From: "Rich Peet" <>
> Curt, you can experiment with my sass anytime you wish. Then you can
> decide if there is an image improvement over your massive barrier mic.
> There likely is more lobes of low frequency directional sound comming
> off of it but that did not appear huge and your barrier likely has
> more bass captured. I will listen again and see if I have a file with
> a passing jet from your mic to listen to after pitch shifting to make
> it more apparent. Your massive barrier only had a weakness in being
> coupled to closely with the ground which transferrd some types of
> sounds. That is something easily addressed. There is the issue of
> portability of course.
Portability is a big issue, and rules out quite a few setups for day to
day field use.
My own feeling on using a low jet as a test subject for mics is that you
will have considerable phase interference patterns from reflections of
the sound off nearby objects. At minimum you would want the same model
jet flying the same path over the same location for any serious mic
comparisons.
> With the SASS patent expired there is no downside in people working on
> there own similar designs now. The barrier with foam divider itself
> is not that complex for one to build with many improvements possible.
The original inventor of the SASS, and others in the Crown research
department will have probably already tested most of what folks will
think of. The foam divider is not the most critical feature of the SASS,
the angled boundaries are. Something that's just a foam divide is not at
all the same or even similar to the SASS.
If folks wish to get into this and don't want to just reinvent the
wheel, I suggest reading the Crown Mic Memo newsletter, the archive is
on Crown's site. And read their Boundary Mic guides. That does not fill
you in on all they did, but is a start. I found out a lot more when I
had a bunch of correspondence with one of their research heads after
buying the WSA prototype mic from him. They did a lot of designs that
were promising, but not deemed profitable enough, too specialist.
For those who are new here, a link to my pages on the modified SASS:
http://frogrecordist.home.mindspring.com/docs/my_mod_sass.html
And the "cookbook" pages on how I build a modified SASS from the Crown
parts start here:
http://frogrecordist.home.mindspring.com/docs/making_modified_sass-1.html
I've built a few of these now.
When I first made these Crown's parts prices were dirt cheap and it did
not pay to make your own housing. Their price is high enough now to make
it more tempting. I expect building a housing as light as theirs that's
still as durable will be a bit of a challenge. That housing is several
molded pieces glued or screwed together. The modified SASS that I make
is light enough to be easy to hand hold for recording.
Walt
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