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DPA LAVS


Tom Maloney

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Christian, can you elaborate more on this? I'm not sure i understand what kind of difference are you talking about? I have two 4060 and used them as a stereo pair, they sound exactly the same. With omni mic as with every other, but especially with omni mic - the placement is crucial.

"I have found the dpas to be quite shifting quality wise. If I line up four dpas, hard wired, Same gain settings on the mixer, no eq or compression, there will be quite drastic differences between the lavs."

I have to agree with Christian. With time they start shift apart in their sound.
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  • 1 month later...

Anyone else care to chime in about the 4071? (Or 4073 for Zaxcom, though it's not listed on their site). These have a Low cut (~100Hz knee) and vocal range boost (5dB at 4-6k) built in at the expense of being a bit longer. I like the idea of the low cut, the vocal boost I'm more suspicious of. I often think that the 4061already has plenty of 'presence' in the upper mids.

I remember reading here once that someone preferred the sound of the 4071 after he had modified it by carefully pulling off the larger 'tube' that produces the boost.

Also, to Olle who has found them to have varying sound from mic to mic, I would suggest that perhaps they are all wired a little differently? Maybe different resistor values or even caps installed that are changing the sound slightly. Seems there is a lot of ambiguity out there in the wild on how to wire these puppies. Or at least the methods vary greatly from one Tx model to another, even between serial number ranges.

I own a few of what I believe to be 4061 (no label, bought used) for my Sennheiser SK50s and find that they sound quite nice but somehow a little more 'compressed' or 'hyped' sounding than the Sanken COS-11d. They need about double the gain of the COS-11ds.. must have the low sens, or even extra low sens as I bought them from a stage show mixer. They do compliment boom mics nicely.

I still generally go for the COS-11d because I find it sounds universally good on almost all voices whereas the DPA seems to do best with certain voices. I also have more accessories for the COS-11d at this point. It's great to have multiple good lavs!

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Yeah Derek, def something to do with wiring.

I own three dpas, two 4060s and one 4071 (iirc). The 4071 has a lot of noise but works wonders on high spls and loud talkers. The 4060s are just wonderful.

The difference in sound between the 4060s are negligible.

Now on my last project I had four 4061s that were all microdot terminated, and they varied quite a bit, I had the gain knobs set differently on all channels on the 552. even tried an xlr connector on one input, always different gain setting, and the self noise varied heavily in both tone and level.

These were rental dpas btw so I had no idea as to how old they were or what they had gone through. Would be interesting to see measurements of brand new 4061s with spaced serials though. They hold up very well so I don't think they "age" as much as other lavs tend to do...

The hyping on the 4071 is not a problem IMHO, I think Marc wielage likes to say that he'd rather have a too bright than too muffled sound because post can sort out the brightness, but can't its harder to sort out the muffledness. Of course Marc says it better ;)

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  • 1 month later...

Hello,

I recently purchased 4 used 4060's and just picked them up from getting them rewired for Lectrosonics (I use LMa, SMa and UM200 transmitters) by a local guy who knows what he's doing. I'm very pleased by the quality of the sound and by how close all 4 are to each other (2 of them are much older than the other 2, and they all still sound almost identical). None of my sanken COS 11 are as close to each other as the DPA's.

However, I tried them on a pair of LMa Tx's and was not very happy with how much I had to push the Tx gain to get a decent level from them (LMa pots where around 2 o'clock)... is this normal? Even then, I had to scream into the mic pretty loud to get the Tx limiter to engage... The restistor that was put into the connectors was a 3.9K which is pretty much what Lectrosonics suggests (3 to 4K resistors for all DPA mics). Will changing the resistor to 3K make a big difference? As some have suggested in this thread, perhaps removing the resistors completely will give me a better result?

I'm looking forward to using the mics soon, but I want to make sure I'm getting the best out of them before I start using them on jobs. Any ideas are welcome.

Thanks!

Pablo

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Thanks. I too think that they are the 4061, but the person that I bought them from insisted on them being 4060's... I can definitely hear noise but I'm wondering if the noise doesn't come mostly from the actual transmitter that is set too high. If so, would it make more sense to lower the resistance value so that I don't have to boost the Tx gain so much? The most I will bring my SMa Tx to with a COS 11 is 28... 40 seems extreme!

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In case anyone is interested. The mics are indeed 4061's (they have a red band with the serial number which indicates them being low sensitivity). I'm considering replacing the 3.9k resistor with a 1K.

Would I be better off just removing the resistor completely? I want to be able to use the mics on either newer Tx's as well as UM200's which I still have a few of.

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jacking the TX is recommended. more modulation is better. Are you sure you are hearing the self noise? are the mics wired servo?

dont understand why wire them with 1k and not as recomended. search this site. there is a lot of info about wiring DPA for lectro. including from the headmaster himself - LarryF

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Thanks Rado: I'm not sure I understand why having the Tx gain all the way up to reach a certain modulation is better than achieving the same signal level with a hotter mic and hence a lower Tx gain setting. What I'm hearing with the recomended wiring is a combination of Tx noise and the mics self noise. By not having to jack the gain that much, I'm hoping to reduce the noise level in the entire signal and have enough gain range for very quiet speakers.

As far as I know, the recommended resistor of 3.9 k works very well for the 4060. But for the 4061 seems to be too much padding. Unfortunately I had purchased the mics thinking they where 4060's as per the seller, and was confused by the

I actually went through the previous posts before posting on this thread, which I found the most useful, but there where still things unclear to me. I also spoke with lectro Canada and was told that 1 k should work so I went ahead with that.

Richard: thanks for the info. If 1 k resistor proves to be too hot I'll go with a 1.8 k.

Pablo

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1k is OK though 1.8k has worked well for others. I don't recommend less than 1k. Lower values will cause the servo circuit to deliver several mA's to the mic. It won't hurt anything but the mics normally operate at less current. The noise problem here is the low gain mic option.

Best Regards,

Larry F

Lectro

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Thanks Rado: I'm not sure I understand why having the Tx gain all the way up to reach a certain modulation is better than achieving the same signal level with a hotter mic and hence a lower Tx gain setting. What I'm hearing with the recomended wiring is a combination of Tx noise and the mics self noise. By not having to jack the gain that much, I'm hoping to reduce the noise level in the entire signal and have enough gain range for very quiet speakers.

As far as I know, the recommended resistor of 3.9 k works very well for the 4060. But for the 4061 seems to be too much padding. Unfortunately I had purchased the mics thinking they where 4060's as per the seller, and was confused by the

I actually went through the previous posts before posting on this thread, which I found the most useful, but there where still things unclear to me. I also spoke with lectro Canada and was told that 1 k should work so I went ahead with that.

Richard: thanks for the info. If 1 k resistor proves to be too hot I'll go with a 1.8 k.

Pablo

never had noise issues with 4k resistor and 10 dpa 4061s...Larry can explain the specifies about optimal levels in the tx. I use digital wireless now and analog signal level is not something i am concerned about...
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Thanks Larry. If you don't mind, I'd like to ask a couple more questions.

So, in theory, what is the effect of a higher current supply? Will it make the microphone distort easier? Or will it change it's frequency response?

Also, won't an SMa Tx set at 40 be noisier than if it was set around 23 or 25, regardless of what mic you are using?

Thanks again!

Pablo

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I have a problem with the microdot ->lemo adapter. The sound breaks up sometime. I guess i should resolder them to lemo permanently (i own micron wireless) but then i would love the option of using it on cable for some music and FX recording, and the interviews. Is there any adapter from micron lemo to XLR that i could buy?

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