Sony microphone comparison. A recording in three sections of a clock ticking, taken from a distance of 1.5 metres. The first 30 seconds was recorded with an ECM-MS907 pointing at the clock. The middle section was using an ECM-MS957 also pointing at the clock. The 3rd section was also with the MS957, but the mic was pointing at the ceiling, and the side capsule rotation knob was set at right-angles to the line of the mic. This last setup seems to have produced the best result. Recorded on an iRiver H120 with 12 dB gain, and using an MZ-N10 in high sensitivity setting as a mic preamp. 30 dB gain was applied in post-processing. How much noise comes from the MZ-N10 I know not.
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Comments
19 years, 1 month ago
ok, I see. The mic specs list is greta, thank you! (note: to follow the link you must drop the trailing bracket)
19 years, 1 month ago
I did 30 dB post gain simply so you can easily see the waveform in some detail. Otherwise it is hard to see the difference when everything is minute. I can't see it makes any difference to the results, signal and noise are equally amplified. If I had set the MD at low gain, I would have applied more post gain in order to be able to see anything.
19 years, 1 month ago
Rob Danielson of uwm.edu documents the 907 as having 1mV/Pa sensitivity and 30db(A) self noise. For the 957 this is 8mV/Pa and 25dB(A). That makes them both rather noisy.
(see: http://www.uwm.edu/%7Etype/audio-art-tech-gallery/pages/MicSpecs-Cover.html)
An interesting read also is RaneNote 148: Selecting Mic Preamps. They have it as a pdf on their site.
19 years, 1 month ago
looks like the 957 is a tad more sensitive than the 907. But Mike, I can't see why on earth you set the MD at maximum gain *and* added 30 dB in post. Wouldn't the differences among mics, presumably small, become even harder to detect this way? I bet most of the background noise came from the MD + iRiver and that of the mics is hidden somewhere...
