"Cossie" wrote in message ...
"---MIKE---" wrote in message
...
Everyone is concerned about distortion in speakers, amplifiers,
CD players, and even cables. How about microphones. We never
hear about whether microphones distort when driven to high levels
(such as close proximity to a large chorus and orchestra). Are
there any specs for microphones?

The only reason you "never hear about" microphones distorting at
high levels is because you must not be in the recording business,
but rather in the business of enjoying the final product. Virtually
every microphone on the market today will have a max. SPL rating
included in the published specifications.

Beyond that, which is all very true, is also the notion implied often
that microphones are somehow magically a neutral, unimpassioned and
utterly faithful player in the reproduction chain. Such a view is
certainly naive, and most certainly just plain wrong.

True, there are some microphones that are capable of quite faithfully
and accurately sampling (in the borader sense) the acoustical information
at the position of the microphone and converting it to an electrical
representation with very minimal distortion and change.

However, not a small number of these very expensive microphones
have very DEFINITE and UNIQUE signatures: in one dimension or another,
they most certainly DO distort. For example, vocal mics are often
because they have a very definite, non-flat, no accurate frequency
response. Many microphones have this property, and recording engineers
will often exploit this fact, conciously or otherwise, to, in their
view, enhance a recording.

What I find ironic is the wholesale condemnation of tone controls,
equalizers and such by the high-end audio community, contrasted
against the wholesale embrace of recordings made with microphones
that are, in every sense of the word, tone-controls and equalizers.