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Author Topic: SE microphones. Anyone ever buy them or use the?  (Read 7192 times)

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Offline deadphishin420

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SE microphones. Anyone ever buy them or use the?
« on: July 15, 2019, 07:25:26 PM »
I was thinking of picking these up. The reviews all seem to say they’re just as good as a 1500$ set of Newman’s. Does anyone have any feedback on using them??

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/sE8P--se-electronics-se8-stereo-pair
Akg 391 hyper/Akg 430 cardioid/akg c214 Omni/>sound devices mix pre 6

Offline DavidPuddy

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Re: SE microphones. Anyone ever buy them or use the?
« Reply #1 on: July 15, 2019, 08:24:07 PM »
I haven't used them but I think that they sound good for $500. However, you can now get a set of AKG 461s for about a hundred bucks more if you keep a look out (if AKG flavor is your thing).
« Last Edit: July 15, 2019, 08:30:31 PM by beegar »
Mics: mk4v/mk41v/mk22 > CMC1L/Nbobs, 4061, MKE2
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Offline Sonus Captor

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Re: SE microphones. Anyone ever buy them or use the?
« Reply #2 on: August 01, 2019, 09:46:40 AM »
Hi everyone,

I bought a stereo pair of sE8's after a short comparative test with my NT5's.
The mic pairs were in EBS configuration and about 80 cm away from an acoustic guitar.
The gain was adjusted to give approximately the same loudness.
We (4 people) listened over closed headphones and all prefered the sE8's
for their warmer, more detailed and crisper, but not harsh sound.

After recording a blues song (acoustic guitar, vocals, blues harp) with the se8's
I think they are clearly more musical than the NT5's.

Unlike the Rodes the sE8's don't start rolling off under 300Hz, they are just 1dB down at 30Hz.
I can say more after additional tests.

Here you can listen to the sE8's compared to KM184's, MK112's & an SM57:

https://www.soundandrecording.de/equipment/se-electronics-se8-kleinmembran-kondensatormikrofone-im-test/
https://www.bonedo.de/artikel/einzelansicht/se-electronics-se8-mikrofon-test/2.html

Sonus Captor

Offline illconditioned

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Re: SE microphones. Anyone ever buy them or use the?
« Reply #3 on: August 02, 2019, 02:06:59 AM »

Somebody in the YS is selling a pair of Beyerdynamic MC930 for $650, about $100-$150 less than the street price.

If you can step up to that level, you will not be disappointed.

I just listened to the comparison between SE8 and Octava.Both sound pretty good (on headphones).
I wonder how MC930 compare to this.
Everyone has an opinion ... but many people love the Beyers ...

Regardless of your choice, welcome to the section :)
Please DO NOT mail me with tech questions.  I will try to answer in the forums when I get a chance.  Thanks.

Sample recordings at: http://www.soundmann.com.

Offline morst

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Re: SE microphones. Anyone ever buy them or use the?
« Reply #4 on: October 08, 2020, 12:26:16 PM »
Keeping in mind that these are essentially fixed fig 8 patterns, still... they're ribbons.
from sweetwaters website:

"Unless designed otherwise, all ribbon mics are naturally bidirectional, giving them a figure-8 polar pattern. The reason for this is that sound waves arriving from the side of the thin ribbon element won't cause it to move at all, since the pressure on both sides of the ribbon is identical"
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Offline DSatz

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Re: SE microphones. Anyone ever buy them or use the?
« Reply #5 on: October 08, 2020, 01:29:27 PM »
"unless designed otherwise" is a pretty powerful escape clause. I mean, unless designed otherwise, every building is the Chrysler Building in Manhattan, no?

What I would say instead is, it's simplest and easiest to construct a ribbon microphone as a figure-8, and specific acoustical adaptations are required if you want to obtain any other pattern.

However, those can be quite successful. I once owned a pair of Beyer M 160 hypercardioids, and if there hadn't been severe RFI problems with them (they put out ~1/10 the signal levels of condenser microphones and by their basic design, are highly responsive to magnetic fields), I think I could have kept them around for a while. For relatively close-miked vocals, sometimes you don't want too high a degree of detail. But in general the high frequency response of ribbon figure-8s is severely restricted, e.g. 10 or 11 kHz seems to be the general upper limit, above which they roll off significantly. There's a reason why the heyday of ribbon microphones ended when FM broadcasting began. (I could get into talking about nostalgia, World War II vs. the 1950s and 60s, and Bing Crosby vs. Frank Sinatra ...)

Condenser figure-8s are better, but as far as high-frequency response is concerned they're the worst among condensers; single-diaphragm condenser figure-8s typically go only about 1/3 octave higher up than the best ribbons, and that's restrictive enough for me! Unless they use built-in equalization like Sennheiser's do--but then that can be applied to any figure-8. Or unless they create the figure-8 pattern by facing one cardioid forward, and subtracting another, rear-facing cardioid from it (or adding in inverse polarity); that can work--Neumann and Sennheiser have both offered small-diaphragm, multi-pattern microphones that have worked that way.
« Last Edit: October 24, 2020, 01:25:49 AM by DSatz »
music > microphones > a recorder of some sort

Offline heva

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Re: SE microphones. Anyone ever buy them or use the?
« Reply #6 on: October 23, 2020, 01:33:11 PM »
Hi everyone,

I bought a stereo pair of sE8's after a short comparative test with my NT5's.
The mic pairs were in EBS configuration and about 80 cm away from an acoustic guitar.
The gain was adjusted to give approximately the same loudness.
We (4 people) listened over closed headphones and all prefered the sE8's
for their warmer, more detailed and crisper, but not harsh sound.

After recording a blues song (acoustic guitar, vocals, blues harp) with the se8's
I think they are clearly more musical than the NT5's.

Unlike the Rodes the sE8's don't start rolling off under 300Hz, they are just 1dB down at 30Hz.
I can say more after additional tests.

Here you can listen to the sE8's compared to KM184's, MK112's & an SM57:

https://www.soundandrecording.de/equipment/se-electronics-se8-kleinmembran-kondensatormikrofone-im-test/
https://www.bonedo.de/artikel/einzelansicht/se-electronics-se8-mikrofon-test/2.html

Sonus Captor

Interesting! How is the selfnoise of the sE8 (reports exist it’s higher than what sE specifies).

Offline DSatz

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Re: SE microphones. Anyone ever buy them or use the?
« Reply #7 on: October 24, 2020, 01:22:51 AM »
sE specifies the equivalent noise of this microphone only via the A-weighted specification, which implicitly uses fairly slow time-averaging (often called "rms" although that's a problematic use of the term; what's even more problematic is that the noise is smoothed out in the process of measuring it, suppressing all momentary peaks).

sE's specification according to that method of measurement is 13 dBA. They claim that it's the quietest microphone in its class, but they never say what that class is. In any case that spec is about the same as certain professional-quality small-diaphragm cardioid microphones obtain when the same test method is used. So it's certainly not impossible that the sE 8 meets that spec.

There's a much more stringent measurement method for microphone self-noise/equivalent noise, which is defined in the IEC standard, and correlates fairly closely with what people actually hear. Many companies (especially those in the Far East) avoid publishing their results with it, because those results are generally 10 - 12 dB less wonderful-seeming than the "A"-weighted values. Maybe you'd like to write to sE to ask them for the microphone's CCIR-weighted, quasi-peak equivalent noise. As long as customers don't demand realistic specifications, the manufacturers will continue to use whatever makes their products look the best.

--best regards
« Last Edit: February 11, 2023, 01:05:34 AM by DSatz »
music > microphones > a recorder of some sort

Offline MIQ

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Re: SE microphones. Anyone ever buy them or use the?
« Reply #8 on: November 07, 2020, 11:55:31 AM »
Mr Satz the sE guys may not recognize the filter you are mentioning since it is now called ITU-R BS. 468-4.  Only old timers that can remember Bing and Frank use the old CCIR designation.  ;D ;D

I agree that quasi peak is a much more realistic (human perception) look at random noise.  We seem quite able to catch those pesky short peaks in a sea of noise.

Engineers will always find ways to manipulate test results to make the marketing team happy. 

Offline grv68

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Re: SE microphones. Anyone ever buy them or use the?
« Reply #9 on: February 10, 2023, 12:32:42 PM »
Sorry for the necro.  I was on the fence about sE8s but could not find examples of audience recordings.  I did run across threads like this one, though.

Ultimately I bought a matched pair.  Here's an example for anyone who wanders across this thread in the future.  No pad, no high pass on the mics.  Rolled off the very low end afterward, and did a tiny bit of dynamic EQ (cuts) around 350 Hz and above 8kHz, but very minimal, and not triggered very often by the source material.  I went PAS with these.

I am a complete noob on the live performance recording front, but I'm pretty happy with how things turned out.

https://archive.org/details/bw2023-02-08.163589.bwwb.aud.se8.gravel.flac2496 

Edit: Due to venue rules, I ran these at a height of about 7', angled up a bit to try and limit crowd noise.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2023, 12:45:35 PM by grv68 »

 

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