Re: Hyper-cardioid vs Super-cardioid

E

ectobuilder

Veteran
Re: Hyper-cardioid vs Super-cardioid

Which one has a wider pick-up pattern in the front Hyper-cardioid or Super-cardioid?

I've read contradicting articles about these two, one saying that one was wider than the other! So which one is it?
 
Generally, super is wider then hyper. Manufactuers can call it whatever they want, though.

Some people call shotguns hyper, but thats not really true, as far as I have been taught.
 
ectobuilder said:
Which one has a wider pick-up pattern in the front Hyper-cardioid or Super-cardioid?

I've read contradicting articles about these two, one saying that one was wider than the other! So which one is it?
Click to expand...

Hyper-cardioid has the narrower pick-up, but you pay for it by having a larger out-of-phase rear lobe.

There is the new, what I call "balanced" super-cardioid, which is part way between the super and hyper where the attenuation at 90° is equal to that at 180° and it about 10dB.

This is what I wrote about all this a few years ago:-

The pressure-gradient microphone with the best directivity of 4 is dubbed the hyper-cardioid. Its disadvantage, however, is the lack of rejection for sound coming directly from the rear (180°). The rejection here is only 6dB. Trying to optimise the directional characteristics a "balanced" super-cardioid microphone was created with equal rejection at 90° and 180°. This improves the rear rejection figure without sacrificing the side rejection figure too much, and still retains a high directional coefficient of 3.86.

The theoretical figures for the various cottage-loaf microphones are:-

Hyper-Cardioid
The hyper-cardioid microphone has it’s angle of maximum rejection at 109.5°.
It is optimised for the maximum directivity coefficient of 4.0.
Rejection at 90° is -12dB
Rejection at 180° is -6dB

Super-Cardioid
The super-cardioid microphone has it’s angle of maximum rejection at 125.3°.
It is optimised for the maximum front to rear index and has a directivity coefficient of 3.73.
Rejection at 90° is -8.7dB
Rejection at 180° is -11.6dB

"Balanced" Super-Cardioid
The "balanced" super-cardioid microphone has it’s angle of maximum rejection at 120°.
It is optimised for equal attenuation at 90° and 180°, it has a directivity coefficient of 3.86.
Rejection at 90° is -9.5dB
Rejection at 180° is also -9.5dB
The attenuation at 90° is equal to the attenuation at 180° (the 180° signal being out-of-phase of course), this means that the attention is concentrated on the sound coming to the front of the microphone.

The disadvantage of the hyper-cardioid is that sounds from the rear can be too high due to the lack of rear attenuation, and the disadvantage of the standard super-cardioid is that its side rejection is not enough.

Please note that these are the theoretical figures which may differ slightly in practice.
Click to expand...

You can easily see what the microphone is by looking at the manufacturer's published polar-pattern.

I hope this helps.
 
I find the definitions interesting but I wonder how many manufacturers follow them. In general it seems to me that they use Super and Hyper to mean the same thing, the pattern they sell that is tighter than cardioid and not yet a shotgun. I don't remember a manufacturer carrying both a super and a hyper, though I should look because Schoeps probably does if anyone.
 
As an example of the above the Oktava "Hyper" pattern is somewhere between the Super and Super Balanced specs above.

Not questioning the definitions just pointing out that manufacturers tend to call things what they want.
 
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