Topic: Externalising the internal mics of the PCM-M10

[morst]

Ozpeter's got a good point here. The sound is fine, but the image sucks with omnis packed so close together.  If you're going remote with similar mics, why not try a cardioid pair too? I love ORTF for music recording. I like to go where it sounds good and record from there, sounds like that's what pool's doing.

And as Nolafishwater said - TAKE PHOTOS! if you're gonna bust the thing open, video it and put it on youtube, and link us there. I wanna see!!
:-)

That said, why are some here dogging the internal caps?

I guess I'm the chief critic of the M10 internals here, but that's purely on the grounds of the poor stereo image.

What would be interesting would be if someone was brave or daft enough to attempt to replace them with the equivalent cardioid capsules, albeit into a case not designed for cardioids.  I'm not planning to...

[it-goes-to-eleven]

This thread was way more fun when those internal mics were considered "magical"

[wipeman]

Interesting read but it is too technical now. If using mic jacks is the same path that the internals need, then I need external mics with same noise specs and sensitivty as the intermnal M10's. I am not after the same exact sound of the M10s....but same specs. Other mics with equal specs will be good. As you see im not that hard headed and changed my opinion.

To chip in regarding the M10 and external omni capsules. I built myself a pair using the Primo EM172s for use with my new M10. I have read on a forum somewhere (so not necessarily true ) that these are the same capsules used in the M10 (and I'm certainly not opening it up to find out). They worked out really cheap to make.

See pictures here

I had been after a cheap pair of quiet omni mics but the capsules all appeared quiet noisy (60dB SNR) and I could hear the hiss. Then I saw the noise specs of these.

I got the capsules from frogloggers.com. I also bought some EM158s which are 6mm capsules (the EM172s are 10mm) and while they are also very quiet they sound harsher to me at higher frequencies with much less bass response than the EM172s. Incidentally, both capsule types work fine when powered from the 3-ish volts PIP on the M10.

The specs for both capsules are repeated below (taken from the frogloggers website):

BT-EM158 (6mm)
==============
Signal to noise ratio 75 dB
Sensitivity -32 dB ±3 dB at 1 kHz (0 dB = 1 V/Pa)
Self-noise 19 dB

BT-EM172 (10mm)
===============
Signal to noise ratio 80 dB
Sensitivity -28 dB ±3 dB at 1 kHz (0 dB = 1 V/Pa)
Self-noise 14 dB

The Max input SPLs are 125dB and 122 dB respectively, though not sure at what voltage this is quoted at (probably the upper quoted voltage limit of 9V).

HTH