Recording - December 2014 - 11

you can hear highs with a good placement in the sound spectrum without
being either brittle or dull-a real relief from often-shrieky cheap in-ears.
The brand-new SRH144 and SRH145M+ are folding on-ear headphones
meant for casual listening, leveraging Shure's experience with its SRH pro
audio phones into an affordable and fun format. The SRH144 is a semi-open
design intended for a smooth and wide frequency response with no particular emphasis on any tonal range, and the SRH145 is a closed design (the
SRH145m+ under review adds a microphone and smartphone remote control
buttons) with stronger bass and better isolation from outside sound.
Each has a 5' cable attached to both earcups ending in a TRS or TRRS miniplug with no 1/4" adapter included; the padded plastic headband is hinged
to fold compactly, and both models have comfortable swiveling leatherettecovered earpads. The SRH144 has a 30 Hz-20 kHz frequency response; the
SRH145 and SRH145m+ have a 25 Hz-18 kHz frequency response. Both
phones have a 34 ohm impedance; they got nicely loud on all the headphone
amps I tried them with.
Aside from the mic and remote, the primary difference between the two
headphones is their sound, and the contrast is pretty dramatic. The SRH144
has a clear and neutral sound that serves well for everything from rock and
pop to jazz and classical; it presents well-defined lows, mids in good perspective with the rest of the mix, and extended but not hashy treble. By comparison, the SRH145m+ has a noticeable tilt toward the low end, with less
extended highs and more powerful lows. It's great fun for modern rock and
dance music, and even though it's an on-ear design, it does a surprisingly
good job of isolating the listener from outside sound.
All three of these phones have their strengths. The SE112 is a Shure in-ear
for an unprecedented low price, bearing much of the quality heritage of its
more expensive siblings, and the SRH145m+ basically schools the rest of the
world on how to make a portable, great-sounding headphone for casual and
smartphone use. My personal favorite is the SRH144, which is that rarest of
beasts: an under-$50 headphone that I could learn to work with in the studio.
They're all worth a closer look and listen.-MM

RØDE NT-USB Microphone
$169; www.rodemic.com
A USB microphone is very handy for certain types of recording applications. Because it's a self-contained unit, without the need for a preamp, interface, or (in the case of a USB mic with a built-in headphone output) a monitoring system, you can throw it in a bag and set it up quickly for field recordings, podcasts, interviews, and other mobile recording applications. If your
studio business has an online component that you'd like to keep separate
from other operations, for example an audio stream podcast/interview/blog
that happens regularly and doesn't require your main rig, a USB microphone
is dandy as a permanent "second setup" that doesn't require reconfiguring
your main recording gear.
While some USB mics are designed to be extremely small and portable,
sacrificing sound quality in favor of "always there when you need it" portability, others aim for studio-level (at least home studio-level!) quality in a selfcontained package. Many manufacturers take existing non-USB mic designs,
or the capsules and components from those designs, and retrofit them for USB
use. We don't know the precise lineage of the RØDE NT-USB, but in our listening sessions we found that it features a high-quality capsule that would
stand up well with other RØDE NT mics, built into a package that includes a
headphone amp with zero-latency monitoring and a nice set of accessories.
Packaged with a carrying pouch, screw-on mic mount with 5/8" and 3/8"
threading, 6-meter USB cable, non-folding tabletop tripod, and a customfitted mesh pop filter that works very well, the NT-USB impresses just by opening the box. Picking up the mic is a revelation, too-its fit and finish are gorgeous, and it's heavy and solid with a relatively nonresonant body shell and
nicely appointed grille over its gold-plated cardioid capsule. There's an internal shockmount for the capsule that greatly reduces handling noise and external thumps. Directly handling the mic or tapping the stand while in use produces a very deep resonance (at or below 20 Hz) that can easily be filtered
out without affecting vocals or most instruments.

The spec sheet lists a 20 Hz-20 kHz frequency
response that's flat except for a voice-flattering bump
centered around 7 kHz. The polar pattern graph shows
relatively uniform off-axis response between 500 Hz
and 4 kHz; there's a bit of high-frequency bleed from
behind the mic, a trait common to many cardioid
designs. The mic delivers 16-bit/48 kHz digital audio;
there's no internal gain control, levels are adjusted in
your computer. It runs driver-free on Mac, Windows,
and iOS devices (with an Apple Camera Connection
Kit required for iOS use), and shows power-on with a
purple LED. (Yes, purple. Blue is so 2012.)
In use, the NT-USB is very well-behaved on
vocals and acoustic guitar and other string instruments, with a relatively bright and sparkly sound
that doesn't get too hashy at the very high end and
does a good job with low frequencies as well. The
mic input/DAW output blend and headphone volume pots are exceptionally smooth, and the headphone amp gets decently loud without a great
deal of background hiss, in keeping with the mic's
comparatively low self-noise. All in all, my impression was one of a really solid professional product
that just happens to be designed with a USB port.
The NT-USB is a worthy addition to RØDE's lineup and a worthy followup to the groundbreaking
Podcaster, one of the very first USB mic/headphone amp rigs for computer use. If your workflow
needs a USB mic that's not a cheap toy, give this
one a spin.-MM
RECORDING December 2014

http://www.rodemic.com

Recording - December 2014

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