Monday, February 21, 2011

What measurement microphone to get

One of the reasons I downloaded the freeware program Room EQ Wizard is that one of my biggest issues wrt buying RplusD is whether or not I should order their calibrated microphone.  They say that it's not necessary for most applications.  I already have a bunch of measurement microphones and SPL meters of varying quality, and among them several calibrated ones.

But, what I really want to do is get a Really Good Microphone, like an Earthworks 40.

Anyway, with the freeware program I can test (somewhat) the overall configuration without feeling pressure.  (I coulda also downloaded RplusD for free trial... I do that next.)

I did get everything set up using the Galaxy meter.  For a better test, I want to an actual phantom powered microphone, like one of my Behringer ECM8000's (which are hard to find right now, buried in the junk, I have been using only Tact microphones for past couple years), or one of the Tact's.  The Tact microphones are calibrated, or at least they come with calibration curve done by Tact (which some people think isn't very good), and I think they are slightly higher quality than the ECM8000.  But I'm not sure if they can stand the 48V phantom power that the Emu Tracker Pre puts out.  The Tact only seems to supply 10V phantom power.

Anyway, the Earthworks would do fine on the 48V.  If the Behinger works (however good it's response is) the Earthworks should work too.  The Behringer is rated for 15-48V phantom power.

Anyway, REW is said by Ethan Winer to be more useful than ETF in some applications, though his main recommendation is ETF (the predecessor to RplusD, so I think he would recommend the later product today).

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