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Author Topic: New SONY PCM-A10  (Read 126224 times)

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Offline Sebastian

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Re: New SONY PCM-A10
« Reply #270 on: May 16, 2019, 10:11:49 AM »
schoeps, as non-electret condensors, require polarization voltage. all DPAs, small and large, are permanently polarized at several hundred volts

I know, I know. My comment was meant as a rather tongue-in-cheek one. ;)

Anyway, kudos to you for trying out all that stuff! I must admit I've never really looked into those DPAs, but would love to hear a comparison with a pair of Schoeps one day.

Also, I've always wondered if the CMR active end can be disassembled like the KC cables. These do indeed look interesting, but the stock Schoeps cable is a bit too heavy for me. So my real question is if it's possible to replace that with something thinner, e.g. Belden 1804A.

Offline hoppedup

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Re: New SONY PCM-A10
« Reply #271 on: May 16, 2019, 10:50:11 AM »
More A10 goodness
https://youtu.be/ild2E-w7nek

Looks and sounds great. Thanks, Ed!
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Offline Brian E.

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Re: New SONY PCM-A10
« Reply #272 on: May 16, 2019, 04:20:23 PM »
More A10 goodness
https://youtu.be/ild2E-w7nek

what camera are you using for the 4K?
my tapes:  The Archive | Dime | Etree

Recorder - Sony PCM A-10 | Cans - Shure SE535 | Mics - CA-14 Cards | Canon EOS 5D Mark II 17-40L f4 50 f1.4 70-200L f2.8 IS II 430EX II

Offline edtyre

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Re: New SONY PCM-A10
« Reply #273 on: May 16, 2019, 04:26:04 PM »
music>mics>pre>recorder

Offline illconditioned

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Re: New SONY PCM-A10
« Reply #274 on: May 16, 2019, 04:26:13 PM »
smallest youre getting into a schoeps setup with A10 , CR2032 holder fits into the slimmer back area of A10:



youd be potting that cap and resistor into the top portion of that 2x CR2032 holder as well as input/output jacks or cables

DPA 401x w/active shown for reference. about 2/3 the size and weight, and smaller connector on the other end as a 2-wire solution. smallest you can do a pair of CMRs with is either a mini-xlr or TRRS. the factory 3-wire cables on the CMRs are considerably larger than the 2.2mm DPA 2-wire and its really tough to tie 2 cmrs into a TRRS jack without an adapter cable. Hard to see in pic, but DPAs are a mm less in diameter as well, they slide out of my usual schoeps holders

if anybody want to build that tiny bat box i can send you parts for free, i have a few of all of those
Normally someone like me would pop up and say sure.LOL.No time at the moment, but good luck with project.  Just add solder.
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Please DO NOT mail me with tech questions.  I will try to answer in the forums when I get a chance.  Thanks.

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Offline jerryfreak

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Re: New SONY PCM-A10
« Reply #275 on: May 16, 2019, 05:06:00 PM »
No different schematic than the 9V battery box I’ve been running for years, just a lower voltage and ‘only’ 20-30hrs per set of 60-cent coin cell batteries. Circuit couldn’t be more simple just a current limiting resistor and a smoothing cap. There’s an on off switch in the top of the case you can put the components in, the biggest part is the jacks and cables in and out
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Offline Brian E.

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Re: New SONY PCM-A10
« Reply #276 on: May 16, 2019, 09:33:52 PM »
A-10 with my CA-9100.  I thought it didn't have a headphone jack so I was pleasantly surprised.  Also thought it was only internal storage but there's a micro SD slot.   :coolguy:
my tapes:  The Archive | Dime | Etree

Recorder - Sony PCM A-10 | Cans - Shure SE535 | Mics - CA-14 Cards | Canon EOS 5D Mark II 17-40L f4 50 f1.4 70-200L f2.8 IS II 430EX II

Offline chk

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Re: New SONY PCM-A10
« Reply #277 on: May 17, 2019, 07:53:37 AM »
Maiden voyage last night. Ran my a-10 as a 2nd/backup rig for new mastersounds, akg ck77 > spsb10 > a10. Nothing new to add to thread, really. Thing is such a breeze to operate. Set levels and kicked off the recording with the app. Familiar sony metering. And the bluetooth range seems to be significantly better than that of my mixpre-6. This little deck is a winner, no brainer relative to the m10, imo.

Offline jerryfreak

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Re: New SONY PCM-A10
« Reply #278 on: May 18, 2019, 03:34:13 AM »
the whole mic assembly pops out, its only connection to the board are some reasonably large solder pads



I briefly considered mic-ectomy, or mic-upgrade to better caps, but alas it only gives them 1.45V.

A mic-ectomy would make this tiny recorder extra tiny, like big pack of gum tiny, as youd lose 1/2" of length on top, and that whole bulbous part on the back could go if you wanted to edit the rear case. thats like 20% of the volume. not a ton of metal inside, the extra paranoid could pop out the camera screw mount and lose a few grams.



« Last Edit: May 18, 2019, 04:09:37 AM by jerryfreak »
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Offline jerryfreak

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Re: New SONY PCM-A10
« Reply #279 on: May 18, 2019, 04:25:47 AM »
found the elusive part number for the neoprene slipcase i lost almost instantly, waiting for a quote on price and availability

https://partstore.encompass.com/item/11742734/Sony/4-739-779-01/
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Offline jerryfreak

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Re: New SONY PCM-A10
« Reply #280 on: May 18, 2019, 05:14:25 AM »
further testing of A10 powering 4011s with MMP-G actives, vs d:vice powering same mics

i used my tone generator/mic calibrator to calibrate mics to 114 dB = ~2-3 dBV for both tests to simulate similar input gain. Then, with input levels at same settings, i boxed the mics up in a hard drive box with egg crate and put them outside in a fireproof file cabinet (like a safe), and recorded noise both without any source, as well as with the same tone generator set at 94 dB in same cabinet (not even close to 94 dB at the mics, in fact it was peaking -65 to -70dB in both cases

the A10 was only at input level of 14
the d:vice was at input level of 72% in apogee metarecorder

so A10 appears much more sensitive

i took each file and normalized it to where the tone sounds similar volume to me in both cases, so you can hear the tone, and also the relative noise by each recorder at low level. to my ears the noise floor of the A10 sounds slightly greater than that of the d:vice, again, these are VERY quiet signals, like hearing open headphones from across the room. with foam earplugs in. with noisier mics like a 4061 there might be no audible difference

https://soundcloud.com/user-760596491/sets/a10-vs-dvice-low-level-noise

at this point we are really approaching self noise of mics. i can try to do same test on 4011s powered by a V3 w/phantom on a real mic body. maybe ill redo the test with 114 dB generator in the cabinet so i can match levels better between tests. noise should still be somewhat audible despite being 20 dB lower than signal

i think a good test would be to try the mmp-gs on a real battery box that provides 5-9V to the mics under load and see if headroom increases. there must be a reason dpa's own phantom adapters provide such a low voltage under load (when theyve got all teh jouice in the world to work with starting at P48). maybe theres little to be gained there

« Last Edit: May 18, 2019, 06:05:49 AM by jerryfreak »
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Offline Sebastian

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Re: New SONY PCM-A10
« Reply #281 on: May 18, 2019, 05:04:02 PM »
Great work, man! Is there a special trick to opening it? I haven't tried it yet, but would love to see what's inside in terms of ADC chips.

Offline jerryfreak

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Re: New SONY PCM-A10
« Reply #282 on: May 18, 2019, 08:53:11 PM »
Great work, man! Is there a special trick to opening it? I haven't tried it yet, but would love to see what's inside in terms of ADC chips.

see pic above that has the back case off, sitting beside the unit. pop off the rectangular rubber plug at the top, and there are two screws underneath, remove them, then peel case back, the rest  of the connection points are all snap-in, then once inside its all screws

I didnt get the main board out, was a limited number of components on back i noted the part numbers on the chips,below is a pic. i tried googling the part numbers and came up with nothing.  i think the main ADC chip is on the other side of the board under the screen

« Last Edit: May 18, 2019, 10:58:32 PM by jerryfreak »
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Offline jerryfreak

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Re: New SONY PCM-A10
« Reply #283 on: May 18, 2019, 09:32:58 PM »
ok i did some more tests today with a better setup. i was trying to test high SPL, so i sacrificed some image for pure volume. needed to use my 4 biggest speakers (2x 200W+100W biamped BM-15A active monitors + their passive BM15 counterparts driven by an 80's kenwood Basic M1 amp @ 100 WPC. same MMC 4011 modular caps in all cases. i ran the monitors as hard as i could with brief blinks of the red lights on front which indicate amplifier clip point.



first test was a reference using the MMP-E active cables (https://www.dpamicrophones.com/accessories/mmp-er-es-modular-active-cable-3-m  - the closest equivalent to the old 402x series), P48 powered XLRs that send 9V (under load) up to the caps, quoted as 131 dB dynamic range in specs (slight compromise to the full bodies, but probably the smallest practical 'small' rig)

i ran these into the V3>AD2K. used my 114 dB calibrator to set the levels to -16 dB at 114 dB on both channels. gain was 26 and 27.5 to try to match the caps which are off slightly in sensitivity. At this level FSD was approximately 130 dB which it kissed zero just once during the test, but consistently peaked up above -3dB. I cant recall ever running a V3 below 30 dB of gain in the field, ever, with CMC6s, so id say this is on the upper end of volume of anything id ever recorded

second test was same setup except using the MMP-G actives (https://www.dpamicrophones.com/accessories/mmp-g-modular-active-cable-microdot - spec'd at 122 dB dynamic range) into the d:vice>iphone

id say it held its own, I think i might actually prefer the sound of the d:vice with the 4011s over the V3>AD2K. AD2K+4011 is a bit too thin (though AD2K is my favorite with schoeps)

third test was same MMP-G into the sony A-10 with its own PIP. attempting to capture volume this loud did not go well. Slight audible distortion but more obvious was a serious dc offset and possibly input overloading. to keep levels reasonable i had to run the A-10 at 03 input level (of 100!). checkout this ugly waveform



heres the files

https://soundcloud.com/user-760596491/sets/4011-actives-test


so long story short (back to some A10 content): A10 PIP by itself is a poor match for 406x and actives at high SPL (406x behaved the same at high SPL), but i dont think its necessarily due to low PIP voltage. The problem (i think) is that the A10 only gives PIP with the input set to mic in, and its too sensitive and brickwalls it. I dont think you could use resistance to attenuate it without dropping the PIP power which is already on the slightly low side


The R07 mic-in is less sensitive on a side-by-side basis, might be a better fit if in fact input level is the limiting factor and not voltage. Will test it on similar setup next time i'm home alone and can get real loud. EDIT: R07 did in fact do a LOT better, see: https://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=189715.msg2300437#msg2300437)


the MMP-G+4011 would easily work with a small bat box feeding to A10 line-in. For what were trying to do, it could prob be done with a 2/3 AA 6V silver oxide LR44 (whole box smaller than a 9V), or the two CR2032 coin cells pictured above)
« Last Edit: May 21, 2019, 05:32:15 AM by jerryfreak »
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Offline RyanJ

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Re: New SONY PCM-A10
« Reply #284 on: May 19, 2019, 10:42:31 AM »
I would honestly rather get rid of the external mics on this thing. I would never use them. Unless there was a way to take some AT853 (4.7k mod) and put them in that housing.

You said you could make a new backing for it to make it slimmer. How would you go about this. I am curious. You have peaked my interest a lot!

I did pull the trigger and order one of these. Looking forward to using it in a couple weeks time for my next show!
http://www.ninlive.com]
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Mics: Schoeps MK4s, AT853 (4.7k mod)
Pre: Naiant IPA v1.0, Babynbox
Recorders: M10, A10, Zoom F8n, Marantz PMD-620 (Concert Mod), TCD-D8
Transfers: Everything you want

 

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