Microphone Madness and Sony ST25

Laurence wrote on 3/8/2005, 9:07 AM

I've just discovered the mics at microphonemadness.com. I just got the two cardiod Sennheisers on a y-cable with an 1/8" plug at the end. I have to record a conversation between two people for a documentary and this seemed like the easiest way to do it. Anyway, the mics are well assembled, sound great and draw their power from the DC-bias on my VX-2000. It just doesn't get much easier than that! They have all sorts of cool stuff on their web site. You guys should check it out.

Also, I just got a little Sony ICD-ST25 mini-recorder from Radio Shack. Using either my Rode VideoMic or the Microphonemadness Sennheisers the sound is tremendous. There is only 32 meg of memory in the thing, and the data compression is quite high, but to my ears at least the sound is really good. I've recorded some guitar through it as well using my Studio 1 BP Pro to match the input and that sounds great as well. It doesn't make any sense to me that an hour and a half of stereo audio would sound good compressed into a 32 meg space, but whatever damage is done - my ears can't hear it. Maybe if I was recording cymbals or chimes it would jump out at me, but with voice and guitar it just sounds great!

Comments

farss wrote on 3/8/2005, 2:08 PM

With these sorts of compression schemes it's the more complex sounds that test the system. We've recorded opera into the Z1 which uses MP2 at a reasonable bitrate and at the same time we record to DigiBeta which uses 24/48 uncomp. You can certainly hear the difference even through my old stereo system. The full on orcestra sounds very flat coming from the Z1 and perfect from the DB tapes. Sound is much like video.
Things may sound / look OK by themselves, it's only when you do A/B comparisons that you see/hear the differences.

Laurence wrote on 3/8/2005, 3:21 PM

I'm sure there is some damage to the audio, it is having the hell compressed out of it so there must, but I sure can't seem to hear it! This little ST25 recorder with the Microphonemadness mics sound tremendous to my ears. For about $300 investment I seem to be getting some pretty amazing sound!

Laurence wrote on 3/9/2005, 3:32 PM

OK, I recorded some acoustic guitar and can hear the data compression on that. On the voiceover I just did today, it sounds just perfect. After the kids went to school, I stuck my Rode Videomic on a little tabletop tripod and recorded a nice little VO after breakfast at the dining room table. It sounded great, well as good as my voice can sound anyway.

Here's a refurbished ST-25 for $80. I think I'll get myself a spare:

http://www.simplycheap.com/sonyicd-st25.html