John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part II

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I'm curious, what is the "the closest approach to a perfect mike" ?
the Calrec Soundfield Mk4 in the previous millenium and TetraMic in this. Why don't you have a look at the ambisonic.info page even if you have no intention of listening to the sound samples.

BTW, the 'perfect mike' has nothing to do with "thinnest diaphragm" and other Golden Pinnae sh*t. To define the perfect mike, you specify what it needs to do .. not what's inside.
 
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Ha ha, Esperado, are you really THAT old? :D
Let me see if I get it right. After the disco years came ...
Punk...Electro...[snip]
I suppose... don't remember my birthday...
Will I shock you if i say that none of the movements you mention was very new to our old ears on a musical point of view ?
Punk was just dirty 'Garage' Rock'n roll from the 60s played with no grove by bad musicians, more a literary movement than anything else, on my point ov view. The kings or the Who had done that so long time before....
All was said by Kraftwerk about New wave orElectro.
Rap or Hip Hop appeared in the middle of 70, my mystake if it was hidden in my "etc..."
And was-it new ? Spoken texts grooved with some funk background music ? Samples ?
I ask myself the question... I'm probably an old fart...(no smiley here, please)
 
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BTW, the 'perfect mike' has nothing to do with "thinnest diaphragm" and other Golden Pinnae sh*t. To define the perfect mike, you specify what it needs to do .. not what's inside.

It is impossible. If I specify what I understand as "perfect" as a consumer nobody can do it in any millennia. What I cal "perfect" (as a designer and technologist) means optimal, limited by laws of physics and state of art and technology, and available resources.

Please don't confuse anymore sh*t with technical parameters.
 
No, it means that Blind Listening test is not proper. Stationary audio systems must be designed, installed, and tuned in the rooms. Even more: together with rooms.
Wave, if you believe Blind Listening Tests are not proper, the chasm between our prejudices is very wide and there is no point in any discussion.

BTW, I have done a lot of work on speakers in rooms including DSP for room EQ bla bla. My still-to-be-defined 'perfect speaker' will almost certainly be a surround system of some form cos it allows (with some DSP tweaks) easier & better 'tuning' to the room bla bla.
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But I'm interested in your definition of a 'perfect mike as a consumer'.

As I've claimed to have designed the closest to perfect mikes, perhaps I can be the "nobody can do it in any millenia". :D

No promises but at least I should be able to tell you what is Unobtainium at the present state of the art.
 
Wave, if you believe Blind Listening Tests are not proper, the chasm between our prejudices is very wide and there is no point in any discussion.

BTW, I have done a lot of work on speakers in rooms including DSP for room EQ bla bla. My still-to-be-defined 'perfect speaker' will almost certainly be a surround system of some form cos it allows (with some DSP tweaks) easier & better 'tuning' to the room bla bla.
______________

But I'm interested in your definition of a 'perfect mike as a consumer'.

As I've claimed to have designed the closest to perfect mikes, perhaps I can be the "nobody can do it in any millenia". :D

No promises but at least I should be able to tell you what is Unobtainium at the present state of the art.

Tell me please what is Unobtanium! :D

I thought that mikes for different applications are still different. No one can be perfect for both close miking of a singer with the band on stage and for surveilance on 300 feet distance on the street during the day, despite in both cases amount of noise is huge.

Speaking of speakers and DSP, if your speakers are ringing like a hell, I mean non-linearly, like cones and plastic (wooden, MDF, name it) boxes do, no DSP time machine can correct that.
 
Tell me please what is Unobtanium! :D
Please Google

I thought that mikes for different applications are still different. No one can be perfect for both close miking of a singer with the band on stage and for surveilance on 300 feet distance on the street during the day, despite in both cases amount of noise is huge.
I designed the Mk4 Soundfield for surveillance of orchestras etc at large distance in large spaces. It's also good for bands, chamber groups, choirs and pianos in smaller spaces. Loadsa good examples on ambisonia.com

But in the 80's & early 90's, Stock, Waterman & Aitken had more Top 10 hits on the UK & US charts than any other production house. They used (only) my design for the heretical close miking of singers and in fact everything else, which I had expressly forbidden :eek:

Paul Doombusch has some good recordings on ambisonia.com which are closer to your 300' on the street. I helped him with some (mainly DSP) aspects of his mike.

Alas, none of my soundfield designs would be good for Mick Jagger on stage. :mad: There are some Calrec stick mikes which would be good but I don't claim them to be the best bla bla.

But Wave, what is YOUR 'perfect mike' optimised for? Care to tell us what's inside? Or even what's it supposed to do?

Anyone downloaded the stuff linked from ambisonic.info and had a listen with VVMic or Harpex in stereo? Would appreciate comments ... good or bad.

Speaking of speakers and DSP, if your speakers are ringing like a hell, I mean non-linearly, like cones and plastic (wooden, MDF, name it) boxes do, no DSP time machine can correct that.
At the risk of wanking even further, :D I've done a lot of work on this too with Laser Doppler Interferometry bla bla. Wharfedale & Celestion pioneered this work.

A lot of the 'ringing like hell' bla bla can be corrected with DSP but some can't ... It's really too large a topic for this thread.

But what do YOU make your boxes out of?

Wharfedale of course pioneered the use of concrete and bricks for speaker boxes ... and sand filled baffles for stuff that couldn't be built into your living room.

In the 20th century, Wharfedale & Celestion used much more exotic materials for speaker boxes and cones too .. some of this from our Laser Interferometer work.
 
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But Wave, what is YOUR 'perfect mike' optimised for? Care to tell us what's inside? Or even what's it supposed to do?

For different optimization criteria my perfect mikes would be optimized differently. I did not claim I designed the perfect mike of the century, you did. I don't play this dick contests.

Now I've got samples from first experimental run of optic capsules (see picture above), let's see what I can do with them. But I wold prefer to have bigger diaphragms limited in size by upper frequency in interest.

And since I have strange generalization that all human beings have ears aligned horizontally in my mic arrays I don't point them vertically. May be I am wrong. :D

But what do YOU make your boxes out of?

Again, it depends on the application. Stationary boxes I make from concrete. For portable speakers, of course, concrete is too heavy, so I am searching for different materials. Plastic mold under the pressure is not good technology for garage made prototypes, so I stick with plywood while experimenting.

Again, I am not interesting in dick measurement contests. YMMV. :D
 
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