If The Ear Were A Microphone, What Would It Be?

[Hane]

If ears were a microphone?

Name of mic manufacture: Parents.

How many employed? Billions, though each mic is made by only two people.

How long does it take to make? 9 month.

Advantages
When it comes to capturing stereo images, it’s unbeatable. No conventional mic can touch it.
The most neutral sounding mic on the planet.
Doesn’t need phantom powering.
It won’t cost you anything.
Your mic is unique to you and can’t be cloned (yet).

Disadvantages
The manufacture will only supply one pair for each customer.

Can’t be used any mic pre amp of your own choice.

Exposing it to continuous high sound levels will eventually damage the diagram.

The older it gets, its high frequency range falls off.

The circuitry has a habit of oscillating if exposed to high sound level. A form of distortion called Tinnitus.

The manufacture can’t supply spares, as the parts were uniquely designed for each customer.

[Backhousepro]

Not a fair comparison

To paraphrase Dave Moulton; A microphone has a single input and output, one diaphragm and one mic cable — a single electrical signal traveling down a cable. By comparison, we have two ears, which integrate audio data into a single illusion — and each basilar membrane of the ear has approximately 30,000 outputs. As such, it’s essential to understand that what we perceive as hearing is not what comes in our ear.

To quote Dave Moulton, “What we consciously hear is an extremely and highly edited, polished, rewritten, equalized, compressed, noise-reduced, vocoded, positive-feedback-looped, delayed, stereo-enhanced, reorganized, remixed, mastered, converted to pulse-code neurological construction that has a very remote relationship to the raw physical sound data that went in our ear. Our auditory mechanism adds a lot, an awful lot to the process.”

Me? I think going for illusion is the key. We seem to prefer it over reality. Plus, even if we were able to duplicate the technology of the human ear, we'd still have the problem of loudspeakers to deal with. So put up your Pearlmans, Brauners, Neumanns, DPAs, Royers, Coles, etc. and have at it.

-B-

[boyinthebox]

Not quite as fitting as the dummy head, but the Flamingo ME Edition (Magic Ear) by Violet has a capsule designed in the shape of an ear. Interesting concept at least.

Cheers.

[roger]

i wish mine were SUPER dull ribbons...my mrs can get a bit harsh around 4k while i'm watchin the tube sometimes......i'd love to just roll that off a little (sigh)

[aeroc]

the most expensive thing on earth. the ear/brain relationship is what makes the whole mechanism work. have you noticed how any mic will bring out the flaws in a room? the brain can adjust to a room sound and make it sound "normal". the brain/ear combination can also adjust to become more or less sensitive.

it would be very cool to have such a device to record with. i'm always baffled and feeling blessed when i think i have some of the finest equipment ever designed.. for free!!

[Phil Cibley]

Originally Posted by soupking

Your ears, right now, hearing things. What microphone would the represent?

Some kind of stereo paired omni mics?
Maybe a low-powered condenser set to 180?

At my age probably a broken ribbon with NO high end response.

[Newcleardaze]

Weird question!!
Whatever it is, the signal passes through it twice before reaching the brain - the mic, then our ears, and apparently every other mic is colored by our ears... hmmmmm... dunno

I like th esuggestion of the Neumann KU Dummy Head
Also there's the Schoeps KFM360

[FFTT]

Originally Posted by Phil Cibley

At my age probably a broken ribbon with NO high end response.

I'll top that with a bad cable and crusty connectors!

[andy_simpson]

This is a very interesting question and should perhaps be split into two sections.

The first section would be the strictly acoustic transfer function (pinna, concha, canal, etc) and is something well enough 'emulated' by the Fritz (or perhaps better, the KEMAR head).

The second section would be the mechanical transfer function of the ear and this is where I have taken the emphasis for my work - hence the unique microphone design concept.

While the Fritz & KEMAR 'dummy' heads provide interesting spatial cues with headphones, since they use standard direct-radiator condenser capsules, they are certainly far away from the mechanical performance of the ear.

Mechanically speaking, my microphones are a lot closer but of course they do not provide any of the HRTF related spatial cues of the dummy head types.

Andy

[billgennaro]

Originally Posted by soupking

Your ears, right now, hearing things. What microphone would the represent?

Some kind of stereo paired omni mics?
Maybe a low-powered condenser set to 180?

mine would be a mic that has been left out of its case in a smoke filled environment, subjected to humidity, and is in need of an overhaul. oh yeah, there would be little hairs sticking out of it in every direction.

[Fabi]

Originally Posted by grantlandau

They're definitely a pair of omnis with a skull baffle. We don't have any vents for directional cancellation, except maybe eustacian tubes, but I doubt those really cause much cancellation. but correct me if I'm wrong..

Yep omnis for sure!

They are pressure recievers and NOT pressure gradient
We hear frequencies that are long enough wavelength to bend around our head, even if the source is directely on the other side. Our head resonance is at app. 250 Hz as far as I remember. (OSS disc resonance is the same, if anybody remembers)

For even one ear can locate 3 dimensional due to the diffenrent coulering of the sound through the shape of the ear the only mic acceptable is the fritz
but
it still lacks the sound that we hear over the oscillating skull.
Also fritz has no brain, which is a real downer, otherwise it would be perfect for 5.1 encoding.
Neumann should really come up with a "brain"-version of the fritz with 5 outputs. Wouldn´t have to be too smart, and please noooooo talkback feature

P.S
The tubes only affect the sound when they are stuffed and put pressure on the ear sometimes have that prob -- it sucks