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darnold
New member
This was brought up again in another thread. Its possible this is ALL discussed in the big mic thread but...its just so long how am i supposed to find it. It might have been brought up elsewhere too.
The argument was brought up that large diaphragms pick bass frequencies up better than small diaphragms. Everyone put there input in that these facts were not true which is quite well known around here. But night'schild responded to me with a private message with statements from Microtech Gefell tells otherwise. I will give a copy and paste of the message and what i replied back with what i could muster up as justification
. But its probably best left to people who really know.
Sorry night'schild if you wanted to be kept anonymous. But since it would be pretty easy to figure out which argument i was talking about i didnt think it would really be anonymous anyway.
The argument was brought up that large diaphragms pick bass frequencies up better than small diaphragms. Everyone put there input in that these facts were not true which is quite well known around here. But night'schild responded to me with a private message with statements from Microtech Gefell tells otherwise. I will give a copy and paste of the message and what i replied back with what i could muster up as justification

Sorry night'schild if you wanted to be kept anonymous. But since it would be pretty easy to figure out which argument i was talking about i didnt think it would really be anonymous anyway.
night'schild said:If I am wrong why do the engineers at Gefell agree with me?
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Type of capsule Advantages
Small diaphragm (16mm or about ½”) Better directivity
More even response curves
Better for live performances
Less feedback on stage
Less sensitive to solid borne noise
Less handling noise
Less proximity effect
More accurate and critical
Better for instruments
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Large diaphragm (25.4mm or 1”) More musical
Better low frequency response
More sensitive
Lower self noise
Greater proximity effect
Warms up the source
Smooth and complimentary
Better for voice
You can read the article for yourself it is under diaphragm size.
http://www.gefell-mics.com/capsules.htm
darnold said:Hey Night'schild.
Really glad you brought this up. But i think it would really be best to be bring this up on a thread. If you dont mind ill start a new one and bring up these facts that you have presented. If you dont want your name brought into it i wont bring it up. But it is a worthy and respectable thing to bring up. There are many people more worthy than me to try and give a proper explanation for you.
I think the main argument you have is they say that large diaphragms have better bass response. This might be true to an extent but I believe its unrelated to the diaphragm size. The thing is, the statement is not completely true. The reason being is that small diaphragms pick up just as much bass as a large diaphragm, and infact it picks up the bass frequencies more accurately. I remember hearing that there is a microphone that recieves down to 2Hz or something, maybe even 1Hz. And it is smaller than a half an inch. Even small omni measurement microphones pickup to 20Hz and they are smaller than half inch diaphragm. If they didnt pick up bass frequencies as well then they couldnt be used as room analyzer microphones. Infact they pick up bass probably better than large diaphragms because of the accuracy.
So really the larger picks up more bass is basically a false statement. What could be true about the large diaphragm because of its accuracy issues that it colors the bass frequencies in a pleasant way. This would give you the perceived effect that it picks bass frequencies up better. And infact those bass frequencies could be boosted in the frequencies to give the bass coloration. But it really has nothing to do with how much the diaphragm is picking up. So really the statement isnt totally incorrect, but its not really correct either.
Infact, that is why there are actually some smaller diaphragm microphones that have more bass than some large diaphragms because its really irrelevant. Its not as common for that to happen because the small diaphragms are usually pretty accurate on the frequency curve so its not going to do that. But the engineer of the microphone could easily tune it to be that way.
And it also looses the argument that it picks up more sound in general because it even says the small diaphragm is more directional. That is why it is more common to see small diaphragms in a stereo pair because the accuracy and the direction of the mic is more accurate. Large diaphragms dont work as often for this because the coloration is stronger off axis of the mic. If the coloration is bad in the off axis areas of the polarization then the stereo imaging in the center is going to be weaker. So thus you could say that because the off axis coloration with large diaphragms is so great that its actually pulling less energy into the microphone from the sides.
The statement about the large diaphragm having more proximity effect is also a false but true statement. The EV RE20 is a large diaphragm dynamic mic and it has very minimum proximity effect. This is one i probably cant explain which is why we need to pu this in a thread. But im sure it has more to do with the polarization in the back diaphragm then with the large diaphragm.
As far as the sensitivity goes. That probably has more to do with the way they are mounted. Small diaphragms are mounted pretty tight which would make them less sensitive to both movement of air and breaking. Where as the large diaphragm is normally suspended where a windblast could dislodge it. Again, not really related to diaphragm size.
And the warms up the source and better for vocals is again because of the coloration it provides. It normally colors the voice in a more flattering way than a small condenser. But still, small diaphragms are used on voices quite often too. My Neuman TLM 193 isnt a true large diaphragm, its a 3/8". But its coloration is awesome.
Im gonna go ahead and put this up in its own thread for more comment and comfirmation that my own statements are correct. I could be feeding a bunch of bull shit too.
Danny