I recently purchased a pair of Sound Professionals SP-CMC-4 omni mics
for ambient recording with a consumer MD recorder. These are miniture
lapel type mics that use the AT853 capsule. They seem to give good
results for what I want, except that one mic seems to produce signals
about 3dB lower than the other. I tested them in my studio by recording
white noise from one of my monitor speakers with the mics about 10" from
the speaker. I tried recording from both mics mounted side-by-side at
the same time as well as each mic individually from the exact same
position and orientation. I always get the same results (i.e. one side
is 3dB lower than the other.)
Just to make sure it was the mics and not the MD recorder (a Sharp
MT770), I ran the white noise into the line-in jack of the recorder. The
resulting levels were virtually identical on playback, so it doesn't
seem to be the recorder.
I don't have any experience with "matched" mic pairs, but a 3 dB
difference seems a little much to me. Are my expectations too high for
this type of mic? Is 3dB a reasonable match for a pair of small
condenser mics? Or should I consider returning them for another pair?
The sound quality seems quite good to me, so I'm not unhappy with that
aspect. I just think they should be a little closer in amplitude
response. Comments?
--
Joe P
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