I have just finished a run of recordings of a varied concert series, all in a single hall, using various mics and recorders. A friend of mine suggested there might be some interest in a brief recap of results (we have done a lot of comparison listening on various equipment, mostly headphones for me but a high end audiophile system for him and another friend as well). So here goes, if anything is clear it is that the evaluation is in part quite a subjective business, once you get to a certain level of equipment.
The concerts were classical chamber music and piano recitals. I taped all of them with two setups: one was mic-in to a SD722 at 24/96, mostly using baffled omnis but also an LSD2 in XY cardioid mode for piano/violin recitals. The omnis I used were Schoeps CMC6xt 2H, Josephson C617 with Microtech Gefell MK221 caps, Sanken CO-100K, and DPA 4052s; I tried three baffles, a Jecklin disk, a Schneider disk, and the LiteGuy baffle from Sonic Studios. The second setup was usually a set of DPA4060s worn croakie style, into an MMA6000 preamp into an R1 at 24/44.1, but in June I fed the 4060s>MMA6000 into a Sony D1 at 24/96. When running the D1 I twice also fed the tape-out from the 722 into the R1 at 24/44.1, to see how the R1 handled the bigger bucks mics.
I think it is clear that the bigger bucks mics give a more accurate and detailed product, and also that it is very hard to distinguish them from each other, at least in this type of music. I think I like the Schoeps and Josephson best for piano, but will have to continue the experiment in the fall when this concert series starts up again. However, the better stereo imaging on the headworn DPA4060s often led to recordings that my friends preferred. I was pretty much in agreement for the Jecklin and Schneider disks, where the stereo separation is effective but not natural. The LiteGuy baffle was a whole lot better than the other two baffles, but my friend still usually liked the 4060 versions better; I preferred the Schoeps/Josephson/LiteGuy on all counts, accuracy, clarity and stereo. On violin/piano, the large diaphragm LSD2 gave superb results, once I figured out how to place the mic stand so that the piano didn’t drown out the violin. For the baffled omni setups, the placement wasn’t so sensitive. In most cases the mics on the stand were from two to five feet in front of my head baffled mics and about 3 feet higher. The R1 gave decent results with the 4060s>MMA6000, but sounded rather harsh with the output from the 722. I don’t know if this was the fault of the R1 or the tape-out of the 722. The 722 manual claims that the tape-out is the same as the master output bus, so I assume the harshness, compared to both the 4060s>MMA6000>D1 and 722, was simply the R1 not liking a too detailed mic pickup. The 722, on the other hand, does not like even moderate clipping of the sort the R1 tolerates easily.
I also burned DVD-Audios of the 722 files, as well as CDs dithered and downsampled in Wavelab. I do not have high grade DVD-Audio playback capability, but my friend with the high-end system sometimes found the original 24/96 files superior, other times about the same as the CDed version.
I think the results are far from conclusive, not only because the mic stand setup was always a few feet from my head but because playback on different equipment, or even on the same equipment to different listeners, had us choosing differently. Worse yet, the same listener on the same equipment had different reactions when in different moods.
What I think I now know: LiteGuy baffle beats Jecklin and Schneider. Don’t put mic stand too near piano, it doesn’t sound natural at least in this hall. Listen to rehearsal on in-ear monitors to get decent balance. The SONY D1 will do seamless new file start at 2GB limit (if you remember to shut off “Zero Crossing” in Wavelab when joining them up!!).
The hall in question is an odd one, stadium seating inside a hemispherical domed lecture hall. I also recorded a chamber recital inside a rectangular boxy hall with stadium seating and found the recorded sound, though realistic, rather tubby, especially where a double bass was featured. This is the only time I tried adding a bit of reverb, it took out the tubbiness (and my friend said gave the recording a commercial gloss) but we all ended up preferring the original flawed version. Purists.
Jeff
Topic: So How Does It Sound? (Read 6971 times)