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Author Topic: Frequency response of DPA 4060 without grids installed  (Read 2177 times)

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Offline Gutbucket

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Frequency response of DPA 4060 without grids installed
« on: January 19, 2022, 06:56:49 PM »
I was contacted by someone off site asking about this, who found a discussion about it in an old thread here at TS yesterday yet the image link in that thread is now dead.  I couldn't locate the original thread to update the image so I'm reposing it here for posterity.

Frequency response of DPA 4060 without grids installed-
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Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

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Re: Frequency response of DPA 4060 without grids installed
« Reply #1 on: January 22, 2022, 08:50:33 AM »
Thanks for posting this again. I had the thread bookmarked, but the image is no longer there.
https://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=147921.0

The most significant thing people should note is that once you remove the grid, you have to be a bit more careful about orientation because they become side-address. With the grids on, the 406x are almost ideally omni all the way through the high treble so orientation is not super critical. I tend to use mine taped to the end of CF rods of various length, pointing straight out left and right.
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Offline audBall

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Re: Frequency response of DPA 4060 without grids installed
« Reply #2 on: January 22, 2022, 09:26:33 AM »
Are both the 0 and 180deg sides slotted, or just 0deg? I assume the former based on the rounding of edges on the slotted side.

edit - Just checked mine closely, only slotted on 0.

« Last Edit: January 22, 2022, 12:12:40 PM by audBall »
mg m20.21.23 ■ akg ck61.62.63 »  nbob■naiant »  aercomp2 ■ v2-3 ■ sx-m2d2
dpa 4061 » mma-a.6000
d100 ■ r44ocm ■ f3

Offline DSatz

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Re: Frequency response of DPA 4060 without grids installed
« Reply #3 on: January 22, 2022, 02:06:28 PM »
Paradoxical as it may seem, omnidirectional microphones (if they are pressure transducers) typically have only a front sound inlet, while all directional microphones (though they may be "uni-directional") need inlets on both sides of their diaphragms.
music > microphones > a recorder of some sort

Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Frequency response of DPA 4060 without grids installed
« Reply #4 on: January 24, 2022, 02:09:53 PM »
The oddity of these microphones is that unlike most others, the tiny rectangular gold colored sealed-back capsule with an array of 12 entry holes open on only one side of it is actually positioned sideways inside the body & grid housing.  But when either grid is installed, the opening to the outside world through which sound enters the microphone is fully straight on (the microphone is end-addressed).  When used as intended with one of the two supplied grids installed, the microphone is truly omnidirectional (meaning orientation of the microphone makes no difference in terns of it's pattern sensitivity) up to just below the highest audible frequency range.  Above that it becomes slightly directional at very high frequencies as would be expected of any end-address single-diaphragm omni, the difference being the very small diameter of the microphone shifts that transition up an additional 6 or 7 kHz beyond where it tends to occur in a small diaphragm pencil microphones that typically have a diameter of something like 0.75 to 1 inch.

Without any grid installed (which is not an intended use configuration as designed), the rectangular capsule housing extends party out beyond the body of the microphone. That will make it partly side-addressed, yet that aspect only becomes significant in terms of polar response at very high frequencies above about 12kHz, due to the small dimensions of the rectangular capsule.

When comparing the standard version of the microphone that uses a brass body, and the newer heavy-duty option version which uses a stainless steel body along with a larger diameter cable, how much the capsule extends past the body of the microphone appears to differ slightly.  Without a grid in place on the standard version, about half the array of 12 holes extends beyond the edge of the brass tube (see the image shown on the response graph in the first post). In the heavy-duty version it appears that more of the capsule extends past the end of the machined stainless-steel body, exposing an additional row of 3 holes (as pictured in audBall's post above).  I have to imagine DPA designed the grids of the heavy duty version so that it provides a response identical to that of the standard version of the microphone.  We don't have a measurement of the heavy-duty version without a grid installed, but my speculation is that because the enclosed portion of the body into which the capsule it fitted is more shallow and thus the volume it encloses less, the Helmholtz resonance imparted by that volume will be less significant and higher still in frequency, making the response up around 12kHz  flatter than the standard version without any grid.. yet with a similar very high frequency transition to side-address-ish'ness.

So.. folks who want to use these without any grid for flattest possible response might want to choose the heavy-duty version over the standard version.

I'd like to see what the even smaller DPA 6060 omni looks like without its grid installed.. if the grid is removable at all, it may not be.
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

Offline WiFiJeff

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Re: Frequency response of DPA 4060 without grids installed
« Reply #5 on: January 24, 2022, 03:35:42 PM »
My curiosity runs in the other direction, are the 4081s (and now 4099s, with rigid instrument mounts) just 4061s with the long detachable tubes?  I started loving the 4099s more than 14 years ago, when DPA USA would cut them out of the instrument mounting and re-terminate them, they stopped doing this but the 4081 was then released (no longer available).  So I can't find any replacement for them.  Also, with the MMA-A limited to 30 dB of gain, it would be nice to be able to replace a 4081 with a more sensitive 4060 with the long tube.  I hesitate to try this, but DPA has not replied to my questions to them earlier this month on making 4081s or re-terminated 4099s available to me.  I may end up trying to substitute the tube for the short grid, if it works mechanically.

Jeff

Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Frequency response of DPA 4060 without grids installed
« Reply #6 on: January 24, 2022, 04:53:19 PM »
Hi Jeff,

In addition to the interference tube grid (I've seen a couple different lengths), DPA's directional miniatures do have a small small, circular, single rear vent [edit] two small small, circular, rear vents on the conical back side of the microphone body.  At least the supercardioid 4098 I use and have been able to examine up close has that feature.  Otherwise the microphone body itself without any grid installed looks identical to the omnis. The 4098 was(is?) marketed by DPA as a hanging choir microphone and has(had?) higher sensitivity [edit- 16mV/PA] than the miniature directionals intended for close-mounting on-instrument.  As such, they were provided without the instrument clamp or built-in shock mount stuff, intended to be hung from a microdot extension cable and pointed by way of a short integrated goose-neck.

Here is a link to the DPA 4098 thread I started in 2013- https://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=163927.0  Looks like the all the photos are now missing. I'll see if I can edit those posts to replace the photos in the coming days..

Upon acquiring the 4098s, examining them up close and taking those photos, I immediately thought about what effect the miniature interference tube grid of the 4098 might be on a 4060 or 4061 omni, but never tried it.  Since the interference tubes are so short, I have to think they are effective only at quite high frequencies, likely cleaning up the pattern in that region which has already been established at lower frequencies by the rear vent and acoustic resistance to the backside of the diaphragm.  Similarly I've wondered how the 4098 with a short grid of the 4060/61 installed in place of the short interference tube grid might perform.
« Last Edit: January 24, 2022, 06:39:07 PM by Gutbucket »
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

Offline Gutbucket

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Re: Frequency response of DPA 4060 without grids installed
« Reply #7 on: January 24, 2022, 05:01:49 PM »
Further along that line of reasoning, I wonder how 4060/4061 with one of the directional interference tubes installed might compare to 4060/4061 flush-mounted in a ball attachment like I use in some of my rigs, which has a diameter almost exactly the same as the length of the interference tube.  Both the interference tube on the 4098 and the diameter of the balls I use measure about 2".
« Last Edit: January 24, 2022, 06:13:47 PM by Gutbucket »
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

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Re: Frequency response of DPA 4060 without grids installed
« Reply #8 on: January 25, 2022, 06:07:47 PM »
After hearing all the great results people have gotten running the 406x as a main pair without grids, I was considering trying this myself. I never have, though. Partly because the EQ curve I use (with help on a starting place from Gutbucket) gives me good enough results that I never felt the need to remove the grids and risk losing them.

The other reason is that due to the extremely small size of the diaphragm, I felt it would be difficult to reliably orient them so that the side-address capsule in a round housing would be aimed correctly.
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Offline EmRR

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Re: Frequency response of DPA 4060 without grids installed
« Reply #9 on: January 25, 2022, 09:39:10 PM »
Opposite, I’ve never used the grids in 20+ years. If i need to add treble (rare), it’s less than the grid adds.
Mics: DPA 4060 w/MPS 6030 PSU/DAD6001/DAD4099, Neumann KM 131, Oktava MK 012, Sennheiser MKH 105, MKH 20, MKH 30, MKH 40, MKH 800 TWIN
Recorders: Zoom F8n, Sony MZ-R50

 

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