They are just not as transparent (to my ears anyway).
All a matter of opinion, I suppose. Transparent to me is forgetting you have headphones on, I agree about those distracting ambient noises being a good earmark for transparency BUT I do not think you should be able to hear conversations going on across the room. Honestly, I am not trying to grandstand here. I have had alot of people tell me that they are stunned by the realism of that Yamagata recording. I gave you the other torrent with a Cale show recorded with CSBs and I agree totally with you on your assertion that they are very transparent but that they have some odd characteristics in the high frequencies. If you are really looking to go tru-binaural, size is gonna be a factor....unless you want to run a sphere or dummy head. I have used the AT853Rxs (O,C, HC), CSBs, DPA4061s and mk4Vs extensively on my head. For transparency/sonic faithfulness, hands-down...I go with the DPA4061s. For practical concert recording in an audience full of distracting noises, hands down...the mk4vs. Those 853s always sounded metallic and not very transparent to me and I tried to use them with the omni cap with was horrible with kick drums up close.
As far as the nature of the vertical diaphragm, yes...they are directional in the higher frequencies, just as those forward facing capsules are. Those diaphragms are facing out like a pair of CSB would face. I am a freak about this type of positioning even to the point of making sure the vents of the 4061 capsules are facing out (in the same orientation). I kept a set of CSBs around for a while, I like them but to be completely honest, the only reason was to run them in a horribly sweaty and smoky environment...b/c I was not going to do that to my prized set of matched 4061s.
I'm not dissing the sound of the DPA at all. If I want to listen *for pleasure* than the DPA are probably the best I've heard. The "warm" and "clear" sound combined with an HRTF soundstage is wonderful. Sennheiser MKE2 sound pretty good as well, but maybe not quite as good as the DPA.
But this is just like headphones. If I want to listen for pleasure I might use Grado or something. But for
"transparency" and a real "clinical sound" I will use Sony MDR-7506 or the like. I also agree that while the WM61a (CSBs and similar) are transparent *in places* there is something wrong at high frequencies and there are some wierd resonances (?) in the upper mids. What these mics do is show that transparency is *possible* but they don't completely achieve it.
Also, I *finally* noticed the coloration of MD encoding with the experiment. Listen with WM61a MD (HiSP) compared to Edirol R09 WAV for example and I can hear *much* more subtle detail (voices at the other side of the bar
) in the WAV than in the ATRAC recording. The ATRAC sounds great (just like a "warmer" mic) but not transparent.
Oh yeah, I've been playing with some AT822 recordings recently. What I did was try to EQ the spectrum to get it more "flat" and *wow* does this sound a lot better. These mics (and maybe AT mics in general) have a lot of detail, it seems more than AKG blueline, but the spectrum is messed up a bit. I have heard of people apply EQ in post to correct for cheaper mics, and some of the AT mics seem like good candidates.
I'm not sure what I *want* yet, but I'm trying to answer some questions along the way.
Richard