Precision engineered and hand built condenser microphones for Live, Recording, Installation and Test/Measurement applications.

Microphones By Series

Microphones By Application

Click image for high resolution PDF of table.

What is a High Definition Microphone™?

It is a microphone that will pick up sounds with far greater accuracy and fidelity than conventional microphones. The difference you hear is like the difference you see when comparing a standard television picture to a high definition television picture.

• Better Impulse Response – This is the ability of a microphone to accurately pick up signals with fast transients and rise times such as percussion, brass, guitar and piano. The impulse response is the single best measure of the overall sonic accuracy and fidelity of a microphone.
• Shorter Diaphragm Settling Time – A shorter diaphragm settling time will increase a microphone’s ability to pick up subtle low-level sounds and transients. If the diaphragm is still vibrating from the sounds it picked up previously it will tend to mask or color many or all of the subtle sounds that follow.
• Extended Frequency Response – A number of studies have shown that acoustic sounds and overtones of musical instruments extend to beyond 100kHz. Studies also indicate that sounds beyond 20 kHz greatly influence the overall quality of the sound we perceive.
• Minimum Signal Path - Minimum electronics provide a more pure and unaltered signal. Features such as switchable patterns, pads and hi/low pass filters tend to degrade the sonic qualities of a microphone.
• High SPL Handling at Low Distortion – Many microphones will create severe distortion above 120dB SPL. Higher quality microphones must have very low distortion up to and beyond 140dB SPL. This provides far cleaner signals when picking up high level transients from close miked or amplified instruments.
• Cable Length - Once a microphone has provided a pure signal with extended frequency response, it must get to the other end of a long cable without losses. High current, Class A amplifiers allow driving long cables at very high frequencies without signal loss or slewing.
• Improved Polar Patterns – Polar response of most conventional microphones is poor over their operating frequency range. This causes beaming or spotlighting in addition to deteriorating frequency response with phasing problems on the edges of the pattern, resulting in phase cancellations and/or coloration in close multi-miking and contributing to acoustic feedback. Improved polar response dramatically reduces these problems.

All Earthworks microphones with extended frequency responses to 25 kHz and above meet these criteria of a High Definition Microphone™. Even our 20 kHz models meet all these criteria with a frequency response out to 20 kHz.