Last Saturday I ran a Naiant figure 8 (X-8S) as the Side mic in a Mid/Side pair using a DPA 4098 hyper as Mid. It was my first time running the X-8S and I'm rather impressed with it. Even as a figure-8, the X-8S seemed to provide more subjective bass response than the miniature DPA hyper Mid, or even the Microtech Gefell supercards I was also running into the R44 (edit- The MGs are smoother, have deeper extension, and are ultimately in another class altogether, yet the response of the X-8S had an welcome and unexpected heft in the low midbass, even though I can hear a steeper rolloff below there). I'll explain the 4 mic setup I used in more detail below, but I'm posting partly because I'm now curious how the Naiant hyper would work in place of the DPA 4098, as I expect the frequency response of those two to be somewhat similar.
This was in a medium sized club space, recorded from the back of the sunken floor area directly in front of the soundboard. It is a room recording of the PA predominantly, made in a decent but not spectacular sounding club with plenty of audience noise near the recording position. I was thinking a bit about this thread when planning on what to run, and wanted to further confirm some of the ideas I've been talking about here in that kind of situation, as well as try out the X-8S.
Basically I setup as a 3-mic variation on PAS, using 3 very directional microphones angled upwards somewhat towards the hanging PA in an effort to maximize the direct sound from it and minimize the level of the audience noise, with the mics spaced enough for to compensate for the minimal angle between the three. Mics were about 8' above the floor. The Microtech Gefell M210 supercard pair was pointed somewhat outside of the hanging line-array PA speakers, angled a bit less than 45 degrees to either side (~90 degrees total), and the DPA 4098H hypercarioid was placed in the center pointing directly forward and also slightly upwards. I spaced the Gefells 24" apart, and positioned the DPA about 8" farther forward of them. I then positioned the Naiant X8S directly underneath the DPA, coincident with it, to form a Mid/Side pair in the center.
I clamped to a staircase railing with a super-clamp, with a telescopic extension extending upwards from there. For the mic-bar, I actually used a folding steel 3-leg light-stand base flipped upside down. I'd long ago drilled and tapped a hole at the outer end of each leg for mic mounting points when used on-stage, forming something of a miniature triangular decca-tree for use at stage level. Instead of using it right side up as a stand-base, I flipped it upside down and fixed that atop the telescopic arm, then screwed the mic clips into the same tapped holes. I rotated the folding legs so that two of them stuck straight out to either side (the maximum achievable width) and pointed the third directly forward. That gave me ~24" between the outer supercards when they were angled appropriately, and I simply gaff-taped the center pair to the third forward-projecting leg.
That setup allowed me to compare a number of different combinations- the center M/S pair alone, the 90-degree/24" supercard pair alone, the 3-mic supercard + center hyper array, and the effect of "widening the middle" by using all four mics- the center M/S pair in combination with the 90-degree/24" supercard pair, adjusting the M/S ratio to best effect.
Playing the files directly off the R44 (using the R44's internal M/S matrix for the center pair), the result is really promising, and I plan to experiment further with turning the center mic of the 3-mic configurations I've been suggesting into a M/S pair. I think variations on this, substituting either omnis, cardioids or supercards for the outside pair depending on the situation, may end up being one of the more productive ways to use four mics mounted on the same stand in combination for 2-channel stereo.
I had no camera, and the camera on my phone is worthless, but a friend took some photos of the setup. If there is interest I'll try to get those from him and start a thread on this M/S + PAS technique.