Sony ECM-MS5

[boojum]

I see this mic for sale in the Taperssection board and wonder has anyone any experience with it? I like the MS type as they are easy to handle in crowds. I am concerned with the sound quality. It retails for ~$1,500 and this one is <$400 so I may be interested. And, how does one buy used stuff by mail without getting stung??

Thanks for any help. I need it!

[A440]

I've never used that mic, but just want to ride my usual hobbyhorse: bass response is limited, only down to 70 Hz. Signal to noise ratio looks extraordinarily good, as it should be at that price.

As for mailorder, in the end it comes down to trust. Has the seller posted a picture of the actual microphone (not a stock photo), or can you ask for one? That's a major expenditure, so the seller should be able to provide a digital photo. In focus.

Has the seller sold other stuff before where some feedback has been provided? Does he post regularly to taperssection or is it his first post? Is his screenname ripoffartist@bogus.com?

[boojum]

I've never used that mic, but just want to ride my usual hobbyhorse: bass response is limited, only down to 70 Hz. Signal to noise ratio looks extraordinarily good, as it should be at that price.

As for mailorder, in the end it comes down to trust. Has the seller posted a picture of the actual microphone (not a stock photo), or can you ask for one? That's a major expenditure, so the seller should be able to provide a digital photo. In focus.

Has the seller sold other stuff before where some feedback has been provided? Does he post regularly to taperssection or is it his first post? Is his screenname ripoffartist@bogus.com?

The seller is a major player at TS. Says he got the thing on a snipe bid while he was on vacation. Is willing to allow a trial period longer than the usual 48 hours. He has been recommended by other folks there, FWIW. I have looked at analyses of what I record with my ECM-MS957 in Cool Edit and Audacity and it goes below its rated range. There is a dropoff, yes. The bass is there, yes. I have not seen the MS5 curve from SONY so I do not know how many db it is down at below 60 Hz. I disagree that we hear to 20Hz as that is a subaudible frequency. You may be able to feel it, but no one can truly hear it.

You did get his screen name right, though. Howdja do that???

[greenmachine]

While you may not be able to hear all the way down to 20Hz, 25 or 30Hz is relatively easily audible. The bottom octave(s) may not be of major importance to you though, particularly when you primarily intend loudspeaker playback of your recordings. I wouldn't recommend the m/s technique primarily for headphone playback anyway, for lsp playback it often does a great job though. We've had some discussion about it in a recent thread. Each technique has its strengths and weaknesses.

[A440]

The audible range is generally defined as 20-20,000 Hz. Below 20 is subsonic.

The bottom note of a piano, a low A, is 27.5 Hz. I know I have been in dance clubs with audible notes below that. Some pipe organs go down to 16 Hz.

The lowest note on an electric bass is 40 Hz.

One octave above the bottom note on a piano, the next A, is 55 Hz.

Even a cello goes down to 65 Hz.

70 Hz, where that mic's pickup begins, is a C-sharp or a D that's about one and a half octaves from the bottom of the piano.

You may not care about that bottom range. Your loudspeakers might not reproduce it without a subwoofer. And the mic may pick it up to some extent, too. But at any rate, it's not inaudible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_frequency

[boojum]

While you may not be able to hear all the way down to 20Hz, 25 or 30Hz is relatively easily audible. The bottom octave(s) may not be of major importance to you though, particularly when you primarily intend loudspeaker playback of your recordings. I wouldn't recommend the m/s technique primarily for headphone playback anyway, for lsp playback it often does a great job though. We've had some discussion about it in a recent thread. Each technique has its strengths and weaknesses.

hear = audible. If you cannot hear it, it is not audible. You can feel the sub-audible pressures. I am looking at an old pair of AR-2ax's tomorrow. They could reach down to 20 - 30 Hz. Not bad for a bookshelf speaker with one 11" woofer each!

I have a pair of Soundman (www.soundman.de) in-ear binaural (specs follow) for headphone use. Although I do almost no binaural now. I could with the MZ-N1. I am also thinking about a Jecklin disc with the Soundman electrets. That should be way cool. I would use it with the mics pointing forward for stereo and pointing at right angles from the disc for binaural. Woohoo.

Specs for the little mics:

Input impendance 1 kOhm

Output impedance 47 kOhm

Frequency response 20 Hz - 50 kHz (+0 / - 3dB)

Frequency response with filter 300 hz - 50 kHz (+0 / -3 dB)

Noise Level (A-weigthed), 47 kOhm loaded max 30 µV

Max. output voltage 1,5 V eff.

Max. output voltage with ATT. 1.0 V eff

Battery 6 V (4LR44 o.ä)

Battery life time 50 h (OKM I), 100 h (OKMII)

[boojum]

The audible range is generally defined as 20-20,000 Hz. Below 20 is subsonic.

The bottom note of a piano, a low A, is 27.5 Hz. I know I have been in dance clubs with audible notes below that. Some pipe organs go down to 16 Hz.

The lowest note on an electric bass is 40 Hz.

One octave above the bottom note on a piano, the next A, is 55 Hz.

Even a cello goes down to 65 Hz.

70 Hz, where that mic's pickup begins, is a C-sharp or a D that's about one and a half octaves from the bottom of the piano.

You may not care about that bottom range. Your loudspeakers might not reproduce it without a subwoofer. And the mic may pick it up to some extent, too. But at any rate, it's not inaudible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_frequency

Using you link above I read: "16 to 32 1st (octave) The human threshold of feeling, and the lowest pedal notes of a pipe organ." Feeling is not hearing.

My most used speakers are ± 55 Hz - 20Khz (KEF 104/2's). When I drive them with my two monobloc amps (hafler 500's with about 1200 - 1500 amps into 4 ohms) the sound and feeling is apparent. The speakers do not hit a flat wall at 55 Hz, either. I also have the manufacturer's "bass extender" which gives me ± 2 to 30 Hz. With it in the circuit the first pedal note in the Saint-Saens Organ symphony is just pressure in the room, barely perceptible with the orchestral music going on over it. It is spooky and somewhat unsettling; ominous. I guess it is meant to be. As the organ moves up the scale it is audible. The 65 Hz of a cello is close to the sound of house current, if you have ever heard that. Scare ya, it will. Pianos? How many folks have the damned Bosendorfer with its extra bottom octave, or even need it? Little is written for down there I would wager.

As for the mic begining at 70 Hz; no. That is where its range of ± whatever ends. Stuff I have recorded with my ECM-MS957 shows bass below its low point, although diminished. And that is of the Freak Mountain Band whose sound is amp'ed by not the best amps and played through not the best speakers in the world. I am not going to get flat bass down there, true. I am uploading to this a capture of a random spectrum from CoolEdit of an FMR number. I guess it is representative. It shows sound below the 957's rated bottom. Attenuated, true. But if I really want to hear it I can bring it up with a mixer.

Let me know what you think as I am still a real neophyte with this stuff and you have way more experience than I.

[greenmachine]

Since not many people seem to have practical experience with the mic, you could ask the seller for a few unedited audio samples with description of source, setup, location, etc. and evaluate for yourself. At that price, i wouldn't buy blindly or depend too much on other's opinions.

[A440]

As usual, greenmachine has the practical solution. See how they sound. Brilliant.

So, some random thoughts.

I wonder if this is where your seller got it....for $385 !

http://cgi.ebay.com/Sony-ECM-MS5-stereo-co...5QQcmdZViewItem

When I Googled ecm-ms5, I got some links to tapers, like this one, using that mic:

http://db.etree.org/shn_lookupshow.php?sho...ninfo_key=20965

It's good to see that your current mics don't cut off at 100 Hz--though that spectrum analysis makes me wonder what the heck they are picking up way down there. A subway train under the club? Some serious foot-stompin'? I didn't hear anything like that on the samples in the other thread.

Beyond this point, it's a theological discussion. But:

"Human feeling" may just be someone trying not to repeat the word audible or whatever. You don't stop feeling vibrations slower than 16--you perceive them as individual throbs, or physical motion. Or we wouldn't notice earthquakes.

The 27.5 Hz A isn't just on the Bosendorfer, it's on every piano, and it is defintely an audible, tunable note.

I'd love to hear one of those Bosendorfers. Piano music isn't written for the 13.75-27.5 octave, but those open strings provide resonance for everything above them. Still, I'd wager that if you played down those keys you would be able to distinguish separate notes--it wouldn't be all rumble.

To me the hum of house current is a very clear note, and not a particularly low one.

More to the point is the 40 Hz of the bottom string of a bass. Certainly that's used even in bluegrass, and definitely in rock and classical music. And the cannon in Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture? As with the organ note in the Saint-Saens, you may be mostly perceiving overtones, but you may also be hearing the fundamental. I'll bet you'd notice if someone played the wrong organ note.

The beauty of live music is in the extremes that most people's sound systems (certainly mine) cannot reproduce. But I want them in my recordings if I can get them.

As I said, that's probably more of a theological position than a practical one. Sony must be making such a high-end mic that way for a good reason. Down in the Google listings is the testimonial of a guy who used the MS5 to record a Mississippi fife-and-drum band which is loud and deep, and he was very happy with what he got.

http://www.trewaudio.com/goat.htm

Edited February 25, 2007 by A440

[boojum]

Greenmachine has the proper answer! Yes, I will write the guy and ask for some samples. But, in his post to TS he says he has little used the mic. And, while GM suggestion is a good one the seller could send me a sample of anything. He might have some nice Neumanns around, but I doubt that. He has agreed to an extended evaluation period.

Low note which are audible? Yes, it does degenerate to a "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" arguement. And there are plenty of those over at the high-end audioo boards which are mostly pissing contests for folks with lots of money and incredibly expensive audio systems. My haflers, tuner, pre-amp and two amps, were kit-built back in the days when you could buy kits. They came in pretty cheap.

OK, back to MS5's. It seems the evaluation period is as good a deal as I can hope for. If I pay for it with PayPal I am covered by my credit card as a protection against getting burned. Also, I can buy PayPal's buyer protection for double protection. I would like to try it out.

The Soundman electrets can work on a Jecklin disc and for binaural. BTW, my solution for the 12" disc for making a Jecklin disc: an LP. Pretty simple. Now I just need some fake lambs wool and sone insulating matwerial and I am off and running. Some cheap parts from the hardware store will make the mic mounts. I will post the results with the disc, as soon as I make it and test it.

Cheers, and thanks for all the input. I am so new to this, and enjoying it immensely.

Edited February 25, 2007 by boojum

[A440]

If the seller is a serious presence at taperssection, he probably has a reputation to protect. That's a good thing. It makes it far less likely that he'd rip you off, since you could shame him in public.

As for a sample, all he has to do is record 30 seconds of his home stereo with the mics, so it shouldn't be a big deal for him. Alternately, since he's giving you a long evaluation period, maybe the best thing to do is to get the mics in your hands, try them and see.

The Soundman electrets are supposed to be excellent; I'm jealous.When you make a stereo recording with them--even if the mics are just separated without a Jecklin disc--please upload them.

[boojum]

The Soundman electrets are supposed to be excellent; I'm jealous.When you make a stereo recording with them--even if the mics are just separated without a Jecklin disc--please upload them.

I do not think that Soundman is that expensive. I bought them while I was living in Mexico. He had to send them with a bogus repair tag to get them past a huge customs fee. They were mailed to a US address and then transported to a private postal box I had where I lived. Otherwise, forget it. They would have vanished and some poor soul down there would be using them to listen to a Walkman with.

Yes, I will U/L a track when I get around to recording with them.

Got a recording tonight in Portland of Freak Mtn that was killer. They kicked out the jambs. I will U/L a good track some time tomorrow. This live recording is fun.