Core Sound Low Cost Binaural Microphones and Low Cost Stealthy Cardioid Microphones™ — Core Sound

Low Cost Binaural and Stealthy Cardioid Microphone Specifications

The Low Cost Binaural and Low Cost Stealthy Cardioid microphone sets use a pair of miniature electret condenser cartridges.

The Low Cost Binaural mics have a frequency response of from 20 Hertz to more than 20 kiloHertz and are very flat (typically within 2 dB) over that frequency range.

The Low Cost Stealthy Cardioid microphones have a frequency response of from 40 Hz to 18 kiloHertz. They have a rising frequency response over that range with the exception of a slight (2 dB) peak between 9 kHz and 12 kiloHertz and a bass response fall off of roughly 6 dB per octave starting at 100 Hertz. (The bass response is very similar to our Core Sound Binaural microphones with the bass roll-off filter).

We match the microphone pairs to within one dB of each other.

The Low Cost microphones require a bias voltage (also called “plug-in power”) of between 1.5 and 10 Volts DC, supplied by the recorder or mixing panel via the same cable that carries the audio signal. All current digital and analog recorders supply bias voltage. They include the Sony WM-D6C Pro Walkman (analog cassette), Sharp -702/-722/-831/-877/-MT15/-MT20/-MT60/-SR60 and Sony MZ-R30/-R37/-R50/-R55/-R70/-R90/-R700/-R750/-R900/-R950 mini-disk recorders, Aiwa AM-F70/-F80 minidisk recorders, Sony TCD-D7/D8/D100 and PCM-M1 DAT recorders and many Aiwa recording Walkmen. All of these do not require a battery box. (Contact us if you’re not sure how to check if your recorder provides a bias voltage.)

For recorders that do not provide a bias voltage, you can use one of our battery boxes.

The mics require less than 1 milliamp of current and so do not affect the recorder’s battery life at all.

Low Sensitivity Option: If you are using one of the Sony MD recorders that lack the low sensitivity setting on its mic pre-amp (MZ-R37, MZ-R70, MZ-R71, MZ-R90, MZ-R91, MZ-R700, MZ-R750) or that have overload problems (MZ-R55), you’ll find that if you record loud music, the mic pre-amp will overload and you’ll hear huge amounts of distortion. (These are the only recorders that lack this feature. All of the other Sony MD recorders and all Sharp recorders have a low sensitivity setting.)

To eliminate the distortion one must to reduce the level of the signal that the mics send to the recorder. Until now, to do this required that you use self-powered microphones and an external attenuator cable, adding significant expense.

To reduce the cost we’ve designed a new set of microphones that has a much lower sensitivity. It puts out a much lower signal — (approximately 15 to 20 dB lower in level) and so are much less likely to overload your recorder’s mic pre-amp.

The design adds a little cost but compared to previous solutions, it saves quite a bit more.

(Keep in mind that reducing a microphone’s sensitivity makes it less suitable to record quieter sounds. If you primarily record quiet sounds, we recommend that you use the standard LCB/LCSC microphones and not the low sesitivity version.)

*The Sony MZ-R500 does not have a microphone pre-amp and so we don’t recommend it for recording live music.