Topic: Neumann Omni Question

[illconditioned]

^^^
That's why I figured I'd post the charts.. as you mention, the mic's response peaks are higher in frequency.  I just listened to the sample and hear the presence boost on the guitar but not the vocals, so maybe its due to the mic location more than the mic's inherent response? Could be directly on-axis with the guitar amp? Just a guess.

As for DPA's odd 4060 design- it's an extremely small back-electret lavalier mic, originally targeted towards stage and announce work and built to survive sweat, makeup, etc.  It has a very small 5.4 mm diaphragm that is oriented vertically, half of which protrudes from the cylindrical brass body of the mic. When one of the protective grids is installed the entire capsule in then 'inside the tube' facing to the side. Even though the capsule faces sideways, it's still a end address design and is measured that way in the polar plot. DPA makes several different sensitivities to match with different wireless manufacturers and most people around here have the lower sensitivity 4061 model which are commonly found used from stage productions.  The self noise and signal to noise figures are better for the hotter 4060 version however, and personally I find the 4061's a bit noisy for acoustic music. 

The mics became popular around here and for music recording in general because of their small size and their transparent sound.  Since their introduction, DPA has developed mounts to mic pianos, close-mic brass, guitars & violins, and now has a system of small preamp/stereo pan/summing boxes that chain together and feed a stereo mix to the board for the whole section.  Blasphemous as it may be for classical music, each members of a string section has their own small preamp and stereo sum buss chained to the next member with a single stereo feed for the whole section.

So it is a bit of a special purpose item and I'd guess that any frequency bump was initially engineered for 'on the actor' placement and happened to work out well for some music applications too.


4060 specs-
 
Sensitivity, nominal, ±3 dB: 20 mV/Pa; -34 dB re. 1 V/Pa
Equivalent noise level A-weighted: Typ. 23 dB(A) re. 20 µPa (max. 26 dB(A))
Equiv. noise level ITU-R BS.468-4: Typ. 35 dB (max. 38 dB)
Total harmonic distortion (THD): <1% THD up to 123 dB SPL peak
Max. SPL, peak before clipping: 134 dB
S/N ratio, re. 1 kHz at 1 Pa (94 dB SPL): 71 dB(A)
Dynamic Range: Typ. 100 dB

Microphone length: 12.7 mm (0.5 in)
Weight: 7.5 g (0.26 oz) incl. cable and connector

The interesting thing is the rectangular diaphragm.  It is (apparantly) not tensioned like a circular one, but just lying on a backplate (with ridges in it).  Similar designs are used by Knowles Acoustics (for hearing aids) and Sanken (so-called "vertical diaphragm).  As I said in an earlier post, I feel that this capsules has a *qualitatively* different sound than the classic "cylinder" mic.

  Richard