Supercardioid vs hypercardioid for indoor?

A

antcuc

Active member
As the title states, which is better? I've been researching for an hour and can't find a definite answer, I know the patterns are similar and both better than a shotgun for indoors.

Specifically I'm trying to decide between a sennheiser me67(not 66) vs a Audio Technica at4053b. Any comparison information on the these mics would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your time.
 
The ME67 is a shotgun element. "Supercardioid" refers only to the pickup element that's in the mic, and that's not what makes a shotgun mic a shotgun. What defines the shotgun is the interference tube design that's placed above/around the pickup element.

Now, regarding your question, the narrower front response plus the rear lobe of the hypercardioid are much more forgiving for reflective interiors, especially in the hands of someone who is fairly inexperienced. There may be times when a cardioid or a supercardioid may be a better choice, but generally the hypercardioid will be your go-to interior dialog mic.
 
antcuc said:
As the title states, which is better? I've been researching for an hour and can't find a definite answer, I know the patterns are similar and both better than a shotgun for indoors.
Click to expand...

This is almost impossible to answer as many people use both terms for the same thing.

There are, however, important differences between the different types of cottage-loaf microphone patterns.

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.

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

Modern Super-Cardioid
The modern 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.


antcuc said:
Specifically I'm trying to decide between a sennheiser me67 (not 66) vs a Audio Technica at4053b. Any comparison information on the these mics would be
Click to expand...

The Sennheiser ME67 is a long gun mic. (the ME66 is a short gun) - these have a super-cardioid capsule with an interference tube on the front - the ME67 being much longer to get the greater directivity.

The AT mic. is described as a hyper-cardioid, but the polar-pattern shows it to be a super-cardioid.
 
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