Recording - March 2011 - 24

B Y PA U L V N U K J R .

What’s new The big difference in the revamped KSM44A is its use of Shure’s newly designed Prethos Advanced Preamplifer Technology. The Prethos head amp is a transformerless class-A design described as “ultra-fast, transparent and featuring little to no crossover distortion.” Thanks to this head amp, the KSM44A now has a mere 4 dB of self-noise, a 90 dB signal-to-noise ratio and 127 dB of dynamic range. The previous incarnation spec’d out at 7 dB/87 dB/120 dB respectively. The low self-noise places the KSM44A neck and neck with the quietest microphones on the market. The whole package The KSM44A ships in a deluxe aluminum flight case with a red velveteen bag, hard mount and one of the best and robust shock mount designs in the industry. All made in the USA! Measurements are given as 20 Hz— 20 kHz frequency response. The frequency plots for the pickup patterns show a mic that is essentially flat up to around 3 kHz in cardioid/figure-8 and 5 kHz in omni, and then rolls off gently, at around 12 kHz in omni and cardioid and even more drastically around 6 kHz in figure-8. This adds up to a very full and natural sounding mic with a nicely open yet understated top end, along with the boosted lows of proximity effect when in cardioid or figure-8 mode. I have heard others describe the KSM44 as “a touch dull”, but I think that’s more of a sad statement on many of

Shure
Today we look at two recent releases from Shure. One is brand new, and the other is an improved reissue. Let’s begin with the latter—I have owned and used the KSM44 (first reviewed March 2001) and was keen to see what improvements come with the KSM44A. housed in the now-famous KSM oval body, roughly 7" tall and 2" at its widest in diameter. The 17.4 oz matte-silver body and integrated mesh grille are of all-metal construction and completely live up to Shure’s reputation for bulletproof mics. Three switches cover pattern selection, a 15 dB pad, and a 3-position LF filter with a choice of flat, –6 dB/octave with corner frequency at 115Hz, and –18 dB/octave with corner frequency at 80Hz. Lastly the mic has an internal 17 Hz subsonic filter to cut out mic-stand rumble and other inaudible interference that can affect performance.

KSM44A & KSM42 Microphones
A tweak to a time-honored design joins a worthy new arrival in the KSM line
today’s ultra-bright sizzly mics, which are coming to be considered “normal” because there are so many of them! The KSM44A might be “a touch dull” compared to a peaky, shrieky cheap condenser, but it is not muffled or muddy in any way—it’s just not overly bright. In use, and non-surprising conclusions The single word to describe this mic is versatile. It does not play favorites and captures any source honestly, but thanks to its high-end roll off, never too clinically. In the past five or six years I have had great results with the older version—on

KSM44A
The KSM44A is still a large-diaphragm side-address condenser mic with three switchable polar patterns: cardioid, omni, and figure-8 (bidirectional). It features a 1", 2.5-micron gold-layered dual diaphragm
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RECORDING MARCH 2011

Recording - March 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - March 2011