The Sounds of the Mics

Here is a rather large (five megabyte) MPEG sound file of many of the microphones on this site. This provides a means of comparing them. To keep the comparison equitable, no processing was used during recordings nor in post. Audio consoleEQ settings were centered.

Please bear in mind that these samples were recorded over a three-year period in various acoustic environments, most of them favor­able. There are a couple of samples that contain echoes. One sample includes the sound of a fan in the background. At least two samples contain small amounts of AC hum. Apologies are offered.

Finally, some listeners will argue correctly that MPEGs are not the best format for evaluating the quality of a sound. This was done to conserve loading time. One could just as easily argue that unless all mics are recorded in the same acoustic environment, the comparison is invalid. Again I concur. Perhaps we can agree that this sampling at least proves that not all microphones sound alike.

Thank you for your interest. From the beginning this web site has been, and continues to be, an interesting undertaking.

—Prof. S. O. Coutant, retired

Thanks to Prof. Coutant for this and for his great site...