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In the Forum: Audio Discussions
In the Thread: Simpson Microphones thread.
Post Subject: Further thoughts.....Posted by Andy Simpson on: 10/21/2007
 Romy the Cat wrote:

 Andy Simpson wrote:

You raise an interesting point regarding ribbons but are missing the bigger picture.

With Romy's permission, I would like to invite you (and any other members) to listen to some recordings on my site: www.SimpsonMicrophones.com

These show 'the ribbon sound' more than any ribbon mic - violin is a key instrument.
After you have listened I will be glad to explain why.

In answering why, I will give some reasons why the horn loaded speaker is superior to the ribbon (which is direct-radiating).

I do not expect to find customers in a loudspeaker community - only enthusiasts with whom I might discuss some principles of audio. Romy - if this is not appropriate, please delete.

Andy, you do not need to be apologetic, I have no rules against anyone to pull any commercial or marketing agenda – as long as you natural interest are noble then whatever you do is fine – well, you just need to be prepared to live with consequences if your natural interests are otherwise… :-) BTW, I moved your post into own thread, I hope you do not mind.

I know a lot about microphones but there is subject in the microphones that fascinated me tremendously and that has very direct influence to the audio that I practice. Human hearing can concentrate to specific sound, microphone can’t. To get “concentration” people bring microphone closer to the source, in some instances locating the microphone way within the reverberation radius (distance what direct sound  is equal to reflected sound). However, this positioning severely fucks up (I can’t find another word) harmonic content of sound and I HATE the recording with up-close microphones. I know, the audio-idiots and the industry warships the recordings with microphones stacked into the singer’s throat or into the violin deck but I’m so sick of them that it is hard to express, even with me flourishing semantics…

So, I wonder if exist any microphonic techniques that might position mics at significant distance, have tremendous transient capacity but at the same time would allow the listening awareness to “depth-observing” the recording event?

Romy the Cat


Romy,

You are asking at least two questions at the same time.

Firstly, when you hear a sound in life, your eyes give you primary depth cues which enable your brain to use secondary depth cues from the ears to cross-reference & filter (tune into) the important information ('cocktail party effect').
This is certainly an important factor in listening clarity even in poor acoustic spaces with high noise-floor.

This effect would help you pick the bad phrasing played by your good friend in the second row of 20 violins during a loud crescendo where the whole orchestra is playing. You look at your friend and hear his mistake clearly. Your neighbour is watching the conductor and hears no mistake whatever (but he does hear the conductor's batton whistling through the air).

For recording, things are more difficult as the visual cues are not there 'to help'.

As far as I am concerned the 'distance from source' parameter in sound is not yet understood or researched, so, although we can record (using stereo) left-right dimension, front-back dimension is merely implied with reflection & 'distance/air losses' type cues - ie. if a sound is far away it is quieter, it's extreme frequencies are reduced and the ratio of direct-to-indirect (reverb) sound is tipped in favour of indirect.

Point of fact - it is impossible to image a sound significantly in front of the speaker. Make it louder, drier, brighter it never comes forward any further than the distance from you to the speaker.

When we can do that, we are making real progress.

However, at present, the best we can do is present a soundfield which extends backwards from the speakers in as realistic way as possible. Good enough for orchestra, which is usually placed at a good distance with no sources coming close(r than the speaker) to the listener.

For me, I am primarily interested in the most basic resolution of the microphone - as you are the speaker. To improve this is to improve every possible aspect of reproduction, from timbre to dynamics to spatial cues to musicality. (Absolute sound?).

This does however address your requirement of tremendous transient capacity at a great distance - which you will hear in my recordings - and this results in a different balance of dynamics, where the ear is more assured that it will be delivered sound that will not offend.

Whether or not you & the other people here claim authority to criticise recordings, you can certainly listen to my clips and observe whether I tell the truth or not. Essentially, you will hear an order of magnitude greater dynamic freedom - very very very much like the difference between a direct-radiating speaker and a horn-loaded speaker.

Clarity is not in 'frequency response' but in information, which is primarily time-domain.

An uneven frequency response does not remove information, it simply alters the balance/presentation. But an uneven time-response actually distorts/loses information, and this cannot be brought back with equalisation or any other processing.

All horn listeners know this intuitively, even those with quite bad horn systems.

Anyway, microphone explanations after listening......

Best regards,

Andy

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