Pay The Price?
This is not an easy conundrum to solve.
Few of us love taxes, and, though we know full well that they are what funds whatever society we choose to be part of, it does not stop us from avoiding, evading or at least grumping about paying them.
The long-term development prospects of microphones are something every one of us would vote in favor of, but far fewer are prepared to pay for.
Yet if we want the brilliant engineering and original scientific thinking that has lined the evolutionary path of microphones to continue, we – and not “somebody else” – will have to pay for it.
The situation is not helped by a current, largely U.S.-led attitude that microphones have somehow reached their peak of development and that we should concentrate on the nostalgic recreation of old designs.
In a 2001 article by Rip Rowan on ProRec.com, he concludes that little has happened in the way of microphone development in the last 30 years and that there is “probably no vast untapped region for us to seek.”
Really? How about, for example, Neumann, with its work on extremely high dynamic range digital microphones; Audio Technica, with its development of digital delay as a means of producing directionality that is not frequency conscious; Sanken’s multi-capsule array short gun microphones; the improvements in electret design by DPA, AKG and many others that have turned it into a prime technology; Sennheiser’s ultra-low distortion symmetrical capsule; Royer’s electronically buffered ribbons; and the compact microphone design epitomized by the Schoeps CCM range.
Shall I go on? Suffice to say that this is an incomplete selection of radical developments in microphones that give the lie to Rowan’s view.
Only the shortsighted would expect microphones not to change considerably over the next 30 years – if R&D is not artificially curtailed by being deprived of funds. Although the prediction for the next few years is that the Chinese share of the market might rise to as much as 50 percent, I don’t want to overstate the position.
Berlin, Vienna, Illinois et al are still in business and are not waving a white flag yet, or even mooing like distressed cows.