Topic: Newbie Question: What does the term "active" mean for mics?

[DSatz]

danlynch wrote:

> [ ... ] I've been pricing the LC3's for my 150's, but at about $200 a pop, it just seems too much to pay for cable that give the ability to go stealth once in a while with the Neummies.

Well, again those are not active cables but merely (very high-quality) passive extension cables for Neumann's active capsules. Neumann accessories are expensive in general--consider the retail list prices of $550 for many of their shock mounts, and $719 for their battery-powered phantom power supply (and those are only the 2007 prices). In Neumann's KM 100 system the surcharge for being "active" is added to the price of the capsules, so you can count the $200 price of the cable (discounted from $249.99, again using last year's retail price list) as a small mercy if you like. Should you want to buy a figure-8 capsule so that you can record in M/S, you will be paying once again for the active circuitry in that capsule even though you already have two copies of it--you buy the front end of another amplifier each time you buy an "active capsule."

In Schoeps' system, where the capsules contain no circuitry and the accessories (cables, goosenecks or extension tubes) are what's active, those accessories are what gets hit with the extra cost. To use the 2007 retail prices for direct comparison, a 5-meter "Colette" active extension cable cost $486. But in the Colette system if you buy another pair of capsules, you are not buying more copies of the same active circuitry.

That's the advantage of having invented and patented the system--Schoeps could favor the customer who wants a variety of different capsules. Plenty of customers see things exactly as you describe: It's not worth hundreds of dollars for extension cables that are needed only occasionally, and that don't affect the audio quality directly. But a second pair of capsules, with a different directional pattern from whatever you now own, will improve your choices and your recordings in many situations.

--best regards

[danlynch]

I need to put your posts in an RSS feed. 
Thank you again for your wealth of information and knowledge.

[johnw]

DSatz - Out of curiosity which companies copied the schoeps design? You mentioned that this ocurred before the patent expired some time ago, but I've never heard of other mics with true active cables.

[DSatz]

johnw, would you please allow me to evade that question on diplomatic grounds? I haven't had a chance to research this bit of history through independent sources, and I don't wish to simply circulate my recollection of the second-hand information which I was told at the time. For that matter I don't think that anyone at Schoeps holds a grudge about this any more; I know that the primary inventor of the Colette series doesn't, or doesn't wish to express it if so.

Let me just say that it wasn't Neumann. Their KMF 4 miniature cardioid (manufactured from 1982-88) looked a lot like a Schoeps microphone with an active cable, and electrically it had a similar overall structure apart from its use of an output transformer. But the KMF 4's capsule couldn't be attached directly to its amplifier--the extension cable was required--and there were no alternative capsules; thus it differed from Schoeps' approach on several basic points. Neumann's later (and still current) KM 100 series with its active capsules is certainly a distinct solution as well.

What I was thinking of was a system introduced by another major manufacturer, which allowed the capsule to fit directly onto its amplifier or via an active extension cable--with the front-end electronics being in the cable as they are in the Schoeps "Colette" system. That microphone system isn't made any more, either--but when it was, this was during the lifetime of the Schoeps patent.

--best regards