Audio-Technica have introduced a new short-boom headworn intended for theatrical, house-of-worship, and broadcast applications. As a user of Audio-Technica headworn mics with long booms, I've always been very happy with the performance of these mics. Among my pastor's various concerns on Sunday morning, audio is not high on the list – nor is the placement of his mic. I'm lucky if the mic's element is anywhere near his mouth – usually it kind of dangles off his ear bobbing around in space. The good news for me is that the omnidirectional pattern and consistent sensitivity across the spectrum allow for a lot of leeway in this regard. When I saw the new short-boom mic, I became very curious as to how it would perform by comparison. Obviously, with an omnidirectional pattern, proximity to the mouth of the speaker or vocalist is of little concern. With enough gain, the signal is captured clearly. But on the other hand, with the mic element a bit further from the mouth, more gain is necessary to present the same level, and feedback begins to become a concern. I took away my pastor's trusty Audio-Technica long-boom headworn mic recently, and replaced it with the new Audio-Technica BP893 and put it through its paces.
The mic is very small and unobtrusive, one of the aesthetic intentions of its designers. In theatrical settings, the mic would be easily concealed beneath a performer's hair or hat or headwear of any kind. The mic is also available in black and skin-tone beige. So if discrete, aesthetically unobtrusive mic placement is required, it's not hard to accomplish. Also, the entirety of the mic is quite small. Most of it is concealed behind the user's ear. So with a little consideration as to running the cable, this mic essentially becomes invisible. The main body of the mic is plastic, and shaped roughly like an abstract artist's representation of the letter “C”.
The one-inch boom is located above the user's ear, and juts out straight from the plastic main body. It's made of metal, and due to the way this microphone is used, is not really intended to be bent or moved in relation to the rest of the mic, as would be the case with a long-boom headworn mic. The mic grasps the ear nicely, and as a result of the shorter-than-usual boom, does not have as strong a tendency to “flop around” as its long-boom counterparts. Foam windscreens are included, as are element covers, a donut-shaped moisture guard, a cable clip, and a power module with a belt clip. The mic's cable is permanently attached, and runs 55 inches to its terminal. There are numerous choices available from Audio-Technica in terms of connectors, including the four-pin configuration associated with Audio-Technica's own body-pack transmitters, Sennheiser-type connectors of both the Lemo and locking 3.5-mm variety, Shure's TA-4F type connector, the TA-5F type connector associated with Lectrosonics products, and the cable is also available unterminated to facilitate custom wiring by the contractor, dealer or end-user.
The mic's published frequency range is 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, and is largely flat across the board. There are two notable exceptions: Audio-Technica's “Uni-Steep” (18 dB/octave) high-pass filter can be inserted when using the mic in wired mode to shave off low frequencies below 80 Hz. And there is a bump of about 5 dB between roughly 8,000 Hz and 14,000 Hz. This intentional boost is designed to provide crisp, intelligible voice reproduction as a result of not only the additional distance between the mic's element and the user's mouth, but also the fact that high frequencies may have to “go around the corner” – that is, the user's cheek may lie in the direct “line of sight” of the mic element, attenuating higher frequencies in particular, which are indeed much more directional than lower frequencies. This high-frequency boost resulted in my having to quickly grab some EQ, having forgotten to bypass the previous EQ curve I had assigned to my pastor's usual headworn mic. Once I got it dialed in, however, having that extra boost was very welcome.
The mic's impedance is 245? and it can take a healthy 114 dB of SPL. This is not as much as other modern mics, but one only needs to consider the applications of this mic to realize why it wasn't important for Audio-Technica to engineer it to take 145 dB – it's a voice mic – not intended to capture guitar amps or drums, and it's worn in very close proximity to the ear – where you probably don't want much more than 114 dB happening for very long. The mic's dynamic range is 88 dB and its signal-to-noise ratio is 68 dB. It requires 11-52V of phantom power, and consumes 0.1mA of current. The whole package weighs in at a super light two grams – very friendly and unobtrusive to the user.
In addition to the obvious theatrical, house-of-worship, and broadcast applications for this mic, Audio-Technica also points out that it's very useful for capturing violin. It's ear-top placement puts it in nice proximity with the instrument, and a nice advantage of this way of capturing the violin is the elimination of the necessity for attaching a mic somehow to what might be a very old and precious piece of wood. I can't imagine that clamping a mic on the soundboard of a Stradivarius has a positive impact on resonance. Unfortunately, I was unable to actually test-drive this technique, but based upon my experience with the mic for voice capture, I would guess that it works very well for violin too.
My pastor was happy with the mic in terms of comfort and bother, and it solved his usual hassle of having a long-boom headworn mic dangling off his ear and flopping around. That solved one issue for me – giving me a more consistent signal in terms of level. Otherwise, this mic delivers plenty of gain, and I had to bring my head amp gain down a bit. After a bit of EQ sculpting and dynamics processing, I found that I had a very good quality signal coming from my speakers. The additional gain initially caused some feedback, but once I got that under control, this mic served very well. The quality of the output was not dissimilar to other Audio-Technica headworn mics I've used. No surprise. The boost in the high-end helps to solve the “round-the-corner” issue discussed earlier, and required a bit of EQ on my part, but once squared away, it sounded great. This mic solved some issues for me, and in my mind, is preferable to the long-boom mic we've been using. If you have a pastor who is not fond of long-boom headworn mics, you might consider trying this one.
