Topic: dpa 4060 vs. 4061 for metal and jazz

[ghellquist]

Regarding the "wiggles" in the frequency plot.

You might get the impression that this is a fault of the 406x mics only among all mics in the world. But you will get similar graphs from just about any mic, a lot of them or even most will give even larger wiggles.

The clue is the "Smoothing 10Hz" setting of the software or machine doing the plot. No manufacturer except DPA ever, ever, ever publishes this kind of revealing data. All other sets smoothing to much larger values. This makes the frequency plot look smooth and nice without wiggles, making the marketing people happy. It might even fool one or two buyers or reviewers even on this forum. So if you want to stay awya from comparing apples to pears, please avoid the "smoothing" trap.

The graph even makes the 4006 look bad compare to other mics. And remember that the 4006 is one of the "straightest" mics available for audio recording, a direct descendant from measurent mics.

Now, a completely different thing is if you like the sound of the DPA 406x-s. Some do like it, some not. Taste is personal and should stay that way if you ask me.

// Gunnar

[illconditioned]

Regarding the "wiggles" in the frequency plot.

You might get the impression that this is a fault of the 406x mics only among all mics in the world. But you will get similar graphs from just about any mic, a lot of them or even most will give even larger wiggles.

The clue is the "Smoothing 10Hz" setting of the software or machine doing the plot. No manufacturer except DPA ever, ever, ever publishes this kind of revealing data. All other sets smoothing to much larger values. This makes the frequency plot look smooth and nice without wiggles, making the marketing people happy. It might even fool one or two buyers or reviewers even on this forum. So if you want to stay awya from comparing apples to pears, please avoid the "smoothing" trap.

The graph even makes the 4006 look bad compare to other mics. And remember that the 4006 is one of the "straightest" mics available for audio recording, a direct descendant from measurent mics.

Now, a completely different thing is if you like the sound of the DPA 406x-s. Some do like it, some not. Taste is personal and should stay that way if you ask me.

// Gunnar

Dear Gunnar,


Thanks for the informative post.


What I'm trying to understand is *why* I do not like the DPA 406x.  The frequency response should not be the problem.  I expect all reasonable mics to be "flat enough" for what we are doing (recording rock music!).   I'm thinking there is something else, perhaps harmonic distortion (?) on the upper end of the response that is making it sound bad.  I don't believe in magic.  There should be some acoustic (or psychoacoustic) explanation for the sound.


 Richard

[ghellquist]

....

What I'm trying to understand is *why* I do not like the DPA 406x.  The frequency response should not be the problem.  I expect all reasonable mics to be "flat enough" for what we are doing (recording rock music!).   I'm thinking there is something else, perhaps harmonic distortion (?) on the upper end of the response that is making it sound bad.  I don't believe in magic.  There should be some acoustic (or psychoacoustic) explanation for the sound.

Richard,
       indeed this is the ever ongoing quest for knowledge.

Some reflections on this, I have been down a lot of paths in trying to understand my own taste, often without beeing able to really pinpoint the cause.

It might have a lot of reasons coupled to lacks of the mics as such. No mic has a perfect frequency response, all mics add distortion in different ways. And it might be that your ears are extra sensitive to exactly the faults of this mic.

It might however be totally different reasons. One of them is how you actually use the mic. This might not be the best mic for your exact usage , "best" in this case trying to referr to some kind of objective quality . It might be that the mic is too much omni or whatever for what you record. Things that in some circumstances are "good" and in other "bad" . ( Please note quotes, this is a difficult subject to nail totally right in words ) . It could alse be in combination with your recording equipment which might interface better with other mics. Perhaps the 406x really wants more than x Volts and you equipment supplies less which other mics are perfectly happy with. Or any other circumstance like that.

It might also be a completely different reason, maybe the mic is simply too good in the wrong areas. As we know, all mics modify the sound somehow. This becomes part of the recording and can have a large effect on what we here. One example might be the Neumann U47, long time discontinued, which sells for fantasy money and is used in top-level studios. From most aspects this is a rather bad mic with high noise level, a crooked frequency response. And yet it adds that something extra that makes it a favourite tool. Maybe your other mics has something of that same quality, really adding "distortion" which simply makes things sound better to you in your usage.  It is all about usage and taste I believe. ( Sort of like wine, sometimes red wine goes better, sometimes white, and then there are lots of different ones to choose from ) .

Or it might be a totally different reason, more going with preconceived notions. I have been down that road too many times to be surprised. Sometimes the brain simply decides on something beeing better or worse. It takes a lot of work to pass that barrier and make the mind doing a true unbiased comparison. Quite often we do not really test things in an unbiased head-to-head way. I might test a mic in a really bad room and forever calling that mic colored compared to my other mic that was run in a better room. Or any amount of reasons not really falling in the "objective" part of the world.

The bottom line though is that there definitely is one part that is about taste. Which is good enough for me really to make most of my choices.

// Gunnar

[guysonic]

The Panasonic omni electret capsules that Earthworks use and I have been around forever. 
When I was the manager of the components engineering telecom division at Atari in the very early 80's I had brand new audio testing gear costing well over $200k.   Used this test gear to extensively evaluate these same capsules running many graphs up to 20K Hz (limit of the acoustic gear) finding the bare capsule was ruler flat within the 20-20K Hz bandwidth of the testers.  Earthworks expanded the bandwidth limitation with specialized spark gap acoustic exciters finding this same capsule capable of response beyond 40K (hence their '40K' model).   

While the 'bare' capsules are ruler flat in response, adding mounting/shell material changes this in various and unpredictable ways to make the natural flat to have squiggles typical of mics like 4060 and most other types of  'enclosed' omni.   Both Earthworks and myself greatly modify the capsule both electrically, AND mechanically by machining some capsule features (like the sound hole opening among other stuff) to make frequencies above 20K Hz smooth, and without humps/dips occurring in the stock capsule. 

And the mounting/enclosure design is very important for this same reason.   Some notice my mics have NO cord noise regardless of how the cord is handled.   There is NO tiny mic that has this feature, and the way this is accomplished is just one of the many trade secrets involved in the DSM stereo-surround mic design since 1985.

In other words, while claiming ALL mics are not ruler flat and all have those telltale (colorizing) squiggles if frequency plot measurements are done without ‘smoothing’ is generally true. 

However, there exists exceptions having truly non-smoothed-measured ruler-flat bandwidth. These are about as rare as 'hen's teeth' in this industry, and surprisingly not very popular. Not when the majority of manufacturers and users are all used to ‘wearing colored glasses’ thinking this is the way the it looks, or should look, or looks better than otherwise. 

Those using ‘uncolorizing’ gear are generally thought to be just plain wrong or at least unpopular in their taste for the unmodified.   And this is the way things have been for a long time, and is not going to change anytime soon from what I can see.

[dactylus]

When I first got them I was concerned about the additional mass of the XLR's when going through security. I have found it's not an issue. I actually like the ease of hooking things up with the XLR's vs. the Microdot's. I had a few occasions when I thought the Microdots were properly connected to the MMA6000 and they weren't (which resulted in a static filled recording).Just ran the Nevaton's last night for Rush at Red Rocks. Last time I ran the DPA's for Rush at Red Rocks. The Nevaton's win.

^
This has happened to me several times too with the microdot connectors on the dpa's and it is truly a rude surprise!!

I actually like the ease of hooking things up with the XLR's vs. the Microdot's. I had a few occasions when I thought the Microdots were properly connected to the MMA6000 and they weren't (which resulted in a static filled recording).