mistermahler1 wrote:What will I "miss" if I use f.eks. a more normal Behringer meassuring mic typically traded for 10-15 bucks, picked up seccond hand locally ?
It's impossible to say what you will miss without testing the two microphones against each other, and even then, which is actually right? But there are significant advantages to MEMS microphones, and this is probably why IKM switched from the type you are talking about to MEMS. Here is what a digikey employee had to say about MEMS advantages:
"MEMS microphone is a product of semiconductor technology. It has some significant advantages over ECMs in their performance, reliability, and manufacturability, namely as the following points:
MEMS microphone can be undertaken re-flow soldering process, but ECM cannot.
MEMS microphones have a higher “Performance Density” than ECM, meaning that MEMS microphones have better noise performance than ECM at the dimension, i.e. the noise of MEMS microphones can be assessed and cancelled.
Under the temperature changes, MEMS microphone has less sensitivity variation than ECM. Normally, ECM sensitivity drifts up to +/- 4 dB over its operating temperature range, but there is about 0.5 db under the MEMS microphones.
MEMS microphones have a lower vibration sensitivity than ECM. Because the mass of MEMS microphones are generally lower than that of ECM, the vibration response is less affected than ECM.
MEMS microphones have more uniform part-to-part frequency response than ECMs. There was a random selection where samples were picked from each type and put through frequency response analysis, especially in the high frequency and low frequency performance. This experiment shows that MEMS microphones have a more stable and average results, which means that the final product using MEMS will have a more stable performance."
Source:
https://forum.digikey.com/t/electret-co ... ophone/447The last point is probably the thing you should really think most about. You're more likely to get a frequency response that is the same as other people's microphones with MEMS than with the electret condenser. You should expect more "lemons" with electret condenser microphones. But noise performance is also important. I've read that electret condensers are also subject to variation due to moisture, especially over time. MEMS should be almost impervious to this.
But again, there isn't any way to know for sure what you will obtain for results in advance of those results. It's just that you're gambling with the very thing that you are trying to obtain, which is a good calibration.
