Oh, I hope I haven't misunderstood. I thought someone said that the
output voltage of a microphone had no importance for the overall noise.
But you write "including taking into account microphone output". Which
is correct. And also including the microphone self noise, I would add.
The reason why I took the example with SD722 and DPA6040, was because it
actually happened with a recordist in Finland. She had been impressed by
what she had read about DPA4060 on the web and had them in Dead Silent
Northern Finland with her Zoom H4n, to record wolves. To get lots of
spacy ambience, she used a Jecklin disc. Coming back home she was very
disappointed with the hiss level. To lower the overall noise, she was
advised to buy a SD722, which of course didn't help! The advice was well
meant, but quite out of line. After that she was adviced to try
different kinds of noise reduction and finally she got stuck.
She wanted totally quiet recordings with lots of spacy ambience. The DPA
4060 is not the best of microphones for that. Getting a SD722 couldn't
help. Neither could noise reduction.
This "debate" of what is what, was even worse in the old days, when
there were tons of inadequate advice on the web, about the need for
expensive mic pre-amp's. Lots of people spent money on such preamps,
without realizing that the only result was amplifying the mic self
noise. There is absolutelly nothing wrong with good pre-amps, but the
"mythical" part of the story was/is extremelly difficult to kill.
Sometimes specs are very confusing, even wrong:
At the R=F6de site, for example, the specs of NT4 is Maximum SPL 143dB,
Maximum Output Level 13.9mV and Sensitivity 12.00mV @ 94 dB
Something is totaly wrong here, probably the 13,9mV Maximum output
level.
Personally I am very fond of the Olympus recorders. I just like them,
the handling, menues and all. But I have little understanding of the
noise performance, especially after Raimund Specht told me about the
different noise you get, depending on which sensitivity setting you use,
where the recording wheel is and if you record 16 or 24 bit. Such
understanding is above my level. The results I get are "good enough" and
it keeps me happy.
In the semi-pro / amateur nieche, the noise issue is a mess, has been
for a long time and I can easily understand the confusion.
I am sorry if I contribute to it.
Klas.
On 2016-08-03 16:42, [naturerecordists] wrote:
> Hello Klas,
>
> Mmmm, I'm confused again.
>
> I thought the point of the table I linked to, and of Johns
> spreadsheet, was to ensure you had a pre-amp spec in the recorder that
> would prevent it from dominating the mic self noise (including taking
> into account microphone output).
>
> Or are you referring to noise beyond that added by the preamp?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Graham
>
>
>
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