Topic: Sennheiser Active Setup - MKH 8000 Part II

[ghellquist]

Well informed source says figure is planned (John Willet). He is generally right. No dates published yet.

[grider]

Hi all -

Anyone know if Senn has any plans to introduce a Figure 8 cap for the 8000-series?  I'm mighty tempted by these mics, but to justify spending even MORE $$$ on recording gear, I'd have to be adding the ability to record M/S.....

Mike

just beware these additional caps are might expensive, in the 1500 range for just caps as I recall, these Sennheisers are not for the frugal or faint of heart

[CQBert]

Fig 8 will happen....  not for a while according to my sources - a year??

If you want a real cost go to a BSW or something like it and ask for a quote - street price v. list are usually quite different.

Make sure you are asking for the Cap only - not the single mic with the xlr portion.

CQBert

[John Willett]

just beware these additional caps are might expensive, in the 1500 range for just caps as I recall, these Sennheisers are not for the frugal or faint of heart

Just to point out that the "capsule" is the complete microphone - the XLR portion is just an XLR with no electronics in it at all.

[landshark]

Well informed source says figure is planned (John Willet). He is generally right. No dates published yet.

Oh no!  My wallet just twitched...<grin>

Mike

[spcyrfc]

these fit into a pelican 1010 nicely. what tiny mics. the 1010 make my 1060 look like a giant.

[landshark]

Hi all, looking for some shared experience...

I got my Senn's on Wed. (8040 STs), and went out last night to a local bar to tape a friend's band (Emergency Service, they were surprisingly good).  Was recording straight into my MR-1000 (Busman mod).  The "sound guy" (I think he was a bouncer who knew how to find the on switch on the board...) had the sound waaaayy to high and bassy.  The space was pretty small, underground, and very boomy.  In the small space, it was borderline painful making me wish I'd brought my earplugs, one of the loudest situations I've been in recently.  So there's the setup.

During the show, I checked the sound and even though the meters were safely between -12 and -6, I heard the tell-tale crackling of something being overloaded.  When I got home and looked at the waveform in Reaper, sure enough "something" had clipped.  Since the 8040's are rated 142 db SPL, and there wasn't blood coming out of our ears at the show, I'm guessing it wasn't the mics <grin>

My initial guess is I overloaded the preamp in the MR1000.  Does anyone have any idea how hot the signal is coming out of the 8040's?  Anyone else have problems with the preamp stage?  My other guess is since the "sound guy" had the bass cranked up waay to far (our drinks were literally vibrating across the table!) all that high energy low bass acoustic energy was being efficiently converted by the mics into electrical energy that was blasting away at my preamp.

My next step is to either a) run them through some barrel attenuators, either -20db or -10db, or b) run them through my Shure FP24 / MixPre, but wanted to sound out my thoughts with those with experience.  I saw someone had a signature that they were running the 8040's into an MR1000,but couldn't find them to compare notes.  I know many run them through V3's and 7XX's, which can tolerate some very hot signals, so I'm hoping to find out how much gain you're using to get a sense of how hot these mics run. 

All ideas greatly appreciated!

Mike

[CQBert]

I have never had my mics overload the pre's on my 702....


Sounds like you just got blown away in a small room...


FWIW - the FOH for STS9 runs these mics for his AUD feed when he records... 


CQBert

[landshark]

Hi CQBert -

Yeah, and I'm pretty sure they won't blow through the pre's on my Shure / Mixpre either - but like all of what Sound Devices makes, they're bulletproof.

Compared to other mics, do you find yourself using relatively more, or relatively less gain when you use the Senns?  That'll give me some sense of how hot the signal is coming out.

Mike

[CQBert]

I ran DPA 4021's before these...nearly identical gain..

Before that Neumann u89 and the big boys wanted more gain than the little guys.

Hope that helps...

[landshark]

Hi CQBert -

Yeah, and I'm pretty sure they won't blow through the pre's on my Shure / Mixpre either - but like all of what Sound Devices makes, they're bulletproof.

Compared to other mics, do you find yourself using relatively more, or relatively less gain when you use the Senns?  That'll give me some sense of how hot the signal is coming out.

Mike

Ugh.  Just got back from taping another friend's set this past Saturday.  This time in a room where I had taped him several times previously, using my AKG481's straight into my MR1000 with no problems what so ever. 

I used the Shure / MixPre and selected 80 hz roll-off to try to get rid of some of the low end that was probably pushing the signal energy so far up.  The pull came out OK, but there were still current issues - the peak / clip lights kept coming on, indicating signals within 3db of clipping the input stage of the Shure / MixPre.  And it did indeed manage to clip a couple times.

So what's going on here?  Am I missing something with these mics?  Are they just too hot for pro-sumer gear?  Or are they just not usable in high-SPL environments?  Or do I have a bum set?

Ugh and grrrr....

Mike

[CQBert]

I do not know.. I have never had an issue...

I usually record very close to a stage.. full bands w/drums and no issues..

can you attenuate the input on the mix-pre down 10db?  The SD Site claims that the input is unclippable via a 2 stage opto isolator circuit or something.

I would break down the rig and test each step... 

1 - mics into Korg... see where it clips

2 - mics into mix pre into Korg...

3 - borrow other equip and see what happens...

Ask other users about issues..

Keep us posted..

CQBert

[kbergend]

Second time out with the 8040s last night for Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles, and I'm really liking the sound.  Here's a 24-bit sample recorded into an Oade Concert R-44, DIN-A about 12' from the stage and 7' up (added 7dB gain, otherwise unretouched).

http://kbergend.tripod.com/sb_8040_sample24.wav

These mics run a little hotter than my 480s, but didn't come anywhere near overloading the pres on the modded R-44 -- I had the gain sensitivity at 10 o'clock or so.

[landshark]

Ok, update time -

So, I went out this weekend, and ran 483's > MixPre > Korg MR1 and also MKH 8040's > -10db barrel attenuators > Korg Mr1000. 

Interestingly, the "clip" light on the MixPre was lighting up periodically with the 483's, but no distortion (CQB, you're right about the theoretically unclippable front stage of the MixPre). 

The MKHs on the Korg seemed to be fine all the way through, no more clipping.  So, looks like for my purposes i'll have to run them with the barrel attenuators if I'm using them to feed the MR1000.  Kind of an "ugh" since one main goal was to shrink my whole rig down to the size of the Korg carrying case similar to what I do with my active 460's.  Oh well, at least they're working, right?

I still haven't done a thorough listening, but first impressions are good, although VERY full on the low end.  These mics could probably do with a bass roll off feature.  Now if my cables from Senn would just arrive....

Mike

[John Willett]

The screw-in attenuator / bass roll-off module for the MKH 8000 series will be out very soon - it will screw in-between the mic. and XLR modules.