By Alex Khenkin, Former Director of Engineering, Earthworks
How to measure microphones and the implications relating to measuring loudspeakers.
In the 1920s, they said that Victrola was so good that its sound was indistinguishable from the original. Many similar claims were made for later innovations, some of them with considerably more justification. When CDs were introduced to the public in the 80s, the history repeated itself once again – many experts pronounced CDs to be the ultimate recording media (as well as many others who pronounced quite the opposite.) It seems like the subjective boundaries of the audio perception are being constantly pushed away. Now a new, 96 kHz 24 bit media is coming; it does sound better, more realistic and “live”, than CDs do. The availability of wideband and extreme dynamic range recording techniques requires careful rethinking of all components of audio systems,and has important implications for loudspeaker designers. It is becoming increasingly evident that audio perception extends below 20 Hz and above 20 kHz and that maintenance of accurate time relationships is critical to achieve an accurate sound reproduction. Consequently, measuring audio components is becoming more and more challenging task; the most difficult to measure elements in the audio chain being microphones and loudspeakers.
Calibration files are available for every Earthworks measurement microphone at an extra charge. These files can be used to import the microphone’s amplitude frequency response directly into your measurement system. They are in text format, with frequency in Hz in the first column, and response values in dB in the second. Calibration files are available for almost every Earthworks microphone, including microphones purchased previously. Electronic calibration files will be sent to the purchaser via an email attachment.
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