Welcome CMS or the cheap microphone syndrome

CMS or the cheap microphone syndrome concerns microphones so cheap that nobody in their right mind would buy them yet...


They send to the cleaners really expensive or famous ones


Have on pop or s problems


Are very low noise, no hiss, no hum


Have minimal handling noise





Usually such microphones belong to the category of moving coil pressure transducer.


So they...


Have no ugly bass proximity effect


Membrane is acoustic resistance controlled like directional condenser microphones


Thereby having no handling noise due to diaphragm tuned at LF or shrill sound due to diaphragm tuned at HF. Diaphragm very broad reasonance is at the very important mid band.


Do not have complicated ports, chambers etc as directional mics do. Are easier to produce and easily outperform a cardiod mic of the same price.


Are low noise as a powerful magnet supplies the magnetostatic field.




One cannot expect everything. Like all moving coil mics the diaphragm has more mass than a ribbon mic and so they will possibly sound somewhat colored at mid HF. Or perhaps this is due to the pressure doubling effect of pressure mics.


Anyway they will not sound as detailed as a good ribbon or printed ribbon mic.


But they will send to tea most mics regardless of technology or price.


Such mics have been mentioned on euroelectron or covered on many known microphone websites.


The list can be very long.


But today 2 RadioShack omni moving coil mics have just arrived from the eBay Global Shipping Program and they sound remarkably great. Exactly what so many forums mention about these microphones.


The 2 mics tested on minimal good quality signal path, male singing voice are:


Realistic 33-170 and 33-3039.


Signal path:


male singing voice - mic a 2in - Pleiades filter if needed - Sony TC-D5 Pro - Sennheiser HD580


The cheaper? 33-3039 mic did not need a Pleiades electric filter as it does not sound bass heavy. It has a very nice smoothness and HF.


No s or p problems on both mics.


Still can't believe how good they sound for the so low price.


In fact just one of them was desired to be bought but they came from a listing that was offering them together.


With these mics or similar pressure moving coil ones that are cheap or less cheap one can approach easily the ideal of flat frequency response from singer's vocal chords to listener's brain.



See also for diaphragm: mass, resistance or compliance control on Microphones - Boré, Peus - Neumann - pdf