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Re: External preamp for Marantz PMD 661?

Subject: Re: External preamp for Marantz PMD 661?
From: "Raimund" animalsounds
Date: Mon Mar 18, 2013 12:58 pm ((PDT))
< While the noise floor is established by the noisiest element, in this case 
the mics, & thus can't be improved, he would get more overall gain, which I 
believe is what he's seeking. While one can always add gain in post, there's 
something to be said for staying away from the bottom few bits in an 
inexpensive ADC & getting the majority of the signal to hit the upper 40 - 50 
dB of the available dynamic range.>

Well, this would be an issue if the maximum gain of the recorder was not 
sufficient. However, at its maximum gain setting, the input clipping level of 
the Marantz PMD661 is -52 dBu and the A-weighted noise floor of the Sennheiser 
K6/ME66 is -108 dBu, which means that a completely silent recording would 
already exhibit a signal level of -56 dBFS. Assuming a poor A/D converter 
dynamic range of 90 dB, there would still be a large "safety" margin of 36 dB.

So, if one is willing to invest additional money, my advice would be to upgrade 
the Senheiser K6/ME6x microphones to the MKH series for instance.

Regards,
Raimund












"While a picture is worth a thousand words, a 
sound is worth a thousand pictures." R. Murray Schafer via Bernie Krause.



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