Audio Gear

The Sennheiser MKH 800 Twin meets the MKH 8030 in the great outdoors

June 9, 2026

A Sennheiser MKH 800 Twin and MKH 8030 DMS rig (right) in a compact windshield (Mini-ALTO 250), along with a Nevaton DMS rig (left), and a Sennheiser MKH 8090 and MKH 8030 MS pair (centre) in the field…or village street. And, yes, there was no traffic at 5 a.m. on a Saturday morning.

Introduction

The Sennheiser MKH 800 Twin was launched back in 2008, and was based on the MKH 800 of 2000 (itself the successor to the MKH 80 of 1993), so is far from a new microphone. But, during my recent testing of the Nevaton MC59 Twin, I began to wonder more and more why, given the reputation of the Sennheiser MKH mics – with their humidity-resistant RF technology – for outdoor use in all conditions, I had seen no examples of this mic being used for such purposes, whether that be for field recording, sound effects, production sound ambiences or outside broadcast. I’m sure there have been recordists putting the mic to such use, but certainly it is nothing like as popular as the older MKH 30 etc. and the newer MKH 8000 series mics. Above all, I was puzzled why it seems to see such little use for double mid-side (DMS) recording in the field.

Size comparisons of selected Sennheiser MKH mics with connectors, top to bottom: MKH 30 (fig 8), MKH 800 Twin, MKH 8030 (fig 8) and MKH 8030 with custom side-exit MZL connector.

OK, the MKH 800 Twin is expensive (with a street price in the UK usually above £2,500 inc. VAT), but not (well, at least for some!) frighteningly so: that’s around double the price of a single MKH 30 etc. or an MKH 8000 mic, for what is, arguably, double the mic or more. And it is by no means a small mic: measuring ø27mm x 136mm, and with a weight of 172g, the mic is certainly chunkier and heavier than, say, the MKH 30 fig 8 (ø25 x 174mm, and 110g), but is noticeably shorter. I wonder, therefore, whether it is a combination of weight, size and the rigging options – and with this I am thinking especially of windshields – that has resulted in low use outdoors. For field recording, using a near-coincident or spaced pair of MKH 800 Twins is, perhaps, less desirable than for music recording, although this would be easy to rig with each MKH 800 Twin in a separate windshield, and would be very flexible in post. Rigging a coincident pair of MKH 800 Twins or one MKH 800 Twin and a fig 8 seems more suited to field recording, given its suitability for MS (with the mid mic polar pattern decided in post) or for DMS, yet this might seem challenging to house in a windshield. Even if placing two mics side-by-side (a viable approach: there is often too much concern about the shadowing effects of such a configuration) the overall width and shock-mounting arrangement can be problematic. Certainly there are no off-the-peg options for this. And, equally, going for the preferable end-to-end rigging makes for a long mic pair, again with some trickiness to the mounting inside a windshield. With two MKH 800 Twins or one MKH 800 Twin plus an MKH 30 I can see why such rigs might be daunting, but my recent rigging of the new and diminutive Nevaton MC59 Twin for DMS got me thinking: surely the comparatively small MKH 8030, especially if used with an MZL connector, opens up opportunities for something acceptably compact? The MKH 8030 has been in production since 2024, but, as yet, I haven’t seen it rigged with the MKH 800 Twin in this way, let alone for field use.

So that, in short, is the purpose of this blog-post: to test the MKH 800 Twin + MKH 8030 combination as a practical and supremely flexible field-recording option. Does the new MKH 8030 provide a means to make the MKH 800 Twin a more practical tool for use outdoors? Well, let’s see!

NB I am grateful to the good folks at Sennheiser for sending me an MKH 800 Twin so that I could explore this.

A quick recap: the advantage of a twin

The MKH 800 Twin is closely based on its predecessor, the MKH 800, but while the latter combines its two cardioid capsules internally to allow different polar patterns (just like any multi-pattern LDC mic), the later Twin outputs the two diaphragms separately, allowing any polar pattern to be created in post, from fig 8 to omni, and, of course, two different mics to be created simultaneously: for example, the output can be used to create both a forward-facing cardioid and a rear facing cardioid, or indeed the same with other polar patterns (which need not be the same front and back). Added to this flexibility, a twin mic like the MKH 800 Twin also has a distinctive form, being a side-address mic: this means that if used to generate forward and rear-facing direction mics, as required in DMS, the capsules are both coincident and are not obstructed by the mic bodies (as would be the case when using two end-fire cardioids for the mid mics). As we have seen in my various blog-posts, a twin mic opens up scope for the cleanest (as in least obstructed) DMS, and with near-perfect coincidence of the two mid mics in all planes.

A brief introduction to the MKH 800 Twin

There’s no great value in repeating the specifications of a mic that has been on the market for 18 years, and for which the technical details have long been available on the Sennheiser website. But a few salient points and comparisons are useful. We have covered the physical nature of the mic above, but moving on to the sound of the mics it is perhaps worth considering the frequency response. Below are frequency response graphs for the two cardioid capsules in my MKH 800 Twin, which, as you would expect, are well matched and which, also, are broadly comparable to the cardioid MKH 8040. I include the frequency response graphs for two different MKH 8040s below, which, as unmatched, provide a useful indication of the variation across the model.

Frequency response graph for the two cardioid capsules in my MKH 800 Twin.

Frequency response graph for my two (unmatched) MKH 8040 cardioids.

Looking at the self-noise profile, the MKH 800 Twin has the same sharply rising self-noise towards 20kHz and continuing to increase above this as found in the MKH 8000 mics. This isn’t at all surprising, since the mic has the same transducer as in the MKH 800, which, when introduced in 2000, was the first Sennheiser MKH mic to have the extended high-frequency range, then seen in the MKH 8000 mics, for which this self-noise at high frequencies is the quid pro quo. Not a problem per se, unless recording very quiet ultrasonic sounds, but a reminder that the mic has more in common with the MKH 8000 range (and, therefore, the MKH 8030) than the older MKH 20, 30, 40 etc. series. And I should hasten to add that the MKH 800 Twin has self-noise in the audible spectrum of 12dBA (as per the specs), which is very respectable and consistent with the other MKH mics.

Self-noise of the MKH 800 Twin, showing the high-frequency rise typical of the MKH 8000 series mics, and a consequence of the extended high-frequency range – above 50kHz – of these mics vs the older MKH series.

Comparing polar patterns between the MKH 800 Twin for a single cardioid capsule only vs that of the MKH 8040 shows consistency, as you might expect, although the differences in the approach to the published graphics below make that a little tricky. In short, there are some differences from 4kHz upwards, but they aren’t huge. Sadly, Sennheiser don’t publish the polar patterns for the combined capsules (especially for omni and fig 8), where the differences will inevitably be more marked vs their single diaphragm counterparts in the MKH 8000 or older MKH 20, 30, 40 etc. series.

Polar pattern of a single cardioid capsule in the MKH 800 Twin compared to that of the MKH 8040 cardioid mic.

As discussed in previous posts, whereas most SDC omni mics are also imperfect, typically becoming more directional from, say, around 8kHz (I am thinking here of the polar pattern of the MKH 8020 mic), the frequency response on-axis remains consistent, while the omni polar pattern of a dual-diaphragm mic is best at the front and rear (i.e. on-axis to the individual diaphragms), but sees significant high-frequency fall off at 90 degrees. We saw this with the Nevaton MC59 Twin, and I repeated the measurements with the MKH 800 Twin to see how it compared. For this, I placed the MKH 800 Twin on-axis to pinknoise played back via a single nearfield monitor in my studio, then carefully and precisely rotated it so that it was then at 90 degrees, adding the two capsule outputs together in post to compare the on-axis and off-axis omni responses. As expected there is a significant fall off in the high-frequency response of the off-axis omni, in this case from around 14kHz, and corresponding with the progressively greater fall off of such higher frequencies at 90 degrees with any cardioid mic: it is, therefore, an inherent feature of the omni mode in similar dual-diaphragm mics. Aimed on-axis the mic in omni mode will sound fine, but aimed off-access (in effect used as an end-fire mic) it is less likely to be so successful. Again, as discussed in the MC59 Twin blog-post, this last use might seem an unlikely one, but in the past I have come across those advocating the use of the Sennheiser MKH 800 Twin as a single mic solution to omni MS (i.e. using the same capsule for the fig 8 and the mid mic): more experienced voices counter this, of course, noting that the omni mid mic (made of sideways-facing cardioids) will have significant loss of high frequency facing forward. I mention it here as a cautionary note: there is much to love about the flexibility of a twin mic, but best not get carried away (and, if your ears are old, forget that frequencies beyond your hearing might be rather curtailed)!

MKH 800 Twin in omni mode off axis (red) overlaid on the mic in omni mode on axis (green).

Rigging the MKH 800 Twin and the MKH 8030 for the field

Mounting an MKH 800 Twin as part of an MS or DMS pair in one of my Mega-Blimps, as shown for the Nevaton DMS rig, gives the most transparent set up in part due to the sparse structure of the TIG-welded basket, but also due to the fact that the upper mic – in this case the fig 8 – can be suspended from the top of the basket, obviating the need for any linking support. These large windshields also, and rather obviously, can easily cope with larger mics: indeed, as readers will know, the origins of the Mega-Blimps lie in the first TIG-welded windshield I designed back in 2017 for a pair of LDC mics. But that is rather besides the point of this blog-post: the aim here is to explore the use of the MKH 800 Twin in a DMS set up that is a viable everyday alternative to other rigs and, for that, this means compact and using more commercially available windshields.

The DMS pair in the mount of a Rycote WS4 modular windshield: easy to mount the mics (even if rather crudely aligned here!), but that chunky plastic mount or rail normally along the bottom of the windshield – out of harms way – is a real impediment to the rear-facing cardioid when used vertically for DMS.

Many a windshield – such as the Rycote modular series, or the Rode Blimp – has a long mount or rail that, when the windshield is rotated vertically (as necessary for end-to-end DMS rigging with a twin mic), offers a significant acoustic obstacle (see photo above). With that in mind, I returned to my compact DMS rig for the Nevaton MC59 Twin + MC59/8 in a Radius Windshields Mini-ALTO, and created a very similar version for the MKH 800 Twin and MKH 8030. To keep things super compact I asked Ed Kelland at ETK Cables to make a custom cable for the rig, with a low-profile XLRF for the twin mic and a custom side-exit MZL for the fig 8, which he has now made available for others. For reference the cable is configured as follows: channels 1 and 3 have a low-profile XLR 5-pin female (with 29cm cable) from the MKH 800 Twin, and channel 2 has a low-profile/custom MZL (with 36cm cable), with both cables ending in a single 7-pin XLR male. It’s handy to have a single cable for the rig with lightweight flexible cable, to reduce cable-borne noise, and it’s great to have the channels in the correct order for DMS. With the customized MZL the MKH 8030 is very dinky and sits neatly above the larger MKH 800 Twin: with a low-profile XLR for the MKH 800 Twin, this gives a 235mm total length for the pair and their connectors. As with the Nevaton version of this vertical rig, two 4mm rods (actually stainless-steel tubes with M3 stainless-steel threaded bar inside) pass by the sides of the fig 8, but offer little acoustic impact. These connect two simple 3d-printed clips for the two very different sized mics.

The DMS pair mounted with a DIY clip in a Mini-ALTO 250.

There is one downside to using a Mini-ALTO vertically for such a purpose and this is that the basket has a thicker plastic element running longitudinally, which would normally be along the bottom of the windshield, but which here is placed in front of the rear-facing cardioid. Not as chunky as the long mount in a Rycote modular windshield that we have seen (above), but, it must be admitted, not ideal. Which led me to another similarly compact alternative in the form of the Rycote Nano Shield. I haven’t been using either of my two sizes of this windshield recently since the Mini-ALTO is so much more practical for most usage, but the basket of the Nano Shield has one useful difference for this DMS application: its basket has no rail or seam along what would normally be the bottom and that, when used vertically, becomes the rear.

The DMS pair mounted with the same DIY clip as before, but in a Rycote Nano Shield NS4-DB. The two right-hand photos (from front and rear) show the 3D-Tex material removed to expose the seamless basket.

I must admit that the Nano Shield is rather clunkier to use, the lyres are less suited to vertical use than Radius’s hoops (though I have managed to retrofit the latter to a Nano Shield in the past, with a 3d-printed adapter), and routing the two cables is a serious squeeze. Also, I could do with a cable better suited to this mounting option (shorter to the 5-pin XLR and longer to the MZL). But there is no denying it is a more transparent option for this usage than the other compact windshields. Others, I am sure, will – perhaps already have – come up with similar or more effective mounts and windshield options: the Mini-ALTO and Nano Shield examples demonstrate how compact such a rig can be.

A custom cable (an XLR7M Y-cable to custom MZL and an XLR5F) makes life easier for this rig, courtesy of Ed at ETK Cables: this one was tailored to use of the DMS pair in the Mini-ALTO 250.

Naturally, with a larger twin mic, this DMS rig is not as diminutive as that for the Nevaton equivalent, but requiring a Mini-ALTO 250 only (vs the Mini-ALTO 180) or a Nano Shield NS4-DB, the windshield is still of modest size and quite happily fits in a shoulder bag for a compact rig. For stand or tripod mounted use, in the Mini-ALTO, which is the option I used in the field tests, the black 72D-shore hoops are fine on the shockmount, although for anything handheld you might want to step up to 82D-shore hoops and, in extremis (or, perhaps, in transit), there’s always the foam insert Radius make to stop long shotgun mics hitting the windshield basket. But, to be honest, I fail to see the point of handheld stereo or surround rigs moving around to the detriment of the image and introducing handling noise.

Sennheiser and Nevaton DMS rigs using twin mics, in Mini-ALTOs, with the top pods removed to show the mics.

Field testing

To me, it’s a virtue that the same or similar sound sources feature regularly in my tests, but perhaps that’s just a defense of my laziness! Anyway, here we go again with a passing steam train recording down at the North Norfolk Railway. This time, conscious of the DMS perspective, I set myself a bit further back from the track into a little bit of scraggy lineside woodland: not sure this makes much difference or indeed was necessary, but at least I wasn’t as visible to all and sundry for once! The DMS files have been rendered to XY stereo in Harpex-X,

Recording a loco pulling a train backwards out of Holt station on the North Norfolk Railway with the two DMS rigs.

First up here is the Sennheiser MKH 800 Twin + MKH 8030 DMS recording:

Next we have the Nevaton MC59 Twin + MC59/8 DMS recording:

Recording around dawn in rural Norfolk, with the Sennheiser MKH 800 Twin + MKH 8030 (DMS), the Nevaton MC59 Twin + MC59/8 (DMS) and the Sennheiser MKH 8090 + MKH 8030 (MS).

For a more subtle field recording, I got up at 3.45 a.m. (not my forte!) on the 30th of May, which was well before sunrise, did a little recording in the garden in this quiet Norfolk village, then wandered down the road, popping off into fields along my way. For this I took the Sennheiser MKH 800 Twin + MKH 8030 DMS rig, again along with the Nevaton equivalent (MC59 Twin + MC59/8), and, for a bit of fun (and I had two spare channels on the Sound Devices 788T) an MS pair: for this I chose one of my favourites – the Sennheiser MKH 8090 (wide cardioid) + MKH 8030 combination. It was a near windless morning, so I left the furs for the Mini-ALTOs at home and even, at a couple of points, recorded with the naked mics to no ill effect. In post I rolled of the lower frequencies with an 80Hz high-pass filter to remove a little bit of very distant and almost constant aeroplane noise. Here are some short clips of the recordings. For the two DMS ones I rendered to Blumlein stereo in Harpex-X, as this sounded nicest, although, needless to say, the rear lobes become reversed. Of course, the MS render to LR stereo with the wide-cardioid mid mic sounds rather different, but that is rather the point: it is instructive to compare the DMS setups to an alternative approach that one could well take – indeed, I would be very likely to – to a stereo end product. The three files each are a combination of five brief clips, separated by very short silences, and comprise:

i) in the village garden 15 minutes before sunrise (4:21 a.m.);

ii) in a field with the distant sound of a bird scarer firing twice, and a pheasant breaking cover nearby (4:46 a.m.);

iii) by a stream (actually, the exit of the stream from where it goes under a lane in a round pipe) (4:56 a.m.);

iv) the same as above, but with the windshields removed (5:02 a.m.);

v) in the middle of the traffic-free village street, with someone running past (OK, I will confess, it was me, but I was inspired by an early-morning runner who came past moments before, but, needless to say, chatted about what I was up to, so a rather literal re-run seemed better!) (5:28 a.m.).

First up, here is the Sennheiser MKH 800 Twin + MKH 8030 DMS recording:

Next we have the Nevaton MC59 Twin + MC59/8 DMS recording:

And finally, here is the Sennheiser MKH 8090 + MKH 8030 MS recording:

One of those very still mornings where you can chance it removing the windshields….

Set up for DMS tests by the Willis organ in St Mary’s Church, Horsham (West Sussex).

A little bit of music

Well, I am conscious that this isn’t a field test sensu stricto with the MKH 800 Twin, but I thought that for some a bit of music would provide an informative test of the MKH 800 Twin and MKH 8030 combination. Added to which, an indoor music test provides some scope for comparing the pair vs others that are not so easy to take outdoors. So, in the midst of the May heatwave here, I popped along to the church of St Mary in Horsham (West Sussex) with my old pal Jake Purches. Instead of recording the organ, as he does for his organ-centric Base2 Music label, he played the organ for me (his love of organ recording has led him to start learning the instrument in his later 50s: a braver person than me, but, aside from the pleasure, without doubt it helps with his recording and editing work) and, also, brought along an additional pair of MKH 800 Twins and a Soundfield ST250 so that we could broaden the comparisons. Rather than bung all the mics up at once – and have a very wide spread of mic positions – I recorded three rigs at a time. The rather nice Willis organ is about to undergo restoration, so, needless to say, the instrument is significantly hissy at present (doubtless the air leaks will disappear during the restoration): so, for those unfamiliar with pipe organs, don’t think it is mic self-noise!

Left to right: Nevaton MC59 Twin + MC59/8; Sennheiser MKH 800 Twin + MKH 30; Soundfield ST250; and Sennheiser MKH 800 Twin + MKH8030.

First up, is a comparison of DMS with an MKH 800 Twin + MKH 8030 vs an MKH 800 Twin + MKH 30. Here, I have rendered them to a stereo Blumlein pair using Harpex X:

As you would expect the difference is subtle, since only the fig 8s differ. But, from the same take, the rendering to a Blumlein pair of the Soundfield ST250 (thanks to Jake: I am not familiar with use or processing of the ST250) is rather different, again as – indeed perhaps more than – you would expect. There’s certainly a lot more high-frequency emphasis than was actually the case with the organ (i.e. the Sennheisers and Nevatons are not oddly muffled!).

Reverting to comparing the Sennheiser and Nevaton twins, next up is a different take, which is a DMS comparison of the MKH 800 Twin + MKH 8030 vs the Nevation MC59 Twin + MC59/8, rendered to a Blumlein stereo pair:

Left to right: Nevaton MC59 Twin + MC59/8; Soundfield ST250; Sennheiser MKH 800 Twin pair; and Sennheiser MKH 800 Twin + MKH8030.

And, finally, and in another take, as we had multiple MKH 800 Twins, here is a DMS comparison of two MKH 800 Twins vs the Nevation MC59 Twin + MC59/8, again rendered to a Blumlein stereo pair:

Obviously it is a bit tricky for anyone not there to compare the mics, especially with regard to the rather different frequency responses, and with different mic comparisons across the three rather different sounding takes: the comparisons are really valid only within the same take (so I have left the take number prefixes – T173, T174 and T175 – in the file names for the avoidance of doubt). But, nonetheless, they may be useful to some: they were to me!

Conclusions

Above all, these tests demonstrate that it is entirely practical to use an MKH 800 Twin in the field and, with some very basic adaptations, it can be utilized as part of a DMS rig within a modest-sized commercially available windshield: in this demonstration, the fairly compact Radius Windshields Mini-ALTO 250 and the Rycote Nano Shield NS4-DB. The key to this is the relatively new MKH 8030 fig 8 mic which, when used with an MZL connector (especially a customized version of this), is so much smaller than the older MKH 30 or, indeed, a second MKH 800 Twin. The pairing not only means the rig is sufficiently compact for most forms of field recording, but also gives a DMS set up where the forward and rearward-facing mid mics are not opposing end-fire SDCs: the cardioids are not heavily shadowed by mic bodies and suspensions. Perhaps because the MKH 8030 is so new compared to most of its MKH 8000 siblings, and perhaps since it takes a (very modest) bit of ingenuity to rig it with the MKH 800 Twin for DMS, the combination seems to have been little utilized: added to that, DMS is, of course, a less-used technique than MS or other – stereo – approaches. Of course, vertical rigging of a twin mic for DMS isn’t suited to all outdoor use: for example, those using DMS for production sound, where it is often used as an adjunct to a forward-facing shotgun mic (for, say, capturing pristine mono dialogue), would find this impractical. But that still leaves considerable scope for field recording, including sound effects recording, where the MKH 800 Twin + MKH 8030 would be very effective.

While for some the MKH 30 fig 8 remains preferable to the MKH 8030, the reality is that they are not hugely different and, consequently, the differences between them when combined with the MKH 800 Twin for DMS are subtle to say the least. Moreover, the design of the MKH 800 Twin – with its extended high-frequency range – is more consistent with the MKH 8030 than the MKH 30. I certainly don’t think I am losing anything by using the MKH 8030 within the DMS rig vs the MKH 30, and, of course, the shorter mic is so much more practical for this usage. Both Sennheiser fig 8s appear preferable (sound-wise) to using a second MKH 800 Twin for DMS: this should not be a surprise, perhaps, given the single diaphragms of the MKH 8030 and MKH 30 vs the double-capsule design of the MKH 800 Twin. Which, of course, brings us to the comparison with the Nevatons, where the MC59 Twin, obviously, has a dual-capsule design, but so also does the MC59/8 fig 8: and yet they hold up so well in the comparisons. Ultimately, however, whatever the pros and cons of these two twin-based DMS rigs – and such things are often a matter of taste and practical requirements – both are excellent options, and, while not achieving something quite as compact, even diehard Sennheiser MKH aficionados should be grateful to the Nevatons for inspiring me to rig and test something very similar for a DMS field-recording rig with the MKH 800 Twin! And talking of inspiration, let’s hope that more manage to get the MKH 800 Twin out into the field.

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Audio Gear Audio Projects Film Projects

Recording and filming a folk choir: a comparison of NOS, spaced omni and DMS mic set ups

June 8, 2026

Introduction

Last week I had the pleasure of making a few recordings with simple videography of the Embers choir – a Norwich-based community choir led by Deva O’Neill, who sing a wide range of European folk songs. I stumbled across a few phone videos of them on-line, and thought the choir sounded great, so got in touch and offered to help produce a few videos with – hopefully – better sound: the sort of thing they could use on social media, and, of course, that are always nice to have as a record for posterity. Fortunately they were game for it. Normally the choir practices in the Martineau Hall, but, for the purposes of recording, I suggested that they book the wonderful Octagon Chapel, which is next door in Colegate. It is a fine Nonconformist chapel built in 1754-6 by the Norwich-based architect and builder, Thomas Ivory, and, happily, has excellent acoustics. The recording was to be a simple affair: setting up at the beginning of their weekly practice, recording and filming three songs once they had warmed up and got into their stride, and when the gear was ready. Nothing elaborate, and not for a commercial album release etc. The choir were so welcoming and friendly, had thoughtfully turned up in muted colours (and not a stripe – the bane of videography – in sight: I hadn’t even remembered to request this!) yet conscientious and focused. It was a delightful evening.

Modified Manfrotto 154b stereo bar with the omni AB and NOS pairs (aka an OCCO rig) flanking the DMS rig in the centre.

The mic rigs

With minimal set up time, I wanted options from which I could select in post, so thought I would try pairs of omnis and cardioids, along with one of my twin-based DMS rigs. For consistency I decided to go with mics from one manufacturer, so, as still immersed in much testing of their mics, went for the Nevaton option. With a new addition to my various Manfrotto 154b stereo bars of a 1m-long carbon-fibre tube (which, as with the stock and modified aluminium ones, I filled with rockwool to remove any resonances), I went for omnis (MC59/O) spaced at 1m (slightly toed out), with a NOS pair of cardioids (MC59S/C) between (i.e. 300mm spacing and angled 90 degrees relative to each other), with a DMS pair of an MC59 Twin and MC59/8 in the centre. Essentially an OCCO set up with DMS thrown in. The mics were all mounted in Radius Windshield shockmounts – the omni and cardioid pairs on the little field-edition mounts with 55D-shore hoops (in the prototype evil red that I love!), and the DMS pair in stiffer black 72D-shore hoops. The bar was mounted on a Manfrotto 1004BAC stand, suitably sandbagged, and the seven cables ran to a Sound Devices 788T (I had a passive splitter too, and a second recorder for redundancy). Well, that’s about it: all very simple, and when the choir kicked off they did one take for each of the three pieces they wanted to record. They were content with each of the first takes, though for safety I should perhaps have suggested a second take of each, but it is hard when people are happy, they are not being paid, you are a new face, and the stakes are modest! Anyway, we got away with it (mostly: the sharp-eared will notice a few things of course!).

The recordings

Having a few options means that – aside from covering myself when recording – this is a chance to make a few comparisons, not just with the mic pairs individually, but also in combination (OCCO pairs are often used with one pair dominant and the other pair added at a lower level). Moreover, it gives a chance to compare NOS and omni pairs to DMS decoded to stereo in different ways including those surprising options in Harpex-X for near-coincident and spaced pairs (yes, the mind boggles how this can work!): just how different does DMS decoded to NOS or AB 100cm sound to the real things? So there is much to chew over after the primary work is done, with the three short videos and recordings sent off to the choir.

In fact there are so many permutations, I’m not sure where to start. First off, perhaps best to give the NOS and omni AB 100cm pair:

Then mixing these together, as if often the case with OCCO rigs, here is the NOS + omni AB 100cm with the latter down 9dB, and the reverse:

For the DMS here is a decode to a Blumlein pair, which works well (and, of course, is a logical decoding in Harpex-X):

And, finally and less convincingly (given the difficulty of creating a virtual near-coincident or spaced pair from a coincident array), here are the DMS pair decoded to both NOS and omni AB 100cm in Harpex-X:

These files can be downloaded, mixed, compared (with levels changed as needed) etc., but, for a comparison across a song here is a video that sees the mic pairs and combinations swap on the fly:

Conclusions

There are some obvious ones: DMS decoding in Harpex-X to virtual near-coincident and spaced pairs doesn’t sound much like the real NOS and omni AB 100cm pairs and is decidedly worse in both cases. Perhaps others have found success with it, but I’ve been a bit sceptical of such options in Harpex-X and, it seems, with good reason: it is not something I have used before and I won’t be doing so again! The DMS decode to a Blumlein pair (i.e. crossed fig 8s angled at 45 degrees to the front), however, is much better, which is not surprising given that Blumlein and DMS are coincident and mathematically equivalent set ups (although, of course, DMS allows much more flexibility in post): and, of course, the use here of a twin mic for the forward and rear-facing mid mics makes for greater coincidentality than with two separate cardioids. I can’t say that I am very keen on the omni AB 100cm pair, which sounds rather swampy, but that isn’t surprising: if using an omni AB pair on its own I would not go as wide as this. The NOS and omni AB pair combinations (i.e. with one pair down by 9dB and vice versa) sound rather better and, also, the NOS pair alone sounds fine. For the finished videos, however, I went for the DMS decode to Blumlein: as readers of this blog will have realized by now, I do like MS (and related techniques such as DMS) and Blumlein, but, quite reasonably, you may prefer a different option! Anyway, I hope one or two find this useful food for thought and an encouragement to undertake your own tests.

Oh, and for completeness, here are the three videos as finished:

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Audio Gear Audio Projects

A Viennese whirl

May 6, 2026

Recording Anna Karnthaler playing the zither at the Filmakademie Wien. *Photo by Gerald Roßbacher.*

Introduction

Following on from my Avignon jaunt in October, this is another tale of a short city break in Europe with a hidden agenda of sound recording. The planning of a four-day visit to Vienna with some of my wife’s side of the family got me thinking: it seemed like a golden opportunity to sneak off from the group to see the engineers at Nevaton, 40 miles down the road at Siegendorf. During my testing of their mics over the last year, they have been asking many a time when I might visit them, and, as it is a bit of a hike from Norfolk, this seemed to be the perfect chance. And then, more latterly, I have been in contact with William Eduoard Franck, based at the Filmakademie Wien: William is a force of good-humoured energy and expertise, Head of Direct Sound at the academy, a great proponent of the importance of sound in film, and organizer of the new Soundscopia Vienna events and forum. He invited me to meet up with him at the academy. So it was looking as if I might skip some chunks of the family trip, but I felt I could live without the dancing horses, and missing a few coffees with Sachertorte on the side might be no bad thing for the waistline! So, on the basis that the (not so) hidden agenda parts of my trip might be of interest to one or two readers, here goes…

In Siegendorf outside the Nevaton premises: one short Englishman, flanked by, left to right, Dmitry Smolnikov, William Eduoard Franck and Egor Semenov. Photo by Pavel Kozlov.

Nevaton factory visit

I’d seen a few photos of the workshop/factory/laboratory (it seems to be somewhere between the three) that Nevaton moved to in Siegendorf, from St Petersburg, a couple of years ago, but visiting it in person and – above all – meeting the good folk there (Egor, Pavel and Dmitry) in the flesh promised to be a great opportunity. William Eduoard Franck also joined me on my trip out to Siegendorf. Well, he more than joined me, kindly driving us there: I loved the way that William was entirely confident that he would have no problem identifying me when picking me up at Radetzkyplatz in Vienna (I quote: ‘you will be the only English Man (stylish as you are)… around’)!

When opening up mics from time to time, you can look at a circuit board (which, in my case, doesn’t tell me much, given my lack of electronics training!) and see the outside of the capsule. With most mics, I haven’t dared or had need to get that far, and have limited myself to peering through the grille, trying to see what is inside: you may recall my close-up photos of, say, the Sennheiser MKH 8030 which typify the limit of what I – and many others – see of the insides of a mic. So this is my long-winded way of saying that, in addition to meeting the designers and builders of the mics, I was especially keen to see how their capsules are made and, more specifically, the dual-capsule designs (i.e. with a passive rear diaphragm) that are a feature of most of the Nevaton MC59 mics.

Inside the Nevaton workshop with Pavel, Egor and Dmitry, and the mic frequency response testing rig. *Photo by William Eduoard Franck.*

With Egor translating and adding much additional detail, Dmitry (the chief designer and engineer) obliged by showing the process from cutting the mica sheet (off a roll 37 years old: you can’t get the same quality these days!), to careful tensioning (and checking resonant frequencies using a Brüel & Kjær 2010 Heterodyne Analyzer: this allows measurement to see if tension is within tolerance, and to allow capsule tuning – especially relevant with front membranes with slightly different tensions to those of passive rear membranes), through to assembly – even down to the little paint kiln. Without their former massive anechoic chamber of St Petersburg days, testing mics is done in the large but untreated room, using a Brüel & Kjær 4133 measurement mic and Brüel & Kjær measurement gear (1027 sine-wave generator; 2610 and 2636 measuring amplifiers; and 2308 XY recorder) corrections are made in real time for frequency plots on paper. Old school, doubtless, but very effective nonetheless. And for testing self-noise, the mics are placed in a sound-proofed double-box made of granite: I feel inspired by this item and could see myself making one (everything else there was out of my league and for serious engineers!). Plenty of fine engineering equipment – including some enviably solid small CNC machines – makes for a very competent set up. Inevitably, some processes are farmed out: as far as I can see this includes little more than gold sputtering of the mica, replication of the PCBs (and, once prototype and pre-production test versions are hand soldered by Dmitry, population of production versions with surface-mount components), and making of the brass mic bodies. So very much an in-house operation, as, indeed, I expected.

I’m a sucker for some old-school technology courtesy of Brüel & Kjær: it certainly does the job.

I can’t do justice to the whole process and, of course, that isn’t really my story to tell: hopefully, in time Nevaton will build on their new website and, perhaps, also use social media to give more detail. But, from an inexpert but keenly interested perspective, it was fascinating to see something of the processes involved; the remarkable care taken with the complex nature of the Nevaton mics; the meticulous checking, measurement, and fine tuning involved; and the sheer passion Dmitry, Egor and Pavel have for their mics, reflected in the continuous developments they are making. And it was great to understand more why, in this highly automated world, there is so much hand crafting involved in high-end microphone manufacture. Finally, of course, it wouldn’t have been a visit without seeing the little Nevaton mic museum, reflecting their long history, and to meet Dmitry’s beautiful cat Nyusya during lunch, which was so kindly laid on.

A little bit of Nevaton’s history in one of their display cases in their museum.

Zither at the Filmakademie Wien

The number of famous composers associated with Vienna is overwhelming and their imprint today remains significant, be that musically or, with examples such as the Mozarthaus, physically. But for some the music of Vienna is most associated with the zither player, Anton Karas. Plucked from obscurity in 1948, playing in a Viennese heuriger (wine tavern), by the film director Carol Reed to compose and perform the soundtrack to ‘The Third Man’, Karas’s playing certainly shouts out ‘Vienna!’ to me. So, to add another layer of complexity to the trip, I thought it would be fun to incorporate a zither recording. A bit of detective work (OK, Googling) later, I came across Zithersound, the website of a group of three zither players, all former pupils of Professor Cornelia Mayer, the great exponent of the Karas style (and transcriber of his music) who died in 2021. I was lucky that one of the group, Anna Karnthaler, was game for a bit of zither recording. My initial thought was to find a quiet place (perhaps a church) to record in a minimalist manner, but, as things do, the plan snowballed rather and became combined with my planned meeting with William Eduoard Franck at the Filmakademie Wien: we ended up with a session in one of the film studios there, during a class workshop that William was hosting. He provided his sound cart (even fishing out his Sound Devices 788T – untouched since Covid – to make me feel at home) and camera, the wonderful technicians obliged with some lighting, the multi-talented Gerald Roßbacher lent a hand, and, last but not least, the team from Nevaton – Dmitry, Egor and Pavel – drove into Vienna with a clutch of their mics and their MixPre-10.

Recording in progress. And, yes, there was a reason why I was monitoring so close to the zither! *Photo by Gerald Roßbacher.*

So, my quiet solo location recording turned into something much more sociable and interesting. And it proved to be a chance to hear and test the Nevaton MC50, which, if you haven’t come across it, is a quad large diaphragm condenser. In this case we used it in double mid-side (DMS) mode, which, in post, I decoded to stereo using the Harpex-X plug-in. Other mics used were a pair of the tiny Nevaton MC59uS + 59/C2 cardioids in ORTF, which I had brought with me on my travels; another pair of the same, also in ORTF, which Nevaton brought along, which was set up a different position along with an MC59/H Pro shotgun mic (the same prototype, or pre-production, model I used for my tests here); and a pair of MC59/O omnis.

A close up of the mics: the central ORTF pair and the MC50 were pretty coincident; the wide-spaced omni pair were centred to the ORTF pair; and the additional ORTF pair and shotgun mic combination (second from right) were position aiming more at Anna’s left hand. *Photo by Gerald Roßbacher.*

A close up of Anna’s concert zither used in the recording. *Photo by Gerald Roßbacher*.

Preparation for a recording like this, especially when travelling light (miserly yet practical!) away from home and with a tight timescale, was inevitably imperfect: ideally, I would have assembled a rig to allow all the mics to be near coincident (apart from the duplicate ORTF pair), and had the omnis at a fairly close spacing. But, hey ho, things don’t always work out ideally and, without such a rigging option, I was just grateful for some mic stands to hold the various mics, even if these resulted in some rather non-coincident positionings and with some rather widely spaced omnis (at 1.17m). So what followed wasn’t by any means a scientific comparison of the mics, but certainly still of interest and value – well at least to me! And, it was a fun way to spend a morning, see the Filmakademie, and spend time with all involved. And, goodness, I did enjoy hearing the zither in the flesh for the first time. I’m so grateful to all for indulging me, not least Anna, who must have wondered what she was doing! She played various pieces, including The Third Man (aka Harry Lime) theme, and here is a video of three short pieces, which Anna performed as a seamless sequence: the pieces are ‘Frohsinn auf der Alpe’ (‘Joy in the Alps’), ‘Das Glöcklein im Thale’ ‘The Little Bell in the Valley’) and ‘B’hüth’ dich Gott!’ (‘May God Protect You’) by Carl J. F. Umlauf (1824-1902). As usual with such videos of mine, the mics switch and what is in use at any moment is shown on the screen. Where combinations of mics are used, the subsidiary ones are 6dB or more down in the mix, not least to reduce phasing issues.

And here is a version of the same video, just with the centrally located ORTF pair on its own, and a dash of reverb added.

For completeness, here are the various WAV files (with no processing) so, if anyone is keen, they can play around and mix files to their heart’s content!

Coda

Yes, the musical world of Vienna is getting to me, but there isn’t really much to say in this ‘coda’. I hope the very basic introduction to the Nevaton set up in Siegendorf is of interest and fleshes out a little the nature of the company behind the clutch of mics I have been testing lately: a small team, dedicated to producing mics to the highest standard they can, constantly looking to innovate and improve. Obviously rather thin on corporate and sales staff, so be patient if inspired to get in touch: hopefully, distribution will improve as they get more settled in their new location. And the upside of the smallness of the company is that you can talk directly to the engineers. It was a complete pleasure to spend a day with Dmitry, Egor and Pavel, and also, of course, with William Eduoard Franck. And it was fantastic to be shown, by William, the facilities at the Filmakademie Wien (lucky students!) and to be able to use them: to have the opportunity to record Anna playing the zither in Vienna was the icing on the cake and a fun exercise too. I have a long history of fusing holidays with activities on the side, and highly recommend it: of course, it takes a bit of effort to set up some things such as on this trip, but, goodness, it was worth it. And as for Vienna otherwise? I’d highly recommend it, from the galleries and museums (I particularly enjoyed the Courbet exhibition at the Leopold; and, better still, the quirky and excellent Third Man Museum), to the ferris wheel in the Prater, to walking the old streets in the Innerstadt, and the amazing public transport. A friendly, welcoming and civilized place too.

But don’t worry, the Random Jottings of Dr Badphil isn’t turning into a travel blog: I’ll be back with another set of detailed tests soon. Tschüss!

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Audio Gear

Nevaton MC59 mics. Part 2: MC59/H Pro

April 18, 2026

MC59/H Pro capsule shown fitted with the MC59 standard preamplifier with its XLR connector (top) and the more compact MC59M preamplifier with its side-exit hard-wired connection (bottom).

Introduction

As I have noted previously, Nevaton’s MC59 mics – that is, its SDC range – are skewed towards the wider polar patterns, with no hypercardioid or supercardioid models available at present (though I hear one is coming!), yet a variety of omni, wide omni and cardioid options. The MC59/H is an exception to that, being a shotgun model: the MC59/H Pro is a new variation of that mic and is what I am testing here. The mic should be available soon, but the copy lent to me by the engineers is the only one in existence – hence the loan and the fact that, as I type, it is winging its way back to Austria!

Physical form

The capsule part of the mic is 120mm long with the 95mm-long interference tube having a diameter of 20mm, which broadens out to the 22mm diameter that is common to the MC59 mics for the part of the mic that contains the capsule itself. The overall length (and, of course, weight) of the mic depends on which preamplifier is used: ranging from the 49mm XLR-equipped MC59 down to the 5.5mm-long MC59uS. I suspect for practical usage – i.e. allowing for a more balanced mic and providing space for shockmount clips – that most will choose the standard MC59 or the 25mm-long hard-wired MC59S. Certainly with the various preamp options to hand here, I have been using the standard MC59 for the shotgun capsule.

In its physical appearance the mic looks identical to the existing MC59/H, so all the changes in the new ‘pro’ model are under the hood. I understand from the engineers that the main difference is that it has a double-membrane acoustic transducer like most of other capsules in the series (i.e. excepting the MC59/OW, open-wide cardioid, and the omnidirectional mics in the series – i.e. MC59/O, MC59/O+ and MC59/O2, which are pure pressure transducers with single membranes). The second membrane, or diaphragm, has no gold plating and is passive – as, indeed, seen in the Shure KSM42 cardioid LDC mic. The interference tube itself looks unusual in that it has oval openings rather than the more familiar close-spaced slots of most designs, although, of course, many a slotted interference tube covers internal circular openings as, indeed, they do with the Sennheiser MKH 8060 and MKH 8018 mics used in the comparisons for this post.

Self-noise

One of the stand out features of Nevaton mics is their low self-noise, and the MC59/H Pro is similar to the standard MC59/H and the other MC59-series mics in this regard. Nevaton themselves suggest -5 to -6 dBA, but, as ever, it is good to test rather than just repeat the specs, not least since self-noise of two mics with the same value can sound quite different due to different frequencies in the composition of the hiss. In this case, I compared the self-noise of the MC59/H Pro to two mics I have been using a fair amount and which I have tested previously: the Sennheiser MKH 8060, which has a very respectable published self-noise of 11dBA, and the Rycote HC-22, which has a still lower published self-noise of 8.5dBA. Both these published specs seem about right from my previous tests.

As usual with such tests, to start with I measured sensitivity rather than just going with the manufacturers’ figures. For this I set up each mic in turn in my studio using a jig so that the centre of the front of the actual diaphragm was in exactly the same place, then played a 1kHz tone through a Vivid S12 speaker, and compared levels using a narrow band-pass filter centred on 1kHz. Obviously there were no absolute figures from this, but relative sensitivity was measurable. I then recorded the three mics using a Sound Devices MixPre-3 recorder at 96kHz in the quietest space I could find in the house (under the usual great pile of duvets etc.) at full gain (76dB), brought the files into Reaper and applied the small gain adjustments to match levels based on my sensitivity measurements. I applied a 24dB/octave high-pass filter at 200Hz to remove any residual distant rumbles of traffic, tractors etc. Here are the recordings:

And here are the spectrum analyzer visualizations:

The sound files and the spectrum analyzer visualizations show that the MC59/H Pro is indeed the quietest of the three mics, which takes some doing given the low self-noise of the MKH 8060 and, especially, the HC-22. The two Rycote and Nevaton mics have a broadly similar hiss, albeit at different levels, while the Sennheiser has a more noticeable high-frequency hiss: as with the more recent MKH 8018, the MKH 8060 is not tuned like its first-order siblings, where steeply rising self-noise towards 20kHz continues to rise to 48kHz, but, rather, sees the rise in self-noise start lower and is less steep, and then flattens off after 20kHz, resulting in the self-noise being characterized by more of a high-frequency hiss (say in the 6-12kHz region). In practical terms, these massively cranked-up self-noise tests will be largely immaterial for most recordings, as all the mics are quiet in normal use: but for some, say recording extremely quiet sounds in quiet locations (think effects recordings), there is no denying that the Nevaton has a significant edge in this regard.

Frequency response

Prospective purchasers of Nevaton mics are not aided by the lack of published polar and frequency plots, although, as with the MC59 Twin, the engineers at Nevaton have provided me with specific frequency response measurements of the actual mic I am testing (with none of the smoothing of published graphs):

Nevaton’s frequency plot (unsmoothed, measured in large workshop) for the MC59/H Pro pre-production model tested here.

For reference: frequency plot for the MKH 8060 mic used for most of the comparisons in this blog post.

The two frequency plots show broadly similar responses for the MC59/H Pro (at 0 degrees) and for the MKH 8060, with a significant bump in the high frequency response. That latter is typical of many shotgun mics and I assume is there in both cases to counter typical use with windshields with attendant loss of high frequencies, and for clarity with dialogue. Anyway, let’s leave the graphs and do some real world tests!

Yet again, back to the massive early 12th-century cathedral belfry, for some loud and high-frequency tests: the windshield fur was removed for the photo, but replaced for the tests.

Kicking off with high frequencies, I returned to one of my old haunts in the belfry of Norwich Cathedral where the overtones of the bells provide an interesting sound source. Sticking with the MKH 8060 comparison (as I do for most of this blog post), I rigged this and the MC59/H Pro in a Mega-Blimp (as usual, there was a bit of a breeze blowing through the belfry), and recorded the mics into a Sound Devices MixPre-3. Here are the resultant recordings:

And here is a spectrogram of the recording, showing the chimes. There isn’t a great deal of difference between the two mics in terms of high-frequency response, although the MKH 8060 shows a little more signal above 20kHz, albeit with more self-noise.

Spectrogram of the bells tolling 3 p.m. On the left: MC59/H Pro. On the right: MKH 8060. The vertical axis extends to 48kHz.

I’ve used the cathedral bells for some time for such tests, but recently discovered a more homely and controllable – but, yes, more boring – source of high-frequency sound, useful for exploring mic response in the form of the humble shaker (that simplest of percussion instruments). Here are simultaneous recordings made using the two mics, adding to the exploration by recording on axis, at 90 degrees and 180 degrees, all at the same distance (1.5m). The recordings, which were made outside to reduce reflections, at the three different angles are separated by brief silences.

Listening to these recordings, you can hear the different side and rear rejection of these two mics at the frequencies produced by the shaker (i.e. above 400Hz).

The MC59/H Pro and MKH 8060 rigged for testing in a Mega-Blimp.

Turning to the other end of the spectrum, I set up a Sennheiser MKH 8060 and the MC59/H Pro pair in a single windshield aimed at the exhaust pipe of the rear of a parked car (with the engine idling, of course). Then the mics were rotated side-on to the exhaust and, finally, angled 180 degrees to the sound source. Here are short clips from the recordings, each having the on-axis recording followed, after a very short silence, by the 90 degree recording and, then, the 180 degree recording:

And here are the spectrum analyzer visualizations:

Car exhaust recorded on axis with the MC59/H Pro.

Car exhaust recorded on axis with the MKH 8060.

Car exhaust recorded at 90 degrees with the MC59/H Pro.

Car exhaust recorded at 90 degrees with the MKH 8060.

Car exhaust recorded at 180 degrees with the MC59/H Pro.

Car exhaust recorded at 180 degrees with the MKH 8060.

In the two recordings you can hear and (from the spectrum analyzer visualizations) see that the fundamental at 26Hz is much more pronounced with the MC59/H Pro than with MKH 8060, by around 10dB, reflecting the reduced bass roll-off in the Nevaton mic. At ninety degrees, even this low frequency is attenuated in both mics, as you would expect: by around 11dB in the case of the MKH 8060 and by around 7dB with the MC59/H Pro. At 180 degrees, however, the two mics are quite different in the case of low frequencies: with the MKH 8060 the 26Hz fundamental is louder than at ninety degrees, and only 6.5dB down compared to the on-axis sound, while the 26Hz fundamental in the MC59/H Pro recording is down 21.5dB compared to the on-axis recording. There’s nothing very unusual about the MKH 8060 in this regard: it is a shotgun mic with a good low-frequency response on axis and with low frequencies also quite evident in the rear lobe, which is an inevitable feature of most conventional shotgun mic designs. The MC59/H Pro has a stronger bass response on axis, but also, and much more unusually, its double-membrane acoustic transducer means that it doesn’t have a back lobe at low frequencies, and the effect is both noticeable and dramatic. Of course, this may or may not be useful for any given recordist or situation. In many uses of a shotgun mic, especially if mounted on a boom pole, then a high-pass filter is almost certain to be required anyway, obscuring much of the effect of the different design. In that case, if rear rejection is wanted, a mic such as the Sanken CSR-2 might be more useful (its rear rejection isn’t for very low bass, but rather above this in the 80Hz to 1kHz range) or the Schoeps SuperCMIT (though Schoeps caution that much care is needed using the latter’s preset 2, which gives maximum reduction of the rear lobe). However, there are many situations where a shotgun mic might be mounted statically and where on-axis bass response is wanted (e.g. music recording, or a sound effect recording where the low-frequency content is significant), but where the absence of low frequencies (e.g. traffic rumble, the sound of distant aircraft or even, and this is especially relevant to indoor recording, reflections of the source sound) in the rear lobe will be a significant advantage. Obviously, if choosing a shotgun mic with rear lobe reduction – be it one such as the Sanken CSR-2 or Schoeps SuperCMIT models with active second transducers, or the Nevaton MC59/H Pro with its passive second diaphragm – the application and, of course, the sound of the mic need to be considered carefully.

Handling noise

More so than in the case of condenser mics with other polar patterns, a shotgun mic is likely to be handheld, be that in a pistol grip or at the end of a boom pole, so handling noise merits consideration. For this, as with other comparative tests, I mounted the MC59/H Pro alongside an MKH 8060, both on identical shock mounts (Radius Windshields RAD 2s) on a short stereo bar fixed at the end of a boom pole.

Here are the sound files, in which I describe how I am using (or, rather, abusing!) the boompole:

And here are the spectrum analyzer visualizations:

MC59/H Pro: handling noise (exaggerated twisting in bare hands).

MKH 8060 handling noise (exaggerated twisting in bare hands).

With no high-pass filter applied, the MC59/H Pro has a much greater susceptibility to handling noise, especially below around 60Hz, than the MKH 8060. In part, this doubtless reflects its increased bass response. But, of course, handheld or boom pole mounted shotgun mics invariably require use of a high-pass filter to reduce both handling and wind noise, and applying a typical 80Hz (24dB per octave) high-pass filter to both mics levels things up considerably. In short, I wouldn’t be concerned about booming the MC59/H Pro.

Here are the sound files with the 80Hz HPF applied:

And here are the spectrum analyzer visualizations with the 80Hz HPF applied:

MC59/H Pro: handling noise (exaggerated twisting in bare hands) with 80Hz high-pass filter applied.

MKH 8060: handling noise (exaggerated twisting in bare hands) with 80Hz high-pass filter applied.

Voice/dialogue

Moving to voice, again I compared the MC59/H Pro to the MKH 8060. First, here is a test with the two mics mounted with back-to-back clips in a single Mega-Blimp, which was statically mounted outside:

And here is a test that combines indoor recording, with the mics mounted together (with back-to-back clips) on a boom pole: in this case the speaker/talent is moving forward the whole time and the boom is never stationary. Sorry about the less than ideal boom swinging: I could blame my current tendonitis, but I think that is just me searching for an excuse! Anyway, the indoor space selected was chosen to be a worst case scenario, being a small reverberant room (4.4m x 4.6m) with a low ceiling (2.14m) with a wooden floor and no soft furnishings, to expose any comb filtering arising from the interference tubes of the two mics.

These short snippets are doubtless a poor demonstration of the efficacy of the two mics – and their differences – when used for dialogue (and my booming for the second pair of recordings does leave a lot to be desired), but I am conscious that production sound recordists really do need to spend time themselves with a shotgun mic to see if the nuances of one versus another suits their purposes or taste better. At a crude level, however, my experience from use of the two mics is that I would be very happy with either for dialogue recording, and I must confess I expected much worse of the two mics in that difficult reverberant interior.

Train leaving Holt station on the North Norfolk Railway, pulled by WD 2-10-0 – 90775 ‘The Royal Norfolk Regiment’ and – I have no idea why – also pushed by a British Rail Class 31 diesel (5631). Don’t be deceived by the two Mega-Blimps in the photo: the two shotgun mics were in the same windshield, with the other one being used for a test recording of the MC59 Twin – for which see my separate post.

Effects/location recording

As so often featured in these blog posts (too often now perhaps?!), I went down to the local steam railway again for a recording test. It might be getting a bit repetitious, but, nonetheless, as a sound source it seems to have a good bit of variety in terms of frequency (from steam hissing, to low-frequency rumbling and engine noises, the latter especially evident in this case with the diesel locomotive pushing the train too), as well as movement. And, as ever, the larger furry windshields gave the chaps in the signal box a good laugh: it’s always good to brighten someone’s day! Anyway, here we go with the two recordings:

A bit of music: something bluesy down in the woodshed…

Well, with apologies to Stella Gibbons for the subheading, but not really a woodshed: rather, the nice and spacious workshop of woodcarver Luke Chapman, who will be familiar by now to readers of this blog for his long-suffering of my mic tests, putting down his chisels and chainsaws to pick up a guitar. In this case he provided a bit of impromptu blues slide guitar playing in front of a test rig comprising the MC59/H Pro, the MC58/8 fig 8 (so you can hear the shotgun mic used in an MS pair), the MC59 Twin (so you can hear how the MC59/H Pro MS pair sounds compared to other MS pairs with different mid mic polar patterns – wide cardioid, cardioid and supercardioid), and the Sennheiser MKH 8018, which is, of course, a stereo (MS) shotgun mic. All plugged into a Sound Devices 788T. Here is a video, where the mic set ups keep switching (with the current mic set up clearly shown on the screen):

And here are the individual tracks in full, which you can download and scrutinize should you so wish. First off, here are the MC59/H Pro and MKH 8018 mono shotgun recordings:

And here are the stereo recordings using the the two shotguns – the MC59/H Pro paired with the MC59/8 fig 8, and the MKH 8018 used in its stereo MS mode:

And, finally, here are the comparative MS recordings used in the video above, made using the MC59 Twin to create wide cardioid, cardioid and supercardioid mid mics, combined with the MC59/8 fig 8:

Conclusions

As ever, it is largely for readers to draw their own conclusions from the tests above, insofar as the recordings and comparisons allow. As with any mics, especially when you are talking higher-end mics suited to professional use, choosing a particular mic often comes down to taste and, of course, usage. With regard to the latter, I would undoubtedly be keener to take an RF mic (such as the MKH 8060) if heading off to the extreme humidity of the tropics for some recording than a true condenser mic (even if with some heating of the capsules from the preamps as in the Nevaton mics), and, conversely, would prefer to use an MC59/H Pro either where self-noise was a critical matter (e.g. for very quiet effects recording) or where the low-frequency rejection of the rear lobe was useful. As I said, the latter has applications for music recording and, in this context, it is interesting to learn that Nevaton’s existing standard MC59/H capsule is often used for classical music recordings: I suspect the new capsule will appeal all the more to such users.

As a final note, of course, I must return to the fact that the MC59/H Pro is a pre-production or prototype model. This might suggest that this blog-post has no relevance to other sound recordists, but, evidently (by the fact I have written it!), I don’t think this is the case: on the one hand the MC59/H Pro has much in common with its currently available sibling (the MC59/H), and, on the other, it flags up what Nevaton are developing in terms of their shotguns (and doubtless they might be persuaded to accelerate development of this model if there is interest) and, also, (as with my other pre-production model tests, such as that for the Sennheiser MKH 8030) there is value in having independent tests and reviews available for when a microphone becomes available. When that day comes, I do hope that I can manage to get hold of an MC59/H Pro again, and just not as a loan: it is certainly an impressive mic and I can see applications where it might be uniquely useful. So, crossing fingers here that it won’t be too long!

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Audio Gear

Using a twin mic on its own for MS recording?

February 15, 2026

A chilly but, for once, dry day down at the station for some omni MS tests. OK, I’ll be honest, I was down there to test some shotgun mics, and just brought the omni and twin mics along on a whim!

Introduction

In my previous blog post on the Nevaton MC59-8 (fig 8) and new MC59 Twin mics, I touched briefly – as an aside – on the question of using the MC59 Twin or, indeed, any similar twin mic (such as the Sennheiser MKH 800 Twin) for mid-side (MS) recording on its own: i.e. without a second mid mic. This means using the combined output of the two (cardioid) capsules with the rear (or right) out of phase to create the fig 8,and simultaneously using the two outputs combined in phase to create the omni. Evidently this allows the single mic to be used for omni MS, although no other variation of MS (i.e. with a different polar pattern for the mid mic) is possible with such usage: only the omni pattern will create a mid mic at 90 degrees to the side (fig 8) mic. Of itself this isn’t a problem since, while many assume a cardioid or, perhaps, a supercardioid mid mic only is necessary for satisfactory results for MS, an omni mid mic is eminently usable, even desirable, in many situations. Indeed, in a previous post I provided (simultaneously recorded) comparisons of MS rigs with different polar patterns – the MKH 8020 (omni), MKH 8090 (wide cardioid), MKH 8040 (cardioid) and MKH 8050 (supercardioid) – so you can hear how they compare. Rather, assuming omni MS is appropriate for the recording, the issue with using a twin mic on its own for MS is to do with the fact that the polar pattern of an omni created by the two diaphragms is imperfect: whereas most SDC omni mics are also imperfect, typically becoming more directional from, say, around 8kHz (I am thinking here of the polar pattern of my MKH 8020 mic), the frequency response on axis remains consistent, while the omni polar pattern of a dual-diaphragm mic is best at the front and rear (i.e. on axis to the individual diaphragms) but sees significant high-frequency fall off at 90 degrees, as illustrated in my previous post. This isn’t a particular issue if using a twin mic as an infinitely variably patterned mid mic in MS in conjunction with a separate fig 8 mic, since the mid mic is facing forward to the assumed focus of the sound source. However, when using a twin mic on its own for MS, the two diaphragms are necessarily facing sidewards for the fig 8, so the omni mic (created from the same two capsules) is aimed poorly for sounds directly in front of the mic. On the positive side, though, the fig 8 and omni mic are truly coincidental, having none of the vertical separation of the two mics in a normal MS pair.

The diminutive size (48.5mm overall length) of the MC59 Twin (shown here in comparison to an MKH 8030 fig 8) makes in particularly tempting for those who fancy a miniscule omni MS rig with just the one mic!

Field testing

The introduction above is just an amplification of my cautionary aside on use of twin mics in their own for omni MS in my previous post. But so much for theory: the point of this short present post is to provide an example of a simultaneous field recording so that others can download and scrutinize the files, compare and analyse short snippets in a DAW etc. as they wish and draw their own conclusions. I have deliberately chosen a field recording since it is hard to imagine anyone would accept the very high-frequency loss in, say, a classical music recording, and it is the most likely scenario – due to compact rigs – where someone might be tempted to make an MS recording with a single twin mic. And I have gone for one of my, perhaps all too frequent, railway loco recordings as it is good to have a varied sound source crossing the stereo field. So here we go with the two sample recordings, one using the MC59 Twin only and one using the MC59 Twin with the omni MC59/O as the mid mic:

Just as with the pinknoise test in my previous post, this field recording reveals the fall off in high frequencies at 90 degrees to the omni mic created from the MC59 Twin, which, in this MS use, becomes on-axis for frontal sound sources. You can see this in the spectrum analyzer visualization below, which is a snapshot of the sound as the steam loco passes directly in front of the mics. Whether or not you can hear a significant difference is another matter as the drop in sensitivity to high frequencies really only kicks off in this example around 15kHz.

MC59 Twin in omni mode off axis (red) overlaid on MC59/O omni mic on axis (green): that is, both mics set up for MS use, with the main sound coming from directly in front of the mics.

Conclusions

The main purpose of this short blog post is to provide an example comparing the all-in-one omni MS recording with a twin mic vs the more normal approach taken with separate mid and side mics. Take from it what you will! From my own perspective, while it sounded better to my ageing ears than I suspected, I can’t really think of circumstances where I would find it helpful to use the MC59 Twin on its own and accept the pay-off of high-frequency loss on axis. I would much rather use the twin more flexibly as the infinitely variable mid mic of an MS pair, along with an MC59-8 fig 8, in which set up, of course, it can also function as a DMS rig, with all the choices made in post: and, as we have seen before, this is still a very compact pairing, capable of use in the field in a small windshield such as the Mini-ALTO.

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