DBX RTA mic for recording

[Charles Jenkinson]

Anyone tried this? Any good? Can they take full 48volt phantom power? (I think drive rack power is only 15v or something low-ish)

[sine143]

they take 48 volt Phantom power

I believe they are well reviewed for drum overheads. probably decent for field recording as well.

[dswpro]

RTA mics are built to be as flat as possible in their frequency response but are not necessarily great for recording. Most spec sheets will clearly call this out. There are a couple specs / measurements which come into play.

One is the MAX SPL the mic will sustain. This is usually important when placing in front of drums, or other high SPL locations. Most RTA mics will have a reasonable level there, some will clip rather quickly.

The other and more important one is noise floor, dynamic range or Equivalent Input Noise. This is really where the rubber hits the road on microphones and the difference between poor, good and great microphones. Most RTA mics have a very limited dynamic range. Their noise floor (the noise the mic itself injects into the signal ) is usually too high for a quality recording, and rarely published in the sales sheet, since the purpose of the mic is to accurately measure relative frequency volume, not pickup the whispers at the back of the concert hall.

For example an AKG C414, $1000 dollar microphone has en Equivalent Input Noise of 6 dBA, while an AKG C2000B, $200 dollar microphone has an EIN of 20 dBA. Both have a reasonably flat response, but in a studio you can hear the noise of the cheaper mic much more quickly.

So I guess it depends on what and where you are recording. If you are not too discerning or what you are recording does not have a great dynamic range, you might get reasonable results, but there are a lot of good microphones out there for under 200 dollars that will give you great results in a variety of situations.

Don Sullivan

[Charles Jenkinson]

Thank you sine and Don, especially.