Why does the Beyer M55 microphone sound so natural?

So far it is tested mostly on male vocals at very close distance and it sounds amazing.


Why?


1. On pressure moving coil microphones the reasonant frequency is placed right at the mid band and is damped so that the microphone has flat frequency responce. Not at a low frequency as on cardioid moving coils, or ribbons. Or at high frequency as on omni condencer microphone capsules.


2. So the mic is inherently insensitive to blasts, pops and is smooth sounding at the high end too.


3. It does not seem to have the high frequency peak due to the pressure doubling effect of other omnis as it seems to be designed for flat free field (direct sound at 0 degrees) responce rather than flat diffuse field responce.


4. Diffuse field responce does not seem to matter much as the point here is getting as much clean sound electrical signal as close to the microphone. Same reasoning for outdoor or large studio recordings where the diffuse sound comes apparent at much larger distance (reverberation radius).


5 So as it behaves greatly at very small distance the signal is strong even at week voices and the signal to noise ratio is a joy to hear or rather not to hear.


6 Voltage output is large as it is 500Ω.


7 It does not need extra Pleiades filters to reduce increased bass perception due to Fletcher Munson and voice effort curves. It sings naturally with a typical inline input transformer of about 400 millHenries primary inductance.


8 Similar argument for its inherent high frequency roll off compensating for increased high frequency exaggeration due to Fletcher Munson and Voice effort curves. (These effect take place because on pop music the chosen reproduced acoustic level of voice is much louder than (reallity)). It therefore sounds flat not from microphone to loudspeaker but from vocal chords of singer to listener's brain.


9 It has due to its excellent design virualy no sibilant problems even at 0-1in from voice source.


10 It makes an extremely simple signal path. Example: Voice coil to input transformer to capacitor coupling to the grid of an electron tube preamp, such as the Pleiades V4 and it is fantastic.


There may be much more reasons, perhaps it is time to visit online the patent office and read some Beyer patents.


References:


Microphones - Bore, Peus - Neumann - free PDF
http://www.neumann.com/downloadmanager/d.php?sid=10ui5hmm8ktkfv3q1a59jhgt53&download=docu0002.PDF


Sound Picture Recording and Reproducing Characteristics - Loye, Morgan - Journal of Society of Motion Picture's Engineers - 1939 - Hollywood, California