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Originally Posted by d_fu  The 805 and the new 950 are hypercardioids. |
Actually they are super-cardioids.
It might be useful to quote this little info-sheet I made up a few years ago:-
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During a recent ibs (Institute of Broadcast Sound) meeting a discussion ensued regarding the difference between super-cardioid and hyper-cardioid microphones, as many people seem to use the two terms as the same thing.
There are, however, important differences between the different types of cottage-loaf microphone patterns, which is why Sennheiser make super-cardioid microphones and not hyper-cardioid.
The pressure-gradient microphone with the best directivity of 4 is dubbed the hyper-cardioid. Its disadvantage, however, is the lack of rejection for sound coming directly from the rear (180º). The rejection here is only 6dB. Trying to optimise the directional characteristics, Sennheiser created a super-cardioid microphone with equal rejection at 90º and 180º. This improves the rear rejection figure without sacrificing the side rejection figure too much, and still retains a high directional coefficient of 3.86.
The theoretical figures for the various cottage-loaf microphones are:-
Hyper-Cardioid
The hyper-cardioid microphone has it’s angle of maximum rejection at 109.5º.
It is optimised for the maximum directivity coefficient of 4.0.
Rejection at 90º is -12dB
Rejection at 180º is -6dB
Super-Cardioid
The super-cardioid microphone has it’s angle of maximum rejection at 125.3º.
It is optimised for the maximum front to rear index and has a directivity coefficient of 3.73.
Rejection at 90º is -8.7dB
Rejection at 180º is -11.6dB
Sennheiser Super-Cardioid
The Sennheiser super-cardioid microphone has it’s angle of maximum rejection at 120º.
It is optimised for equal attenuation at 90º and 180º, it has a directivity coefficient of 3.86.
Rejection at 90º is -9.5dB
Rejection at 180º is also -9.5dB
The attenuation at 90º is equal to the attenuation at 180º (the 180º signal being out-of-phase of course), this means that the attention is concentrated on the sound coming to the front of the microphone. The disadvantage of the hyper-cardioid is that sounds from the rear can be too high due to the lack of rear attenuation, and the disadvantage of the standard super-cardioid is that its side rejection is not enough.
Please note that these are the theoretical figures which may differ slightly in practice |
I hope this helps.