On Thu, 13 Jul 2017 21:45:31 -0400, Mike Rivers
wrote:
On 7/13/2017 7:40 PM, Tobiah wrote:
Still, couldn't an experienced individual give me some idea, given these
incompatible statistics, what level of noise I might notice from one to
the other.
The one pair is Rode NT1-A, and the other is an Audio-Technica AT8010.
I don't yet have the AT8010.
Oh, so you want to compare them based on published information, not
actual performance. You should read my series about specifications
published in Recording. The gist of the introduction is that
manufacturers measure products any way they want to, and publish numbers
that they think will look good to the customer even though they're
relatively meaningless out of their own context. Neither of those
specifications can tell you how many milivolts of noise you get out of
the microphone when there's there's no sound going into it.
What you want is a specification that says something like "Self-noise:
-72 dBu (or 0.2 mV). But that's too simple and honest.
That isn't what you want either. The 5dBA figure is much more valuable
than a simple level with no sensitivity reference to compare it to.
What I do know is that it is a long time since mic noise was actually
an issue. Noisy preamps like RNP are much more where the problem lies.
I use an NT1-A and I can confirm that it is an extremely quiet mic.
What noise it is, as Scott says, is at the bottom end, and most
situations where you need the low noise figure are going to be ones
where you are in any case going to roll the bottom end back because
you are up close.
d
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