Sennheiser MKH 416 The MKH Story - Page 10

The MKH Story The new MKH 8000 line The long MKH 8070 rifle microphone was designed for picking up distant sound sources. It was launched in 2011, together with the MKH 8060 short gun microphone. There were many reasons for the development of the new MKH 8000 line, which was launched in 2007 with the MKH 8020 (omni), MKH 8040 (cardioid) and MKH 8050 (super-cardioid) and has been continuously expanded since then. Most important was an unobtrusive design for video productions etc. Furthermore a modular concept was planned for more versatile applications. From the start, it was decided that the technical specifications of the MKH line should be maintained or, ideally, improved. This was a challenging task as the properties of the established MKH line still set standards even after more than twenty years in production. Diameter and length of the new microphones were considerably reduced, as small-sized electrical The MKH 8090 wide cardioid condenser (launched in 2012) components (SMD) were now available. Also new production technologies were applied. The push-pull transducer was redesigned in order to reduce its outer size without changing the active diaphragm area. Actually, the active diaphragm of the new 19mm diameter MKH 8000 series has exactly the same diameter as the 25mm MKH 20-800 series: 16mm. Thus the excellent noise performance was maintained. The frequency response was generally extended to 50 kHz. This demanded a fine- tuning of the capsule design. The circuit design was taken from the MKH 800. Modularity was a novel aspect of the new MKH line. The modular separation was not, as usually arranged, between the transducer and the electronics but behind the complete microphone unit. This concept combined the functionally associated parts to one unit and thus virtually eliminated external interference problems. The microphone module can be combined with different modules, cables, stands etc., which are provided by an extensive range of accessories. A new feature is the creation of a digital microphone by combining the microphone module with the AES42 converter module MZD 8000. This digital module provides two channels, which can handle two microphones simultaneously, or a stereo or a twin microphone (e.g. MKH 800 TWIN) with special cables. If only one microphone is connected then both channels are driven in parallel and the S/N ratio is increased by 3 dB. Uniquely, this arrangement allows a stereo pair of MKH 8000 series microphones, with a Y-cable, to be connected to a single MZD 8000 and a simple connection kit to go into a standard AES3 digital input without requiring the recorder or mixer to be AES42 enabled. Last but not least ... The new microphones are based on a half-century of experience. All current MKH microphones have proved their high tonal authority and their reliability even in critical recording situations. The RF principle, which at the beginning assisted the changeover from valve technology to transistor technology, has improved to be an important base of modern microphone design. Page 10