neumann km 183 d

Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 4:48 pm

Ah Simmo, I miss all our arguments (discussions?) on the phone when you are in the mountains.

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Despite all the seemingly good points, I remain *spectacularly* disinterested in this technology, and will do so until a standard interface evolves and equipment manufacturers provide direct inputs for these mics.

Actually the digital mixing is about the only thing I am worried about.

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Until then, I see it as a backward step for most people - another box in the set up

But you lose the heavy preamp box you are currently lugging around.

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Think about it... Where is the main benefit? Optimised AD conversion and so on? Okay... this is a great idea, in and of itself. With everything self-contained, there's no need for a mic preamp to provide enough gain to reach an industry-standard nominal level of +4dBu and so on.

No preamp, means no coloration, no impedance mismatch, no stepped gain controls, no incorrect gain settings, no overloads, no peak limiting, no saturation, and no more reading all the tedious posts on the web about what is the most uncolored preamp to buy. We would have nothing to discuss on audio forums. Bugger.

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The preamp can be matched perfectly to the capsule, and the converter can be matched perfectly to the preamp. Impedances, noise levels and so can all be optimised. These are all good things...

They certainly are.

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But, considering all the effort and thought that goes into choosing microphone preamps and AD converters, and knowing the effect those decisions have on the 'flavour' of the recorded sound, do you really want to leave all of that to a single manufacturer (Neumann, Schoeps, whoever)

Yes, the capsule manufacturer, YES, I do want them to do it because only they have heard the pristine sound of the capsule itself. I trust them a whole lot more than TASCAM or Mackie or even Prism to make a good sounding rendition of that capsule sound.

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with no impressive history in either mic preamplifer or AD converter design?

Its not rocket science.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't seem to recall hearing *any* microphone manufacturer's name mentioned in reverence (or at all!) in discussions of preamps and converters, in my entire career in audio.

Because they have had no need until now. Schoeps and Neumann have designed the world's first 28bit converters. These companies seem to have taken the lead in A/D design all of a sudden, why is that? They just hire brilliant young EE's like any other company. Designing this sort of electronics does not require a company history or record of achievement like car suspensions or aircraft dynamics.

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And furthermore, I don't see Prism or Lavry or anyone else cramming complete high quality AD converters onto a board small enough to fit into a microphone body.

They do not have a need to. Simple as that.

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With such miniaturisation there has to come compromises in terms of noise and SPL handling. Maybe these can be balanced out by the optimisation of putting it all into one circuit, but maybe they can't.

Leave it to them, it works or it doesn't, I am sure they will sort it out.

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One thing I know for sure: if you compare the noise figures for any of DPA's normal size mics against its compact equivalent, noise and SPL handling are the main victims of the miniaturisation and use of surface mount devices. What happens when you try to cram the mic preamp and an AD converter into the same space?

Different problem, Greg. If my reading is correct, this A/D is done on the tiny capsule signal, so no preamp, and no electronics needed to drive the long cables, its all much simpler in those respects.

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There must be an ideal application for this digital microphone technology... What about simple direct-to-stereo recordings with a pair of microphones, especially where long cable runs are required? Surely this is one of the areas that would benefit the most from digital microphones - at least in the short term.

I'm glad you see those advantages.

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But why bother? I can do this kind of work already with my Nagra V - a single functional box, free from mains power dependency, that's ready to roll in five minutes and allows me to make great recordings with analogue microphones.

Because you are troubled by noise floors, and this is something that would not be a problem with digitial mics.

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Why would I want to add another box (the digital mic's necessary appendage) to that elegant system and complicate my life?

You eliminate equal or more boxes and the cable connections are simpler. You are tossing off these statements without deep thought.

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More signal connections to make, and then there's the question of powering the new box. I've doubled or tripled the amount of setting up I have to do, for a marginal sonic benefit (if any).

The new breed of recorder will have the digital receiver bits built in. You will plug the mic straight into the recorder. Also the prospect of wireless data transmission will become much easier. C'mon Greg these are real exciting developments,

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Not only that, I'll also have to replace my existing analogue microphone cables with new cables of appropriate characteristic impedance for the digital signal.

I have been using AES/EBU cable for all my analog mic leads for some time now. Smile

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That's possible, but I can't see my local concert halls doing that kind of thing with their internal microphone looms. So, I'm going to have to run my own digital cables throughout the venue to take advantage of this technology. More messing around... If I'm not prepared to do that, then I'm going to have to set-up next to the stage, using a short run of my own digital cable, and, oh gosh... without the need for a long cable run, there goes one of the main benefits of a digital microphone system.

Wireless!

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What about recordings that require more than a stereo pair? If it's possible to use digital microphones for the entire job, and they all adhere to the same interface standard, then it's a good idea. You can run a snake of the appropriate characteristic impedance and reap the rewards. People recording in concert halls and similar will still have the problem of running entirely new cables, however. Or hoping the venue has an installed run of appropriate cabling.

Wireless!

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Multi-microphone recordings that combine analogue and digital microphones will require two parallel cabling systems: one for analogue mics, one for digital mics. More expense. Having said that, if the output of the digital mics can travel down AES/EBU cable (110 ohm characteristic impedance) then all of the cables and snakes in the rig can be replaced with 110 ohm AES cable. The digital mics will require it, of course, and the analogue mic signals will benefit from the (generally) lower capacitance offered from a balanced AES cable.

You got it. Great isn't it.

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The more I think about digital microphones, the less interested I become in them. In fact, in the process of writing this post I have moved from being *spectacularly* disinterested to *incredibly amazingly spectacularly* disinterested. The idea is nice in isolation, but not when placed in the big picture of real world recording.

Are you sick of the mountains, Greg? Come back to Australia and come and have a coffee in civilization. I can describe so more of the benefits of digital mics.

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So for now I'm consigning digital microphones to the same place that I put DSD, SACD, DVD-A, square eggs and antenna recorders: clever, but impractical and/or unwanted.

They are here to stay and will shake up the remote recording scene a whole lot more than DSD/SACD etc ever did.

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Give each microphone an ethernet output and allow me to hook a bunch of them up to my computer via cat5 and a network hub, and *then* you've got something worth wasting bandwidth for.

At last you see it. Well done.

Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 5:45 pm

DavidSpearritt wrote:

No preamp, means no coloration, no impedance mismatch, no stepped gain controls, no incorrect gain settings, no overloads, no peak limiting, no saturation, and no more reading all the tedious posts on the web about what is the most uncolored preamp to buy. We would have nothing to discuss on audio forums. Bugger.

There would be plenty to discuss....like why recordings, for some reason, don't sound as good as they used to?

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 4:08 am

Zilla wrote:

There would be plenty to discuss....like why recordings, for
some reason, don't sound as good as they used to?

What a cynic you are Scott, but maybe there will be some of this for awhile. Bit like the vintage mic brigade now.

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 5:45 am

0VU wrote:

As mentioned above, JW works as tech manager for Sennheiser UK (Neumann UK distributors) but I agree with Gunnar as to John's honesty.

His honesty and integrity are not in question, but we do have to keep one reality in mind. As an employee of Sennheiser UK, who are also the UK's Neumann distributors, it is highly likely that he paid *far* less for those microphones than you or I would pay; possibly 40% or more below RRP. They would therefore represent far less of an investment for him than they would be for you or I, and therefore less of a risk AND a seemingly better value-for-money...

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 6:41 am

DavidSpearritt wrote:

Ah Simmo, I miss all our arguments (discussions?) on the phone when you are in the mountains.

Actually, I'm in Sydney at the moment, but my mobile is cut-off because I lapsed in payments. I'm a bad man, and so I've been ex-communicated from Western civilisation. [They can cut off my phone, but they can't block me from the internet!!!]

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But you lose the heavy preamp box you are currently lugging around.

Not me! I'm just carrying a Nagra. Unless *that* is the heavy box you are referring to. It's not too heavy, but it could always be lighter.

To be honest, if my Nagra had direct inputs and processing for the outputs of two of those digital Neumanns, I'd probably be right behind JW in the list of owners. But not if I've got to add another box and double the connections...

Certainly for the technology to succeed, Neumann has to establish their method as a standard which other manufacturers will adopt and integrate into their systems. They did it years ago with +48V DC phantom power, maybe they can do it again?

DavidSpearritt wrote:

No preamp, means no coloration, no impedance mismatch, no stepped gain controls... SNIP! We would have nothing to discuss on audio forums. Bugger.

I'm sure we'd find something to bicker about. Like, what's the best digital microphone under $100? Or, how to use our 'vintage' Beyer MCD100 digital microphones, which were presented to the world at the Copenhagen AES convention in 1996. One decade ago. (Whatever happened to *that* mic?)

DavidSpearritt wrote:

Yes, the capsule manufacturer, YES, I do want them to do it because only they have heard the pristine sound of the capsule itself. I trust them a whole lot more than TASCAM or Mackie or even Prism to make a good sounding rendition of that capsule sound.

And what if you don't like that sound when you finally hear it in its pristine form?!?!

DavidSpearritt wrote:

You are tossing off these statements without deep thought.

With all due respect, if you go back over my discourse you'll see that I certainly wasn't tossing off statements without deep thought. At the point you have commented on, I was specifically referring to adding a Neumann digital microphone to my 'elegant' Nagra V system, and there is absolutely no way that can be done without adding an extra box. How deep do I have to think? Wet toes or diving bell?!?!

In the long run you are correct, of course. But the long run assumes I upgrade to a newer recording device that supports direct input from these digital microphones. Maybe that device is just around the corner? Maybe that's what Beyer thought back in 1996?

Maybe Neumann are smarter and are already planning the recording device. Why not? That would be cool. A complete system from Neumann...

The idea has merit; the recording device is merely that - a recording device! A large chunk of storage with an appropriate digital input, an LCD and a DA converter for monitoring. Nice. Smile

DavidSpearritt wrote:

The new breed of recorder will have the digital receiver bits built in. You will plug the mic straight into the recorder. Also the prospect of wireless data transmission will become much easier. C'mon Greg these are real exciting developments

The prospect of a wireless digital link is very exciting, for sure, assuming the regulatory bodies allow us sufficient bandwidth and power in a suitable airspace. I would gladly say goodbye to cables, even if it meant putting new batteries into the mics at the start of each job.

DavidSpearritt wrote:

Are you sick of the mountains, Greg? Come back to Australia and come and have a coffee in civilization. I can describe so more of the benefits of digital mics.

I'm not sick of the mountains, I'm pining for them! I've only been back for a month and already I'm venting spleen in 5.1. (And I miss my beautiful Nepali girlfriend.)

DavidSpearritt wrote:

They are here to stay and will shake up the remote recording scene a whole lot more than DSD/SACD etc ever did.

Here to stay? Can we please make a bet on that? Just a small one, like $100, because it wouldn't surprise me if they did succeed. The optimist in me wants them to succeed, but the pragmatist says they won't succeed in their current format. So, if they are making significant progress in the next three years, I'll give you $100. If they are canned by Neumann due to phenomenal lack of interest, you give me $100.

What say you?

As for shaking up the remote recording scene a whole lot more than DSD/SACD etc. ever did, *that* wouldn't be hard to achieve! How about giving those mics a decent challenge?

Speaking of DSD et al, imagine if a version of these digital microphones was available that output DSD. Hmmm....

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 7:11 am

As I need a really top notch pair of omnis, I am putting off buying a pair of 4006TL's till I hear these digital things for myself. My good mate Kostas Metaxas says that they sound like dung from sample recordings he's heard, but Kostas is very fussy, his normal gear is M150's into an SM8. Smile

I will listen to them soon and report. I think the capsule sound will be what I want. Smile

Still, mixing them together is huge unknown.

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 7:15 am

Simmosonic wrote:

Or, how to use our 'vintage' Beyer MCD100 digital microphones, which were presented to the world at the Copenhagen AES convention in 1996. One decade ago. (Whatever happened to *that* mic?)

Undoubtedly, its gone the way of ALL early digital gear, into the waste bin, and for sonic reasons we all know about. Digital has moved on since then. No question Beyer are/were innovators, though.

PS. Michael Bishop is a big fan of the Neumann D, for sound quality.

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 10:17 am

This is a fantastic topic! I am LOVING it.

In fact, I've been trying to figure out...If I sold 4 pairs of Schoeps, 2 Millennia HV3D-8s and a couple Gefells, a Lynx Aurora 8 and added $5k to it...could I get enough mics and interfaces to go around.

Then...I wake up and realize that I would still want to work with other mics...my LDCs, my ribbons, etc. I would still need a good pre and a good converter for those instances.

If I only had to record one or two ensemble types, I wouldn't think twice. I'd run out and buy enough to record Mahler 2 today!

The reality is, this setup wouldn't work for me any time in the near future - as much as I'd like it to.

DavidSpearritt wrote:

PS. Michael Bishop is a big fan of the Neumann D, for sound quality.

I know where you're going with that one David...but I gotta tell you - where your pet peeve is petty gear sluttery, mine is the reference to other engineers' preferences. I know MB likes them (as I've read on their website and other forums - otherwise, I'm clearly ignorant as to Telarc's SOPs, etc.) and I know Tony Faulkner has his methods and preferences...but honestly, I could care less.

The reality is, you or I could record the groups that they do and get very usable, even sellable (perhaps even award-winning) results seeing as how a good performer plus a good venue is at least 2/3s of the recording equation - I would rank engineer know-how as 30% of the remaining and equipment as the final 3.4%.

Besides, you lower your own esteem by making statements like that. Personally, from what little I know of and have heard of your work, I respect you more than most "famous" engineers as your feet are on the ground working everyday - not resting on your laurels. Making statements like "Engineer X likes them..." puts you on lower stature than they...

Regards,

J

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 2:43 pm

I posted that comment about MB in response to the previous comments about not liking the naked capsule sound. MB has listened to some of the best mics available and "benchmarked" them for projects and chosen the Neumann D, so the naked capsule sound can't be that bad.

Otherwise I take and agree with your points.

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 2:46 pm

Completely understood.

Cheers!

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 9:58 pm

Cucco wrote:

Then...I wake up and realize that I would still want to work with other mics...my LDCs, my ribbons, etc. I would still need a good pre and a good converter for those instances.

This is one of the things I was discussing in my previous anti-digital microphone rant. Unless every microphone you want to work with is digital, you are going to have to combine the analogue and digital microphone systems; I reckon that's too much complexity and hassle for what amounts to very, very little perceived benefit in the end result.

Others in this thread have made some compelling arguments for the use of digital microphones, but most of those arguments are from an "imagine what it will be like when the world converts to digital microphones" perspective. That's a fine perspective, and one I'd like to see. I think if we ever get to that stage, we'll look back at our analogue microphone systems, with all their cabling and preamps and converters and so on, in the same way we look back at editing analogue tape... (Or maybe not! Perhaps we'll be saying, "Gee, I miss being able to mix and match microphones, preamps and AD converters to get the sound I wanted"...)

But I seriously doubt we will ever get to a point where the world has converted to digital microphones, because no-one will want to go through the necessary transition period where we have to combine digital microphone technologies with analogue microphone technologies. Nor will we want to abandon our much-loved analogue favourites.

Unlike comparing a DAW to editing analogue tape, digital microphone technology doesn't offer any *significant* improvement over our existing analogue microphone technology. In that respect, digital microphone technology is in the same boat as DSD, SACD and DVD-A. They are all measurably better, but they were not *significantly* better than our existing PCM and CD formats to warrant the change.

As with DSD, SACD and DVD-A, the entry cost of digital microphone technology for us, as program creators, is too high to risk. And furthermore, as consumers, we have all been burnt once or twice before after being sucked into buying 'the next big thing'. So these days we are more cautious; whenever some new technology is introduced, we are no longer early adopters. Instead, the only thing we adopt is a 'wait and see' attitude. That is why DSD, SACD and DVD-A are dead as dodos, and it is also why digital microphone technology will fail.

In order for digital microphone technology to get wide acceptance, we have to start buying into it now, and that's something most of us are not in a hurry to do. It's too expensive, and the options are too limited. So, we'll sit on our wallets and wait, hedging our bets that either a) the technology will become widespread and therefore safe to invest in, or b) the technology will go away and stop teasing us.

IMHO, the digital microphone 'revolution' will come and go, and once again the manufacturers will learn a nasty but important lesson: if it doesn't make a *significant* difference, don't bother foisting it upon us. Neumann, Schoeps et al would do well to focus their efforts on improvements that really *do* make a difference for all concerned; like, finding a way to make their excellent mics at significantly lower cost, so we can squeeze the plethora of crap sounding budget microphones out of the market once and for all. THAT would truly be a revolution in microphone technology!

Getting back to digital microphone technology, let's consider the situation. Beyerdynamic introduced the world's first digital microphone over a decade ago. Some say it failed because the digital technology at the time was not good enough and so it sounded bad. That's a good rationale, but I think it failed in most people's assessment before they even bothered listening to it. It was too expensive, and required too many other bits and pieces in order for it to play ball with the existing technologies at the time. Either way, it failed - period.

Fast forward to this thread and we are talking about Neumann's KM183D. This is not a new technology, not even for Neumann. It is part of their Solution D system, which was announced at least two (maybe three or more) years ago. So, it's been around for a while now. And yet, despite all of its supposed benefits, in two pages of this thread we see only two people's names listed as being users of it. One works for the UK importer for Neumann and certainly did not have to pay full price for his system, and the other works for a successful classical music label with a reputation for sound quality and deep enough pockets to risk such a purchase.

What does that tell you?

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 10:06 pm

Cucco wrote:

If I only had to record one or two ensemble types, I wouldn't think twice. I'd run out and buy enough to record Mahler 2 today!

The reality is, this setup wouldn't work for me any time in the near future - as much as I'd like it to.

If Schoeps made a digital version of their CCM4/CCM8 MS pair that fitted into a Rycote and gave me a direct AES output (witout the extra box), I'd be keen to buy it. I could plug it straight into my Nagra's AES input and get on with my field recordings. But not if I have to string another box into the signal path - isn't digital technology supposed to make things smaller, lighter, faster and simpler? The existing digital microphone technology is making things larger, heavier, slower and more complex!

I could see a great application for digital microphone technology in stereo microphones, if they can get all the technology built into the microphone and it outputs a stereo AES signal on a single 3-pin XLR. That would be very cool, but you'd have to lock your digital recorder to the mic's AES signal.

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 6:29 am

Simmosonic wrote:

Cucco wrote:

If I only had to record one or two ensemble types, I wouldn't think twice. I'd run out and buy enough to record Mahler 2 today!

The reality is, this setup wouldn't work for me any time in the near future - as much as I'd like it to.

If Schoeps made a digital version of their CCM4/CCM8 MS pair that fitted into a Rycote and gave me a direct AES output (witout the extra box), I'd be keen to buy it.

I'd even be willing to pony up if the only box required was an AES combiner (putting each mic signal onto its own leg of a stereo AES channel)

Simmo wrote:

I could see a great application for digital microphone technology in stereo microphones, if they can get all the technology built into the microphone and it outputs a stereo AES signal on a single 3-pin XLR. That would be very cool, but you'd have to lock your digital recorder to the mic's AES signal.

Could you lock it to the AES signal in the Nagra?

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 8:52 am

Another Nagrist replies:

Who said I would pay to try the new Neumann set-up? We will not pay to try it or use it.

There is one thing that you guys are missing in the analysis of the advantages of the new digital system. That is that dynamic range is expanded downward with the so called "28 bit" converter and lack of noise.

This means that low level detail should, in theory, be able to be retrieved like never before.

This benefit is the main reason to use the new set-up.