Topic: As much as I hate "vs." threads: DPA 4060 vs. CA-11/14 omni

[echo1434]

DPA 4061 and Audio-Technica ES943/O (sold as SP-CMC-8 by Sound Professionals) sound 99.9% identical to one another.

http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-CMC-8


I made two recordings side-by-side this summer, and in an ABX I can't tell them apart unless I cheat. The biggest advantage of DPAs is that they're more than twice as small as the ATs.

The sensitivity of the ATs with low-sens mod is about halfway in between DPA 4060 and 4061, which is really perfect for for taping rock concerts. For taping something softer, you may not want the mod.

Just make sure you get the omni elements. Most people have CMC-8 cards, and that is a whole different thing!

[boojum]

I have the SP-CMC-8's and I am sure glad to know I do not have to spend the big bucks to get DPA sound.  Those Danish scammers out to be run out of town.     

On a more serious note, one observation - you - is a statistically small sampling.  And one recording is not much of a sampling either.  I am sure that you are sincere in your beliefs but to be a valid test would require more samples and more testers.  As an example, suppose you recorded a show whose musicians sang into Shure SM58's and played the guitars into SM57's and had a so-so playback system.  Hmmm.  Yup, both the SP's and the DPA's would sound the same.  But in a series of tests with acoustic sources the differences might show up.  I know that the ad says they sound like the 4060's, but that don't make it so.  The SP's are good mics, yes.

[boojum]

If you really have an itch to get the 4060s, you should just save up some money and spring for them now...You'll end up doing it sooner or later anyway, and you might as well make maximum use of your limited funds!  If you really need something right away, go for the CA-11s (with both caps); that way, when the upgrade monster starts disturbing your sleep, you'll end up with a pair of cardioids in the collection too.

The DPAs are considerably more sensitive than the Church mics, which might come in handy when recording pianissimo cello solos.  DPA also sells mounts specifically for mic'ing string instruments (although these little accessories are usually scandalously expensive).  Another advantage is that when the upgrade monster starts in on your choice of recorder, you can also get a pair of XLR/phantom adaptors for the 4060s...

With respect to the cost issue: all other factors being equal, better equipment should yield better results...And quality and price are pretty well correlated.  Not a perfect correlation, of course, and there are exceptions (in my opinion, the Church mics are a superb value), but you generally get what you pay for.

agreed. if you think you'll stick around with this little money pit of a hobby, get the dpas now.

Before you sink money into the DPA406x (or any expensive mic), make sure you like the sound!  Listen to samples.  I've got *a few* only at http://Soundmann.com.  My opinion -- I don't like DPA406x for music recording.  Ambient they sound unbelievable, but for music, I'm liking Countryman B3 a lot more.  Of course everyone has a different opinion.

  Richard
 

The 4060's can run on low voltage, but are designed for phantom voltage.  This is from the company website:

"Min. 5 V - max 50 V through DPA adapter", and,

"The Miniature Microphone's size taken into consideration DPA has obtained an outstanding noise floor of 23 dB(A) re. 20 µPa and an impressive sensitivity of 20 mV/Pa and if powered correctly, the microphone will be able to handle sound pressure levels up to 134 dB SPL before clipping occurs. A wide range of connection adapters makes it possible to use the Miniature Microphones with close to any professional wireless systems available plus 48 V Phantom. The Miniature Microphone DPA 4060 is winner of Product of the Year Award 1997 from TCI and nominated for a TEC award in 1997."

Yes, you can run it on a battery box.  No, it is not as good as phantom.  With the lower voltage I would suspect that it is not performing up to its designed potential.  Countryman also specs phantom power, but may be better suited by its design to work at low voltages.  I am just surprised to see the 406n down-rated.  It has a pretty good rep.  I am also attaching a PDF file by Onno Schultze on the 4061 which he is quite fond of.  Onno is a Tonmeister and helped tune Schoeps latest mic, so a few people respect his expertise and opinion.  But, what do I know?  You might check out his short review of the mics.

Beg to disagree here.  Battery can power the mics with two wires.  I forget the voltage and current, but those have to be chosen together.  I think it is 3.7v on the mic, but don't quote me on this.  I built a battery box but I have since forget the resistor value.

  Richard

Richard, if you ran the DPA's at the 3.7 volts you say your battery box puts out you ran it with too low voltage.  DPA, as I quoted, says 5 - 50 volts.  They do not recommend 5 volts, they say you can do it.  I would doubt that in a studio recording they would run the mics at 5 volts.  Most likely they would be run at 48, phantom voltage.  BTW, I never said you could not power the mics with two wires.  I never even mentioned it.  All I said was that less than 48 volts is probably less than optimal voltage.  It can be done, but may not be the best idea you ever had.   

[gossling]

Didn't we already go around this issue on another of your threads?  The need for live sound reinforcement is a big requirement, I thought we discussed that already?  That goes to your question about standard condensers like the Rode, AT, SP, etc.

Also, for live sound, are you looking for something instrument mounted or stand mounted?  That makes a difference as well.

Hi again.  Yeah, my mention of live sound reinforcement on this thread was more of a footnote than anything.  I think we settled on that other thread that most of these small microphones (DPA, CA, SP) could be used for live sound, one way or another.  This thread is really just to see if the CA's (or other microphones) are a sensible substitute for the DPA's, in both function and quality.  And how all of these compare to the more standard "studio" microphones.  If I were to use the small microphones, I'd go with instrument-mounting for mobility and discretion, but I'm willing to work both ways, depending on the microphone.  

DPA 4061 and Audio-Technica ES943/O (sold as SP-CMC-8 by Sound Professionals) sound 99.9% identical to one another.

Do you happen to have samples of these? Aren't the 4061's and 4060's identical other than the lower sensitivity on the former? So is it safe to say that the SP-CMC-8s (high sensitivity) are very similar to the 4060's as well? And, to test the transitive property of microphone quality, has anyone compared recordings of the SP-CMC-8s with CA microphones?

Thanks for the recommendations, I'll check them out.

[illconditioned]

If you really have an itch to get the 4060s, you should just save up some money and spring for them now...You'll end up doing it sooner or later anyway, and you might as well make maximum use of your limited funds!  If you really need something right away, go for the CA-11s (with both caps); that way, when the upgrade monster starts disturbing your sleep, you'll end up with a pair of cardioids in the collection too.

The DPAs are considerably more sensitive than the Church mics, which might come in handy when recording pianissimo cello solos.  DPA also sells mounts specifically for mic'ing string instruments (although these little accessories are usually scandalously expensive).  Another advantage is that when the upgrade monster starts in on your choice of recorder, you can also get a pair of XLR/phantom adaptors for the 4060s...

With respect to the cost issue: all other factors being equal, better equipment should yield better results...And quality and price are pretty well correlated.  Not a perfect correlation, of course, and there are exceptions (in my opinion, the Church mics are a superb value), but you generally get what you pay for.

agreed. if you think you'll stick around with this little money pit of a hobby, get the dpas now.

Before you sink money into the DPA406x (or any expensive mic), make sure you like the sound!  Listen to samples.  I've got *a few* only at http://Soundmann.com.  My opinion -- I don't like DPA406x for music recording.  Ambient they sound unbelievable, but for music, I'm liking Countryman B3 a lot more.  Of course everyone has a different opinion.

  Richard
 

The 4060's can run on low voltage, but are designed for phantom voltage.  This is from the company website:

"Min. 5 V - max 50 V through DPA adapter", and,

"The Miniature Microphone's size taken into consideration DPA has obtained an outstanding noise floor of 23 dB(A) re. 20 µPa and an impressive sensitivity of 20 mV/Pa and if powered correctly, the microphone will be able to handle sound pressure levels up to 134 dB SPL before clipping occurs. A wide range of connection adapters makes it possible to use the Miniature Microphones with close to any professional wireless systems available plus 48 V Phantom. The Miniature Microphone DPA 4060 is winner of Product of the Year Award 1997 from TCI and nominated for a TEC award in 1997."

Yes, you can run it on a battery box.  No, it is not as good as phantom.  With the lower voltage I would suspect that it is not performing up to its designed potential.  Countryman also specs phantom power, but may be better suited by its design to work at low voltages.  I am just surprised to see the 406n down-rated.  It has a pretty good rep.  I am also attaching a PDF file by Onno Schultze on the 4061 which he is quite fond of.  Onno is a Tonmeister and helped tune Schoeps latest mic, so a few people respect his expertise and opinion.  But, what do I know?  You might check out his short review of the mics.

Beg to disagree here.  Battery can power the mics with two wires.  I forget the voltage and current, but those have to be chosen together.  I think it is 3.7v on the mic, but don't quote me on this.  I built a battery box but I have since forget the resistor value.

  Richard

Richard, if you ran the DPA's at the 3.7 volts you say your battery box puts out you ran it with too low voltage.  DPA, as I quoted, says 5 - 50 volts.  They do not recommend 5 volts, they say you can do it.  I would doubt that in a studio recording they would run the mics at 5 volts.  Most likely they would be run at 48, phantom voltage.  BTW, I never said you could not power the mics with two wires.  I never even mentioned it.  All I said was that less than 48 volts is probably less than optimal voltage.  It can be done, but may not be the best idea you ever had.   

Are you talking about powering via an XLR module, or directly from a two-wire (microdot) connector?

Here is a file for powering the mic:

[Gutbucket]

Richard, if you ran the DPA's at the 3.7 volts you say your battery box puts out you ran it with too low voltage.  DPA, as I quoted, says 5 - 50 volts.  They do not recommend 5 volts, they say you can do it.  I would doubt that in a studio recording they would run the mics at 5 volts.  Most likely they would be run at 48, phantom voltage.  BTW, I never said you could not power the mics with two wires.  I never even mentioned it.  All I said was that less than 48 volts is probably less than optimal voltage.  It can be done, but may not be the best idea you ever had.   

This is incorrect.

All 406x mics are designed to run on 5v power. They will run fine on a bit more or less than that, such as typical 9v battery box power without problems but probably not a whole lot more. The available XLR adapters step down the 48v phantom to 5volts. If you were to plug them into 48v phantom without the step down adapter you'd probably let the magic smoke get out.   They do need a bit more current than some other 'plug-in power' mics.

The odd one is the 4073 which is designed to run on a lower 3v supply, but it is not designed to be as flat in frequency response.

The primary attraction of the 4061 is a lower output signal from the less sensitive capsule that is compatible with typical wireless transmitters, a primary concern for theater and ENG user but not for most of us.  The 4060 measures better than the 4061 in all aspects but max SPL (144db vs 134db), the most important being the lower noise floor.  134db is plenty for most anything I'll do with it.  

[edit for sleeptyping]

[illconditioned]

Richard, if you ran the DPA's at the 3.7 volts you say your battery box puts out you ran it with too low voltage.  DPA, as I quoted, says 5 - 50 volts.  They do not recommend 5 volts, they say you can do it.  I would doubt that in a studio recording they would run the mics at 5 volts.  Most likely they would be run at 48, phantom voltage.  BTW, I never said you could not power the mics with two wires.  I never even mentioned it.  All I said was that less than 48 volts is probably less than optimal voltage.  It can be done, but may not be the best idea you ever had.   

This is incorrect.

All 406x mics are designed to run on 5v power.  The available XLR adapters step down the 48v phantom to 5volts. They will run fine on typical 9v battery box power without problems as well but not more. If you were to plug them into 48v phantom without the step down adapter you'd probably let the magic smoke get out.   They do need a bit more current than some other 'plug-in power' mics.

The odd one is the 4073 which is designed to run on a lower 3v supply, but it is not designed to be as flat in frequency response.

The primary attraction of the 4061 is a lower output signal from the less sensitive capsule that is compatible with typical wireless transmitters, a primary concern for theater and ENG user but not for most of us.  The 4060 measures better than the 4061 in all aspects but max SPL (144db vs 134db), the most important being the lower noise floor.  134db is plenty for most anything I'll do with it.  

The adapter may output 5v.

Question: did you measure the voltage on the mic.  Ie., the adaptor under load?  Perhaps this is where the 2.5V comes from?  That is, when you hook up the mic you get 2.5V across the mic and 2.5V or so on a resitor *internal* to the phantom adapter.

Note that 3V supply is not enough.  You need some volts to drop across the load resistor.

  Richard

[Gutbucket]

The 4073 is a special mic built for transmitters that supply 3v.

I have two pairs of 4060. One set runs on the R-09s plug-in power, one set doesn't. What's the plug-in voltage on the R-09, like 3.5v?

I use them with either the DPA MMA6000 Preamp (5v) or church Uglies with Maha 9.6v rechargeables that typically measure 10.5 volts or so.  I haven't measured the mic power voltage of the Uglies to see if they drop the voltage any.

[edit- I don't know what the 2.5v you mention is referring to]

[boojum]

Richard, if you ran the DPA's at the 3.7 volts you say your battery box puts out you ran it with too low voltage.  DPA, as I quoted, says 5 - 50 volts.  They do not recommend 5 volts, they say you can do it.  I would doubt that in a studio recording they would run the mics at 5 volts.  Most likely they would be run at 48, phantom voltage.  BTW, I never said you could not power the mics with two wires.  I never even mentioned it.  All I said was that less than 48 volts is probably less than optimal voltage.  It can be done, but may not be the best idea you ever had.   

This is incorrect.

<SNIP>


[edit for sleeptyping]

Right you are.  It is a 5 volt device.

[illconditioned]

The 4073 is a special mic built for transmitters that supply 3v.

I have two pairs of 4060. One set runs on the R-09s plug-in power, one set doesn't. What's the plug-in voltage on the R-09, like 3.5v?

I use them with either the DPA MMA6000 Preamp (5v) or church Uglies with Maha 9.6v rechargeables that typically measure 10.5 volts or so.  I haven't measured the mic power voltage of the Uglies to see if they drop the voltage any.

[edit- I don't know what the 2.5v you mention is referring to]

I'm asking you to measure the voltage on the mic, when connected to the power supply.  Can you do this?  The open circuit voltage may be 5v, but the voltage under load should be quite a bit lower.

As far as the Edirol R09 goes, it has 2.5v of plug in power with a series (internal) 2.2k load resistor.  Not enough volts/current for the DPA406x at all.  But, I've been using this for a lot of mics (AT853, Church CA11, Sennheiser MKE40, MKE2, KE4, and Countryman B3) without problems.

  Richard

[Gutbucket]

I'm asking you to measure the voltage on the mic, when connected to the power supply.  Can you do this?  The open circuit voltage may be 5v, but the voltage under load should be quite a bit lower.

Morning..

I can do that this weekend sometime if you like.  I'll measure it with both preamps.

[Depechemode1993]

I will say that after running the 4060 (HEB) for Sarah Brightman I was rather impressed on how responsive the mics were for the type of music that was played. I know Chris has quality mics but I don't have any field experience or have had his mics to give an impression of them. But I have heard many great recordings from them.

But as an owner of the 4060's I freaking love them. I was so glad I finally bought a good pair that were matched. I will probably never buy another pair of mics again.

[echo1434]

I have the SP-CMC-8's and I am sure glad to know I do not have to spend the big bucks to get DPA sound.  Those Danish scammers out to be run out of town.     

On a more serious note, one observation - you - is a statistically small sampling.  And one recording is not much of a sampling either.  I am sure that you are sincere in your beliefs but to be a valid test would require more samples and more testers.  As an example, suppose you recorded a show whose musicians sang into Shure SM58's and played the guitars into SM57's and had a so-so playback system.  Hmmm.  Yup, both the SP's and the DPA's would sound the same.  But in a series of tests with acoustic sources the differences might show up.  I know that the ad says they sound like the 4060's, but that don't make it so.  The SP's are good mics, yes.

Well, I'm convinced that at a typical rock show, 4061s and CMC-8 omnis will sound virtually identical.

I realize I'm making a bold claim without anything to back it up at the moment, but I will eventually post some samples for everyone to hear.

As for Church Audio mics, I have absolutely no experience with them, especially omnis. Everything I've heard from them has always been cardioids...

[headroom]

The 4060's can run on low voltage, but are ....

DPA`s Series 40XX are  not for Phantom Voltage without any adapter. They simply need the 5 V Voltage for the FET. Its a Back Electret Design like all DPA`s. But the Fat Big ones works with 48 V some Models with 200 Volt - For maximum headroom driving the Amplifiers not for the condenser element.

The Power Supply is the source, if its grey and muddy the whole design/sound is not so nice. Only the purest white (Pwr Sply) has all the colors inhernet, the amplifier ( prism) will split in in many colors. This an simplified analogy...............

The DC Power with a low Impedance ( Sonnenschein Dry Fit) and Good Caps ( parallel 20 x 470 uf 16 V Rubycon Z & striped off the Plastic foil) The Mic will sound very very good.
LION is bad for sound High Impedance and some electronic parts in it. Not Top Notch for Sound but light.


 

[headroom]

Oh my dear, are Apples or Oranges better? This AT`s are Cardoids and not the in the same as DPA 40XX with superperfect Omni Polardiagrams + it will never never sound like an omni, are you kidding? Please use Q Tips :-) Also they distort a lot more.
What is the meaning of "run correctly" ? Not upside down like on the AT Website? 
Do you really think a Pro would use thise AT Choir miks? But may Pro`s ( Onno Schulze Philips) working with the 40XX. Nothing against other AT Miks I have 4x AT 3032 and 7x AT 3031. and I like them very much.

From the DPA Microphone University

Off-axis colouration
A directional microphone (the cardioid is mostly used) has - as its name implies - a directional response, with a coverage angle of approx. 130°. Sounds from the rear are at its maximum attenuated by some 30 dB but this attenuation is dependent of frequency. In other words, the cardioid might have a nice flat frequency response on-axis, but off-axis this may not be the case. In fact, some directional microphones have a notably poor off-axis response. This means that sounds entering the microphone from the sides and the rear are more or less strongly coloured - the industry names this "the curtain effect".

Even though the sound is attenuated to the sides and the rear, it will still affect the overall sound and make the reproduction more muddy or less authentic.Be sure to use a directional microphone with a clean off-axis response. The DPA cardioid types will deal with this situation in the most clean and authentic way.
Many engineers are afraid of using omnidirectional microphones in a multi microphone setup with several musicians or sound sources. "Leakage" seems to be the buzzword that is often heard in such situations and, without even trying anything else, directional mics are by habit chosen. A cardioid may be the right choice, but often an omni would give a better performance, because of its sonic qualities, low handling-, wind- and pop-noise and lack of proximity effect.

Furthermore, the "leakage" in a DPA omni will sound more natural. Leakage is only a problem if it sounds bad. If the leakage from one sound source in another microphone sounds natural, it can purely be beneficial in the way that it adds natural room tone to the character of the sound source. All DPA Microphones - directional and omnidirectional - have an extremely smooth and natural off-axis response. The microphone will not only sound good on axis but also off-axis. Hereby we offer the engineer the possibility to achieve more honest and natural pick ups and a better tool to adapt his miking technique.