This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
www.psneurope.com


February 2014 l 43


livefeature


and has the highest classification as a member of Taiwan’s Electronics Association as well as ISO-9001 certification. Every component of every product is designed – and made – in Taiwan. “This is an engineering-based company,” says Chang. “The fact that I am a design engineer means I know every facet of every product, and I can personally apply what I know to the business. And the important goal has been to make products that are different, products that are innovative. There are many others out there in this field, and we are not interested in ‘me-too’ solutions.” This bodes well for the


Europeans and the Americans, as well as the Taiwanese. Provided latter-day rockers like Deryck Whibley of Sum 41 and Passion Pit’s Michael Angelakos continue to find new ways of cracking the Daltrey whip, the vocal mic should keep its cool as the battle for better sound heats up.


DPA D:FACTO II WIRELESS EXPERIMENT


MIKKEL NYMAND, DPA product manager, Tonmeister and something of an authority on high-fidelity recording, recently conducted an experiment with the d:facto II vocal microphone. The updated mic head is now available with a number of high quality adapters, enabling it to be used in conjunction with bodies and wireless systems from many brands, as well as in its straightforward ‘wired’ form. “The adapters are not solely mechanical fittings; they are indeed an electronic masterpiece in their own right,” claims Nymand. “They provide a clearer and powerful sound with lots of energy and dynamics over a wide palette of both affordable and expensive wireless systems. We decided to carry out a session to prove this.”


Nymand obtained 15 set-ups (some of which are pictured),


including those from Sennheiser, Shure, Sony, Lectrosonics, Line 6 and Wisycom. A number of identical


capsules were produced and selected to be equal within ±05dB in sensitivity and frequency response across the entire frequency range (hence no requirement to change capsules between A-B comparisons). Then, a professional singer


was hired and instructed to sing the same verse and bridge over and over with as identical dynamic, phrasing and expression as possible (as no one can sing into 15 vocal mics at the same time!) With the ‘control capsules’ and ‘control singer’ in place, Nymand recorded each performance with Pyramix and listened back to the performances. “The first and clearest conclusion is the importance of


The ‘Nymand Experiment’...


the quality of the mic capsule,” reports Nymand. “This was most obvious when replacing the enclosed mic capsule heads on some of the more inexpensive systems with the DPA d:facto II capsule. This was like night and day and suddenly lifted the performance up among the best.” The second, and more surprising discovery, was that the resulting audio quality “is pretty close” between makers. “Different series within one


brand performed almost identically and with the same timbre with the DPA capsule,” he says. “We see this as an interesting way to upgrade the performance of budget systems; while the more expensive systems come even closer to the quality of a wired connection.” “The biggest sonic differences


are actually between wired and wireless.” For more on Mikkel Nymand’s conclusions, email him on min@dpamicrophones.com.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52