Posted by David Carter on January 09, 2004 at 22:29:38:
In Reply to: Re: Miraphone posted by ben on January 09, 2004 at 17:36:08:
Very interesting your experience that the Miraphone recorded better, but live listeners like the 56J better. To really explain it would be both long and tenuous. But in brief our ears don't hear the way a microphone does, and few loudspeakers reproduce sound really well either. Just as food for thought, consider how small cheap loudspeakers, such as on a typical 19 inch tv can reproduce the sound of a bass trombone OK, but have real trouble handling low tuba notes. This doesn't mean the bass bone sound is better or worse than tuba, but that small cheap speakers can reproduce the bass trombone sound (which is more high overtones than fundamental) than low tuba notes which have more fundamental than the bass bone. Rick Denny has an interesting comparision of a 186 with a piston York on his site. At any rate to acheive accurate playback, you need expensive micks with good linear response (many micks have poor response below the bass cleff stave) and speakers that can play with linear response down low too, and at dynamnic levels like the real instrument. Consider how loudly recorded music played back soft will usually just sound dead. Also when recording you will be getting mix of direct and reflected or room sound. The same situation exists for playback. For example it is very difficult to get the great sound of a well recorded orchestra in a large hall, if ou play it back in a small boomy room, on small cheap speakers, and at less that the original dynamics.
I suspect that the miraphone has a bit more bite or edge to the sound, that helps to make up for loss of tone color in the recording and the playback stages. It's generally known that bright sounds are a bit easier to record, or get on the mick. But the human ear is more sensitive to tone color than any mick, and the live ear may prefer a fuller sound with resonance.