Topic: Audio Technica 825 [AT825]

[cleantone]

The search didn't being up a specific thread here so I thought I would start this one for reference. I just bought one of these to use with my video camera. I have always wanted to see the capsules so I immediatly opened it up. They were smaller than I thought they would be. I was also surprised by the position. This is not 100% what I think of as XY. Obviously close enough but not exactly what I thought I was going to see.

[silence]

The search didn't being up a specific thread here so I thought I would start this one for reference. I just bought one of these to use with my video camera. I have always wanted to see the capsules so I immediatly opened it up. They were smaller than I thought they would be. I was also surprised by the position. This is not 100% what I think of as XY. Obviously close enough but not exactly what I thought I was going to see.

I felt somewhat like that when my daughter was born

[DSatz]

I can't quite make out from the photo what it is that you're seeing. Are the two capsules facing head-to-head (inward)? That's not exactly ideal, but there are plenty of worse things in the world.

And what's the angle between them? It looks as if it may be somewhat more than 90 degrees, which would be a rather good thing for music pickup most of the time.

[drewloo]

Looks like the body is pointing towards the bottom of the picture and the capsules are facing away from each other at what looks to be at least 120° if not more.  Yeah, not what I think of when I hear x/y, either.

[DSatz]

drewloo, thanks for the reply--now that you mention it, it does look as if the shaft of the mike is at the bottom of the picture.

So the capsules are angled apart at about 120 degrees and spaced apart by maybe two inches. But I think that's a good choice for small cardioids--it gives a very reasonable stereophonic recording angle, similar to what ORTF offers. I guess it could be important to realize that this isn't really a coincident stereo microphone, though.

I also seem to recall from the spec sheet for this microphone that it has flatter high frequency response than the lower-cost model AT822, which has a high-frequency response peak of several dB. The thing is, if a person is attached to the extra level of false detail that the peak brings in, he might well be disappointed with the sound of this microphone despite its higher level of technical quality.

Again thanks for telling me which end is up ... I need that sometimes!

--best regards

[poorlyconditioned]

drewloo, thanks for the reply--now that you mention it, it does look as if the shaft of the mike is at the bottom of the picture.

So the capsules are angled apart at about 120 degrees and spaced apart by maybe two inches. But I think that's a good choice for small cardioids--it gives a very reasonable stereophonic recording angle, similar to what ORTF offers. I guess it could be important to realize that this isn't really a coincident stereo microphone, though.

I also seem to recall from the spec sheet for this microphone that it has flatter high frequency response than the lower-cost model AT822, which has a high-frequency response peak of several dB. The thing is, if a person is attached to the extra level of false detail that the peak brings in, he might well be disappointed with the sound of this microphone despite its higher level of technical quality.

Again thanks for telling me which was is up ... I need that sometimes!

--best regards

I'm guessing both mics have the same capsules.  The AT825 just has a balanced XLR output, compared to the AT822 which is unbalanced (and battery operated).

At least this is my best guess, based on disassembling two of the AT822 models.  They look the same as that picture.

  Richard

[cleantone]

I guess it could be important to realize that this isn't really a coincident stereo microphone, though.

That is the troubling part in my opinion. Oh and yes the mic is pointing upward in this pic.

[DSatz]

I wrote to AudioTechnica's tech support department last night and was told this morning that the "elements" (capsules) in the two microphones are the same. This surprised me a little, since their frequency response graphs are definitely not the same (see below).

The polar response graph for the AT825 shows an included angle of about 120 degrees. For the AT822 the angle shown in the diagram is less clear since the graphs aren't quite normalized to 0 dB, but there may or may not be a slightly narrower angle. Still, what the tech support response said was, "only the output wiring is different," however, and it's hard to imagine why they'd go to the trouble and expense of creating a different part for the sake of such a small difference in geometry. So I'd assume that the polar graphs are a little off.

--best regards