Posted by: "David Ellsworth"
>
> When I bought my Telinga, I chose the stereo version because I think
> stereo adds depth and immersion to a recording, especially if it is
> combined with video. And, if I'm monitoring the recording, it allows
> me some vestige of directionality in my hearing, so I can still have
> some idea whether a bird off to the side is to my left or my right.
> I'm pleased with it in these regards.
>
> However, I am left to wonder if the Twin Science does a better job of
> separating the subject from the background, i.e. if one of its
> microphones has a higher "subject pickup" to "background pickup"
> ratio, compared to the Stereo-DAT. Does anyone know? Has anyone
> directly compared them in a noisy setting? And why is it called "Twin
> Science", anyhow? (The "twin" is obvious, but why "science"?)
When I bought my Telinga I bought both mics. At the time I was recording
mostly for science and thought that the Twin Science would be better for
that and that the stereo mic would be for "entertainment" recordings.
At first I did use both and compared. It quickly became clear that the
stereo was best for localizing as well. Even though there are two mics
in the twin science you will hear them localized in the middle of your
head, no stereo field to separate anything. The differential between the
front facing and rear facing mics in the twin science is simply not near
as good at this. So, my twin science mic is hardly used anymore. When I
want to separate callers from the ambiance the stereo field does that
pretty effectively. We are hard wired to analyze individual sounds out
of a stereo field.
I still record a lot for science, but all my mic setups are stereo. They
are carefully chosen for their ability to produce accurate stereo
production along with other reasons. About all I record in mono is a
hydrophone, and I keep thinking about working on doing stereo there too.
Note it is correct that science has been slow to see the advantages of
stereo. I routinely do real time sonograms on my recordings. My sonogram
software can be set to only one of the channels or to a mixture of both.
It's not necessary to record in mono to do sonograms.
A lot depends on your final use of the recording. I record frogs which
often call in groups, and multiple species per site, calling at a
variety of sound levels. Mono will not separate those at all well. If I
was recording only individuals as is more the case with birds then maybe
mono would be ok. Or if you are only doing measurements off the
recording and never trying to analyze them by listening then mono might
be ok, and in the case of some polar patterns could even have advantages.
Oh, on model, I'm currently running the Telinga Pro6 handle with phantom
power from the portadisc or SDMP2 preamp. The same handle could be
battery powered, as the contacts do come out in the handle connector,
but I prefer to avoid that, extra batteries to tend. I started with a
handle with the battery internal, but really did not care for that as
batteries are a shorter lived component. It was also extra to keep track
of to keep it charged.
Walt
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