Walt, you wrote,
>Sennheiser has a nice set of diagrammatic illustrations of the patterns
>for the MKH mics here:
>http://buy.sennheiserusa.com/ASP/Sennheiser/pdf/rfcm.pdf
These are quite helpful, conceptually, but they appear to have been
drawn from polar patterns plotted on log scales. Unfortunately, this
is how polar patterns are usually shown. It's unfortunate because
what we'd really like to see in a polar pattern is a picture of the
actual pattern in space. You get this from a polar pattern with a
linear scale from 1.0 at the outside to 0 at the center.
For example, the cardioid pattern is 6 dB down at 90 degrees off
axis. This is a 2/1 ratio in distance. If the MKH 40 was shown with a
true picture of the pattern, the pattern would be half as wide at 90
degrees as it is deep on axis. This lore appears to have been
forgotten in the current generation of engineers.
-Dan Dugan
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
|