic itseslf, so you don't have to use the built-in pre and A/D.

https://teenage.engineering/guides/cm-15
 

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The capsule has flat honing marks on it and as far as I know the only factory that uses a flat honing machine is the factory that does the plates for alctron and aym. I've seen that ring around too. It's ceramic. Not very common, but available. I think this might be a custom shentuo capsule. They did the first generation flat k47.
 
This company has a very impressive design style for its products, I really like the look of this microphone. The question is how do you rate the body and head basket from an acoustic point of view?
 
This company has a very impressive design style for its products, I really like the look of this microphone. The question is how do you rate the body and head basket from an acoustic point of view?
Yes, my first thought was that it's never done to have a flat mesh so extremely close to both side of the capsule.
 
I have had the chance to hear that mic in action over the summer. A friend of mine who's an avid buyer of Teenage Engineering stuff had brought it along with their little recorder and an OP1.

It doesn't sound half bad, it doesn't sound 1.5k good either. the small size and mounting hardware wound make it amazing if you needed to put it close to an awkward surface though.

Like all teenage engineer products, you get a pretty decent sounding product inside of nicely designed case. Also the appeal of that mic is the little connector that allows you to connect it to the recorder or the OP1.

Now I didn't get to do much with it, it was a music festival, and I was way too busy with my set and helping the techs and I ended up gifting that friend a schoctava circuit-swapped SC400. I can't speak of its directivity nor provide any analysis. I'm having a chat with that friend later tonight however so I'll ask if he'd be down to run some proper tests on it. More data can't hurt, right?
 
A bad photo the vacuum deposit is very smooth and shiny, made in our lab!
Don't get me wrong, this isn't a criticism. It's not a bad photo and it's not a bad sputter either. Different techniques result in different particle sizes (I think that's what this is?) and this doesn't affect the performance of the capsule at all. It just means that you're using a different technique than the suppliers with finer deposits.
 
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