After listening to lots of different recordings, I arrived at the suspicion that these two kinds of mics must sound very similar to each other when put under the same circumstances. So this past summer I decided to run two rigs at a festival I attended. Well, I had no idea that the results would be quite as striking as they were. The rigs in question:
Danish Pro Audio 4061 (Core Sound High End Binaurals, matched pair) > Core Sound HEB battery box (no roll-off) > Edirol R-09 (48/24, line in - record level 20)
Audio-Technica ES943/O (Sound Professionals SP-CMC-8 omnis w/ low-sens mod, matched pair) > SP-SPSB-8 (no roll-off) > Edirol R-09 (48/24, line in - record level 14)Both pairs of mics were head-mounted, with only a small piece of electrical tape separating them. I was perhaps 15 rows back from the stage, about somewhere between the center and the right stack.
I had previously determined that the ATs with low sensitivity mod had almost exactly 6 dB more gain than my DPAs, so I set the levels on my Edirols accordingly. And no surprise, both recordings have almost exactly the same levels, within a few tenths of a decibel!
Please remember that the CMC-8s in question here are OMNIS, and not the ever-present cardioid version (which sound completely different).
I'm not even going to reveal which sample is which yet, as I know people will have preconceptions about how each mic "should" sound and which is better.
I will admit this was not the very best-sounding show I've ever attended, but it was far from the worst. I still think it suggests that these mics should always perform similarly at a typical rock show.
The samples:
http://www.imaginary-lemurs.com/samples/firehouse2008-07-25_e.flachttp://www.imaginary-lemurs.com/samples/firehouse2008-07-25_o.flacThe E and O designations are simply an arbitrary way to differentiate the two recordings.
Absolutely NO editing has been done to these samples, except trimming them to have the same beginning and end points, and then converting to FLAC.
I'd highly recommend either running a true ABX test with something like Foobar, or at least inserting both samples into a multitrack and toggling back and forth to get an idea of the real "difference" between the two.
Other thoughts:
I've had the opportunity to test several sets of DPA 4061s and AT ES943s, and the ATs always have 6 dB more gain than the DPAs. Therefore, the ATs *without* the low-sens mod should be slightly more sensitive than DPA 4060s (by about 2 dB) Personally, I wouldn't feel comfortable recording the loudest of loud rock shows without the low-sens mod. Really, I think the 943s with low-sens mod have an ideal sensitivity, being virtually halfway between DPA 4060s and 4061s.
I was unaware that CMC-8 omnis even existed until long after I purchased my DPAs. In retrospect, I'm not sure if I'd even have bothered buying the DPAs if I could do it all over again. The only advantage I feel they have is that they're smaller, and perhaps that they're more water resistant than the ATs (although I'm not sure how they'd stand up in the rain or something like that). Other than that, I think the biggest "advantage" of DPAs is the snob appeal they carry, being roughtly $700 more than the CMC-8s.
On the other hand, I think the CMC-8s have a few advantages, such as the interchangeable elements. And as mentioned before, the sensitivity may be viewed as more optimal for rock shows after the low-sens mod is performed.
In the end, the sound difference between the two is so small that I absolutely could not recommend one over the other under normal circumstances.
Finally, I am not affiliated with Sound Professionals — I simply discovered these mics after trying to find a good pair of omnis for some friends who didn't want to shell out the dough for a pair of DPAs. I just thought think this knowledge could be helpful to tapers in general as the omni version of these mics seems virtually unknown at the present time.
At only a slightly higher price than regular Core Sound Binaurals, it's a shame that everyone doesn't know about them. Well, now I hope more people do!
Topic: DPA 4061 vs. AT ES943/O (SP-CMC-8 omnis) - a real-world comparison (Read 13170 times)