As always with new technology it is not easy to tell which direction the market will take. Some technology is adapted very quickly, some takes a long time and some is never accepted by the market at all. It may also be very different depending on the market segment.
You could argue that for example MADI has been slow in adoption. Madi allows 64 channels on one optical cable and in the last few years quite a few MADI systems has come into use, decades after the standard was created. And I would believe a lot (if not most) largish touring acts now use MADI between stage and FOH mixer.
Digital microphones will probably also take a while. But just consider what may happen when we have the following two components:
1) a few low-priced boxes that accepts stereo digital microphones (imagine as example apple including it in next version of the "special garageband edition of iPhone")
2) a few low-priced digitial microphones, perhaps from China.
Once these two are in place, we could have a very quick acceptance on the market.
There is nothing in the AES standard that limits these things to the top-level segment of microphones. Having the digital converter in the microphone has a number of advantages (and of course a number of disadvantages) and could be the perfect solution to a lot of technical problems. My guess is that it could be rather simple for a mass-marketer to include the AD in the mic -- basically one (complicated but still) chip and a few components around it. The complicated analog chain with a preamplifier with largish transformers or condensors to isolate from phantom power would not be needed. And the recording box would turn into a simple bit-bucket which would take prices down. History shows that purely digital stuff has plummeted down in price, but combining it with analog (with any quality) makes it expensive. We will have to wait a little to see the direction.
The current crop of digital AES microphones are squarily aimed at a set of professional applications, not at the general taper. In a professional setting (say a largish radio corporation or TV studio) these could be the perfect solution. No delicate analog signals anywhere, everything digital (in a studio video is probably digital already).
If the low-priced mics comes around we will have the choice of going up market when we choose ourselves. Currently Neumann and Schoeps (in a smallish way) are the ones driving the mic side of things, you could perhaps argue that RME drives the connection box part of these things. Neither is aimed at the hobbyist market, so there clearly is an opening there.
Gunnar
Topic: neumann mic with integrated A/D converter (Read 3169 times)