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MICROPHONE THEORY

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MICROPHONE THEORY
and a Microphone Test Recording
The reproduction of space in stereo listening has come to be a dominant concern in
High End audio. TAS in general and, more specifically, HP have led the way in this
en
largement of objectives to include not only the tonal character of live sound but
the spatial properties as well.
The spatial characteristics of equipment have been from the beginning most
definitely the province of review by listening, of (though the phrase is a misnomer)
"subjective reviewing". Although the theory of sonic perception of space is quite well
developed, a full theoreti
cal explanation of the perceived spatial differ
ences among
recording and playback compo
nents has not been forthcoming. Review by listening
has ruled this roost so far.
Review by listening as usually practiced involves, by nature, a certain circularity: We
evaluate equipment by listening to recordings, and we evaluate recordings by
listening to them via equipment. When we come to spatial aspects of the sound, this
inherent circularity becomes to my mind particularly troublesome. Certain
combinations of recording and equip
ment are capable of producing a remarkable
approximation of the live experience, and one is tempted to think that this
authenticates both recording and equipment. But when it comes to fine details of
spatial replication, the whole evaluation process suffers from a fundamen
tal
difficulty: We really don't know exactly what kind of spatial impression should be
produced by a given microphone pattern.
The way and the extent to which spatial properties are recorded depends to an ex
treme on the microphone technique used. More
over, it depends on the particular
microphones used, not just their generic description in terms of response patterns.
Not all cardioids are equal; not all figure-eights are the theoretical objects of the
Blumlein stereo method.
Indeed, it seems safe to say that none are. Anyone who
has attended a recording session knows that in complex or simple microphone
arrangements alike, moving a microphone just an inch can cause drastic alterations
in the sound recorded.

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In short, when we listen to a recording, we hear

not the event itself but the event as altered by an
often bewilderingly complex microphone pattern.
Even
the
theoretically
simple
"mini
mal"
microphone set-ups show unexpected variabilities.
The Blumlein set-up (crossed figure-
eights: see
sidebar) admits a complete analysis of lateral
position, at least in case the micro
phones realize
the theoretical figure-eight pat
tern. But even in
this simplest of possibilities, the reproduction of
depth involves unpredict
able, perhaps truly
incalculable, subtleties of wall reflections and
ambience.
There is a path that seems to go, if not all the
way out of this maze of confusion, at least toward
the exit, toward the sunlight of under
standing and
certainty about reproduction of space. This path is
an aspect of scientific method, in the most
positive sense of that phrase. Rather than attempt
to understand at a single stroke the vast
complexity of a musi
cal event, we might try
instead to understand how various microphone
techniques-or play
back set-ups--reproduce very
simple sounds with locations that vary in simple
ways. An obvious candidate for the sound would
be an approximate pulse, a "click", if you will. This
is more suitable than a tone, the other simple test
object of audio, because location sensing is known
to be very much a transient-sensing mechanism.
A geometric point source also seems like a good first choice, since we want as
precisely located a source as possible. If we had a point "click" source with position
varying in a known way, recorded with various microphone techniques, we would be
able to at least make a start on understanding what the microphones will do in
generating a sense of location. And now, thanks to the work of James Boyk, you can
start here without the painstaking work of putting together such a set-up for
yourself.1
There have been demonstrations of varied recording techniques: Sheffield-Town
Hall's (820, 821) Art of Fuguing contrasts multi
miking with distant, minimal miking.
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And Sonic Arts' Piano Fireworks (Lab. Series 01) gives a startling demonstration of
how seemingly small changes in acoustic environment or mike position (e.g., a rug
inserted under a piano) can transform the recorded sound. But, to my knowledge,
no recording attacking the re
ally basic issues of microphone technique in relation to
location sensing has been previ
ously available commercially. 2 Theoretical analy
ses
abound; test material does not. If you care about imaging in any theoretical,
analytic sense, you need this recording.

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The function, to my mind, of Boyk's test recording is not to show you how
recordings should be made-and Boyk agrees with me, if I understand him correctly.
Rather, it is in
tended to clarify, in the simplest situation, how certain specific
microphone techniques will lo
cate images. If we are purporting to judge equipment
for spatial accuracy, I think we all need to know this. But being best in this test does
not mean best for recording music. The ultimate test of a recording is its artistic
truth, its fidelity to the musical event as music; in this artistic criterion, correct
image location might seem to play a minor role at most, but it is an important
aspect of realism.
The format here is straightforward. In each test, a sequence of otherwise identical3
point
source "clicks" is recorded, moving from one side to the other, back and forth.
These clicks are generated by small speakers, uniformly spaced, and lying in a single
plane perpen
dicular to the central axis of each microphone layout. They are at
uniform height. The micro
phone technique used is specified for each test. The
question is: How well does each technique (and your system) reproduce reality?
Perfection in this test would mean that all clicks were equally loud and identical in
tonal nature (except for minor, constant variations among the speakers used) and
that the ap
parent location of the clicks would shift in a uniformly spaced motion
from right to left, left to right, neither hurrying nor slowing toward or away from the
center.
As it happens, one of the test set-ups re
produces reality so well as to constitute a
reference for all the rest. This is the Blumlein ribbon-microphone set-up, listened to
with the playback speakers positioned according to Blumlein theory, i.e., speakers
pointed directly at the listener, exactly equidistant from the listener, and each
speaker 45 degrees from the central axis.4

An interesting theoretical point arises here. In Blumlein stereo, a source is always

picked up exactly simultaneously in the two chan
nels; this is indeed the only
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possibility in one-
point miking (unless some sort. of delay line were to be used).
Thus in playback of the Blumlein tests, or any variant that is still single_ point pickup, the initial arrivals of the "clicks" in the two ears are exactly simultaneous (as
suming the "click" has audible amplitudes in both channels; in theory, a point source
ex
actly 45 degrees off-axis would have zero amplitude in one channel). So the timeof
-arrival localization mechanism would say that the source was exactly centered, no
matter where it actually was. It is well known that nonsimultaneous arrivals pull the
apparent po
sition of a source off-axis, and pull so strongly as to override
contradictory amplitude infor
mation to a surprising extent.
One might thus a priori expect that simulta
neous arrivals would be strongly center
pulling. If this were so, then the Blumlein "click" tests on the recording would tend
to collapse toward the center, yielding a distorted pattern. No such collapsing does
happen, in my expe
rience and, as verified by Boyk, in the experi
ence of other
listeners so far. Indeed, this strongly suggests that the override relation
ships among
the aural direction-finding mecha
nisms are not a simple quantitative trade-off.
Rather, it would seem likely that the ear/brain looks for the information that has
maximum discrimination potential. In effect, if a mecha
nism (in our case, arrival
times) seems to be yielding nondiscrimination (as exact simulta
neity might be
thought of as doing), then that mechanism is ignored and the others are given
preference. This is known to be true for phase differences between the two ears; in
the higher frequencies where interaural phase differences would be ambiguous in
directional significance, the ear/brain system does not sense the phase differences.
The situation described for time of arrival is different somewhat in that exact
simultaneity is not ambiguous; it corresponds precisely to exact centering, i.e.,
location on the midplane. Even so, the Blumlein listening results suggest that exactly
simultaneous arri
vals are interpreted as non-information, rather than as centering
information, if other direc
tional information is present. Here is clearly an interesting
psychoacoustic phenomenon to be investigated further.
In Blumlein stereo, sound from behind is as strongly picked up as sound from in
front. But in the test set-up, the back sound is mini
mal, and the same perfection of
image posi
tion should be obtained with crossed micro
phones at 90-degree
separation using micro
phones that have forward response only. More precisely, for
this to be theoretically correct, the forward-response of the microphones would have
to be the forward half of a figure-eight, i.e., a circle. Any deviation from the 90degree angle or from the circular response (half-figure-
eight) would result in
interchannel amplitude ratios different from Blumlein and hence in incorrect angular
image position, given that the Blumlein positions are correct. 5

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In practice, the forward-only crossed-at-90

degrees microphones are often cardioids.
This microphone set-up virtually eliminates back sound pick-up, which can have
practical ad
vantages, e.g., in suppressing unwanted ambi
ence. Now cardioids are, in
effect, the sum of a figure-eight and an omni. So the crossed cardioids set-up is
really Blumlein plus double
-amplitude (mono) omni. A tedious but straight
forward
calculation-or a listen-shows that the resulting image positions are wrong. The
image will be too narrow and the images not uniformly spaced (hurried in center,
slowed at sides). Similarly, the well-known M-S (Middle
-Side) technique with a frontpointing cardioid as a center channel and a cross-mounted figure-eight as left-right
difference is again re
ally Blumlein plus (mono) omni.
Again, this distorts image position, with the image narrowed and nonuniform
spacing as before. The distortions here are in principle like the crossed-cardioid setup's distortions, with the exact extent of distortion depending on the relative
strengths of the center channel and difference channels in the "matrixing" used to
give left and right channels. Both crossed cardioids and cardioid M-S also distort
relative amplitudes as the source moves; a constant volume source will be picked up
more or less strongly in total volume depending on the source position. (This
distortion is not present in pure Blumlein.) But this volume distortion is less easily
observed than the position dis
tortion, the ear being relatively insensitive to absolute
volume.
The position distortions of all the one-point microphone systems are mild compared
to what happens with spaced microphones. The "worst case" set-up is two spaced
omnis. Any source close to, but not exactly, centered seems unfocused, and just a
little more off center zaps the apparent source position to extreme left or extreme
right. In short, we hear classic "hole in the middle" stereo. We need not seek far to
find the reason: The spaced-omni set-up induces not only ampli
tude differences
between channels, but also time-of-arrival differences. When the time-ofarrival
differences are anything but very near zero (that is, very nearly centered source),
the time-of-arrival differences take over completely, pushing the images to the sides
much more strongly than is appropriate. Of course the wide-spaced omnis give
much larger time-of
arrival differences than would occur between the (closer-spaced)
ears in real life. The ORTF system has more nearly the separation (17 centimeters)
to mimic the ear separation, but its amplitude relations are a little erratic by
Blumlein standards. Phase incoherence between chan
nels in widely spaced
microphone techniques also results in changes in perceived tonal balance as the
source position varies. This is obvi
ously potentially of importance musically, given
that correct timbre is vital.

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The failings of the spaced-omni technique shown here must not be taken to mean
that fine recordings cannot be made with this and other spaced-microphone
techniques. In fact, many of the most treasurable of recordings have been made
with precisely this method. However, the test does show first why a third, center-fill
microphone is often needed, and it shows also that a certain restriction in our
expectations of image focus alld accuracy is appropriate when we listen to spacedmike recordings. This restriction is especially rele
vant in terms of equipment
evaluation; we cannot expect equipment to reproduce what is not on the record.
(On the other hand, when we listen to music as music, I hope our spirits turn
toward ecstasy, not image precision.)
This recording, of course, isn't music, but it will be what people nowadays call a
"learn
ing experience". Only the time-of-arrival ver
sus amplitude issue in the
Blumlein test is, as already noted, somewhat surprising; eve
rything else follows the
theory very closely. Still, it is hearing that is believing; and, if you have any interest
in understanding stereo either technically or just intuitively, then you should acquire
this recording. Boyk tells me a depth test is in preparation (the present recording
deals only with lateral imaging). That might be even more of an ear-opener. But this
one already sheds light where light was needed.

Robert E. Greene
For the Boyk recording, write:
Attention: James Boyk
Performance Recordings, 2135 Holmby Ave
nue, Los Angeles, California 90025-5915. (213) 475-8261.
The web address for Performance Recording is : www.performancerecordings.com

1 The concept of the test recording was conceived by Boyk. Three of his students at

California Institute of Technology, Mark Fischman, Greg Jensen, and Bruce Miller, carried
out the practical execution, and did it very well, I might add.
2 Prof. Stanley Lipschitz, for one, has demon
s trated at AES seminars many points on the

subject, but his material has not been commercially distrib

uted.

3 Actually, not quite identical. But the differences among the speakers are controlled

variables, in the sense that these differences do not change as the sequences of tests
proceed.

4 The accuracy of Blumlein stereo depends on the playback set-up being as specified; in

particular, any other angular position of the speakers will give incorrect results. The
traditional "equilateral triangle" set-up of speakers and listener (speaker 30 degrees off the
central axis) just won't do if accuracy is the goal.

5 The theoretical analyses in this article, while based on standard information, are my own

work; they were not supplied with the Boyk tape. In particu
lar, any controversial points are
my responsibility, not that of Boyk and his colleagues.
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TAS issue 56 November/December 1988

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