Hi Ethan, great job in your testing of measurement microphones, thanks...

So I am thinking about buying a dbx rta m, wich is $100. so basically one could say that a more expensive measurement mic does not justify its price right?

Some more questions:

What is a calibrated microphone? is the same as a measurement microphone?

I read that you need to re calibrate your mic form time to time... how do you know it needs to be calibrated? is that something you can do by yourself?

Thanks in advance!

One more sorry... does a measurement mic serves well for any recording tasks?

A more expensive microphone will include a calibration graph guaranteeing the response. Professional acousticians in labs making absolute measurements might benefit from that, but most of us measuring rooms don't need a guarantee of accuracy.

Calibrated means someone actually measured that specific microphone, and again such microphones come with a printout. I have an old AKG C451 with a CK22 omni capsule I bought for room testing in the late 1970s. The capsule came with a printed calibration graph.

I don't know any easy way to calibrate microphones at home, and again it's not really needed just to see how much better your room is after adding bass traps.

Yes, a measuring microphone is excellent for recording. I used my DPA 4090 for every track of my elaborate Tele-Vision video. (Other than the few tracks that were played from samples.)

--Ethan

Thanks a lot Ethan... So that calibration graph would be, essentially, a freq response graph, so you adjust an EQ or something to make the response of the mic as flat as possible?

That Video is awesome by the way, I´ll buy it after seeing the trailers.

Thanks again!

Another one... I plan to use REW, and in the help files it says:

"A soundcard (internal or external) which supports full duplex operation (simultaneous replay and recording) with line inputs and outputs. Note that microphone inputs are NOT suitable and should not be used (they have too much gain and most suffer from high noise levels and limited bandwidth)"

So, i cant use a measurement microphone directrly conected to my interface (fast track ultra) to feed REW? what was your setup in the measurement mic shootout?

I just received one of these today ("full" version down to 5Hz.):

http://cross-spectrum.com/measurement/calibrated_behringer.html

I use a Behringer 802 mixer with it for phantom power and REW.

Cool!

So, in that case "calibrated" means "measured" right... so, how do you use that data? What advantage do you have if it hasnt been measured? (in case I am thinking the right way of course )

How do you record now? Preamp? Mixer? Very few people plug a microphone directly into a sound card unless the sound card has at least a semi-pro type microphone preamp. Most of those microphones need phantom power anyway.

--Ethan

You can manually add/subtract from the measured dB values as you plot them. I never bother. If a microphone is flat within a dB or two, that's good enough for rock 'n' roll.

--Ethan

I record with my interface's preamps... wich are really good for the price. What brought the question to my mind was this paragraph in the REW help:

"Note that microphone inputs are NOT suitable and should not be used (they have too much gain and most suffer from high noise levels and limited bandwidth)"

All that means is not to use the microphone inputs on a typical sound card, like a SoundBlaster or a sound card built onto the CPU's motherboard. If you have something like a FireBOX or other "real" sound card having decent microphone preamps with phantom power, that is more than adequate for REW.

--Ethan