Well hopefully this is of some interest to some, so I'll keep
babbling. :-)
Been raining a lot, so no chance to test the arrays in the field, but
spent 5 hours yesterday in a studio, testing with various sources and
white noise (also with a room fan to make it a bit more pink) and some
sophisticated monitoring equipment. Tried not only a number of
different configurations of the arrays as is, but with adding various
sorts of baffles, barriers, wind shield material, etc. It was all in
a small dead room, so everything will have to be re-evaluated in the
field, but it was fascinating nonetheless.
Verbal descriptions of various tests would be pretty meaningless, so
I'll just say that both the engineer and I were pretty amazed at how
little it took to change the character of the sound picked up by
either array, particularly the H array. There seemed to be an
infinite number of variations, even with very small changes, so I will
have to be very careful in future versions to maintain some constants.
(For instance I want to devise a slotted version to test distances of
the mic from the LE of the plates)
With close range white noise it was a little difficult to predict what
will work best in the field. But just listening for openness,
smoothness, even freq response, lack of comb filtering, etc., while
graphing phase relationships was very informative. For instance both
arrays seemed to have a "sweet spot" closer to 120 degrees than 110.
I also tested both fleece and some fake fur hung in front of the array
at various distances, including the 1" or so the mesh baskets will
provide. Result: the fleece is almost transparent acoustically, while
the fur has a pronounced filtering on the high freqs to my ear,
although the engineer thought it was a pretty uniform attenuation. In
either case it wasn't severe, and I think it will retain enough HF
"chiff" to keep good locating quality. It remains to be seen how each
acts as an actual wind reducer. They were very similar in pop tests.
Next step is to try to get some controlled conditions at greater
distances and see how stable image remains, and to get the wind
protection happening. I'm having a ball!
Ken
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