Thanks for confirmation JP

Hi!

I had the chance to make a live recording with both a CM3 pair and a CM4 pair (women's barbershop quartet)

- Microphones in NOS setting.
- CM3 and CM4 close to each other in MS clamps.
- About 3m from the floor.
- Stand about 3m from the singers.
- Recorder: zoom H6

The pictures will give an idea of the location and setting.

- A sample of the CM3's and one of the CM4's
- Samples only made equal in RMS, no EQ or whatever.
- Sample Type converted from 96/24 wave to 44/16, saved ass mp3 320kbps

I am curious if anyone can distinguish the microphones.

Peter.

Beautiful! Plesure to listen (laughing with the text message though )

Second sample is tighter, more focused, less wide. I guess it's CM4.
Ther first sounds more "omni".

Like the 2nd more. What it is, don't know (as I haven't used the CM mics) but as a preference the second.

Both sound great, I think _2 sounds a little more 'omni' so maybe that's the CM3, if the CM4 is claimed to have a slightly tighter cardioid pattern, but there's not a lot of difference in it ? Opposite conclusion to Stradivariusz lol !....will be interesting to read which is which after more people have posted their guesses ?

In the 2nd photo (side on) it looks as if one pair of mics is pointing quite differently than the other (one set points down, the other closer to horizontal, as if pulled by the tension of the cables)....yet the 3rd picture MS clips you used to join the mics together would seem to prevent this ? Maybe it's just the NOS spacing confusing me...which is the correct depiction of their 'pointing angles' ?

When there's so much confusion, the logical conclusion is that there's not enough of a difference to be heard I guess an in depth analysis might reveal something. But as far as telling them apart by listening, as many customers pointed out already - it's difficult indeed.

Very nice! Waalse kerk Delft?
I think the second track is the cm4. I hear a little more low in it, approx 2db about 30-50Hz (space resonans).

This is what I hear too. Plus a lot of very annoying noise from the air system. Hendriks, couldn't you ask them to turn it off for the concert? It was a perfect temperature day anyway, so the blowers didn't make much sense.

Haha, I see what you mean. Listening today again makes me hesitate a little, but when I listen louder I have an impression that the second sample is slightly closer sounding, so might be more cardioidish CM4? :D Funny though, difference is small. Also what dingenus writes about the resonanse is true, stereo image in the first is very equal from left to right, but the second example does not have it, some freqs sound suddenly closer than others - maby through this resonance or more directivity in the pattern...

OT: I would never have expected hear a barbershop version of a classic Beach Boys hit sung in the Netherlands. Very cool.

So which was which here?

Does Line Audio make a hypercardioid?

This has been addressed. No and if Roger manages to come up with a Super or Hyper it won't be tomorrow. If it happens, that's a big if, I can't imagine a commercial product being released before 2021. But I keep bugging him about it

I'd say 1 are CM4s and 2 are CM3s.
2 Sounds like I would guess my CM3s would sound - natural and a bit smoth/soft/cloudy. 1 sounds cleaner and more even.
I don't know which I prefer though!

So witch was witch her?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4HHaspKL_4

Hi all,
Thanks for your patience.
The microphones in sample 1 were the CM3's, in sample 2 the CM4's.
@ Stradivariusz : you were right (but what was so funny?)
@ studer58 : I don't have a picture to prove, but the microphones were not pointing differently. Trust me, I check.
@ dingenus : yes, Waalse kerk in Delft. Did you hear or measure the "approx 2db about 30-50Hz"?
@ Earcatcher : It was actually rather hot in the church by direct sunlight and a lot of people. Besides that it was a performance during "open monumentendagen", not a regular concert; I had to improvise. I think that it's not important for this comparison though.
Regards,
Peter.

Different place, same microphones, variety of performances.
1. Bassoon and Grand Piano
2. Flute and Grand Piano
3. Grand Piano
4. String Quartet
5. Violincello Duo
1,2,3,4,5. Airco
Microphones in NOS, between 3 and 3,5m from the floor.
Distance mic-stand duo and quartet about 3m.
See the pictures for the placement of the grand piano. Flute and bassoon a bit to the right in front of the piano.
CM3 and CM4 randomly sample 1 or sample 2. You can't win great prizes
Enjoy!

Regards,
Peter.

NB Only theCM3's or the CM4's in the samples. No other microphones mixed.

Curious if you have any of the more classically used cardioids available? (DPA 4011, Schoeps CMC6MK4, Sennheiser MKH 40/8040)

So far I've thought the CM4 is really good but would like to compare it to a reference-level mic in the same position.

[QUOTE=hendriks;14235960]Hi all,

@ dingenus : yes, Waalse kerk in Delft. Did you hear or measure the "approx 2db about 30-50Hz"?

First-- I heard, second I remembered the difference in the plots of Lineaudio. That confirmed what I heard.

*funny was my psychoacoustic hesitation.

Edit: didn't get "randomly"

1) 1 - CM3, 2 - CM4
2) 1 - CM4, 2 - CM3
3) 1 - CM4, 2 - CM3
4) 1 - CM3, 2 - CM4
5) 1 - CM3, 2 - CM4

Amazing how close is the sound of these two sets of microphones. I can't hear much difference in the color of the captured instruments, to get the model used I'm trying to listen just to the amount of the acoustics...

Roger's goal was to make the CM4 as close as possible to the CM3. So you can bet that it will be difficult to tell them apart if you ignre the output levele (2dBs) difference, IOW just by listening, not looking at meters or analyzers. But I can give a little hint. On top of the acoustics balance, which can be hard to judge, listen to the sub 100Hz region. The CM4 is a bit fuller there. Not a lot, it's a slightly more linear shelf, if that makes sense, compared to the CM3's. So you're listening to, including tolerances, a 1 to 2 dB max. difference. Needless to say, taking proximity effect into consideration, placement, distance, comparing them becomes a tricky game. I don't think the CM3 will be missed but the CM4 is a little bit different, yes. However slight position differences blur the differences with the CM3 to where, as mentioned before, you would only hear/measure the differences in a close A/B test. In real life recording scenarios, the differences are then negligible. I hope we can quickly move on to the merits of the CM4 proper rather than keep comparing the CM3 and CM4 trying to establish which is better... my opinion, for what it's worth, is that they're twins - born 2 minutes apart, but twins still

The bonus, apparently, is that the consistency of the new capsule design should save Roger some time manufacturing the CM4's. The CM3's have sometimes been "difficult" due to some capsule components. The next, oh... 6 to 12 months, will give him a good idea of what lies ahead for the coming years of production. This is really interesting for me as it might, with some luck, allow the return of a multi pattern model which has been impossible given the sometimes dramatic technical difficulties manufacturing CM3 capsules, maybe a SuperCardioid for which there is a growing demand. I think buyers are mostly blind to how much work goes into those little mics. Roger is working around the clock with great pride and dedication on CM, OM and X-MP models. So anything that saves him some time either for further R&D or for the occasional (rare) rest day, is more than welcome. All hail Roger Jönsson!

I don't know others, but for me this comparison is not about "better" or "worse", but just a great test of careful listening, learning and comparing details of the two very similar yet slightly different tools. I would not dare to say, taht one of them is better since both are amazingly close to eachother as not almost the same! There ar engineers who can guess the which mics were used in one recording after hearing the color of it, there are others who can do it with a spacing between the omni microphones set in AB (Onne Shultze and Tony Faulkner famous meeting).
My personal feeling.

I had preferences on all 5. Some I had stronger preferences than others. They are different enough though.
I'm now curious if all my preferences aligned to one mic or it varied.
But it's not "better or worse" -- if my preferences varied, my conclusion will be I like that mic on that source and that mic on the other. Just like any other two mics (I like the DPA 4011 on the piano but like the Senn 8040 on the strings, for instance.)

If my preferences all aligned to one mic and it's the CM4, then from a buyer standpoint, I might order 8-10 because they are cheap as chips. Which is why I wonder how they compare to the classical choices used for high-end orchestral recording.

This is what I did and in my orchestral setup I have all the woodwinds with Line audio CM-3/4. I did some tests on several sessions and Line audio is my final choice, regarding the price and the sound I don't need anything else to do this job to my taste.
I have other microphones (really more expansive) for the strings. For this job I found the line audio not to my taste (but also the 8040).
Once again it depends how it mixes in the main and what one is looking for.

Fred.

I'm very impressed with the CM4 -

I just used pairs of both the CM4 and OM1 mics (ala Faulkner) a couple of days ago, on a string quartet, and the results were surprisingly good. The preamp was the DAV BG2, and recorded on a pair of Tascam DA-3000 at 192/24.

I found both mics to have quite similar timbre overall, probably because they both have such flat response, but the OM1 obviously brings in more reflections in the room (which in this case, was welcome).

I'm thinking about ordering a pair of Rode TF-5 mics, after the glowing reports I've heard, and of course the T. Faulkner involvement, but I'm wondering now if that is even necessary, given the results with the CM4.

I never had the CM3, so I can't compare those.

Parenthetically, I also had the musicians compare a pair of AEA R84 ribbons (which I've used on strings successfully a number of times) to both the CM4 and OM1 results, and a slight majority chose either of the Line Audio mics.

I've never seen such bang-for-the-buck value in any other recording equipment.

Acoustic Guitar duet...

• Pair of CM4s in ORTF
• DAV Preamps
• Metric Halo 2882 interface

Obviously if you have two right-handed players it means the pick-up angle of two mics in ORTF is completely different, but for better or for worse I was determined to try to do this as a coherent live stereo track rather than mic-ing the instruments separately.

I've deployed a hint of EQ, some light compression, and a touch of Valhalla Room reverb.

Feedback welcome...

Works a treat ! Even collapses down to mono well, as I can follow the individual lines on an old iPad with single speaker

Long enough for the reveal of which was which?

Love it! Since I'm classical music guy, I would place the guitars slightly more to the center to get a little space left and right more, but it's about a very subjective choice. Otherwise sounds very "real" to me. Classe.