New mic option from the good folks at Minidsp - Page 3

I was going to build lilmike's mic but I may spring for this since it seems to be a "no fuss" option...and I have $100 to spend from my wife for xmas!

I wonder how this compares to the forthcoming Dayton UMM-6.

I just ordered this along with the balanced minidsp, will see what happens.

the umik-1 is a better choice. the umm-6 have quite a large variation compared to the factory calibration graph.

cross spectrum lab tested the umm-6 and they track very differently from the factory curve.

well, I just placed a n order for one of these yesturday afternoon. I will let you guys know what I think of it when it gets here from someone who has not had any sort of mic before.

Whoops. Wrong thread...
Edited by robotbunny - 12/29/12 at 1:21pm

I got my UMIK1 a few weeks ago and have really enjoyed it. I haven't owned any calibrated mics before, but have a lot of experience with music and vocal microphones. The quality seems very high, it worked without driver fuss on both OS X and Windows 7, and the latest beta of REW auto-detects it and sucks in the calibration file (including the sensitivity calibration which renders accurate SPL values without additional calibration). Worked great.

The included accessories are nice, the case is cheap but functional and protective. The USB cable is a very generic 6' cable. If you were going to upgrade anything, you'd want to buy a thin, 15' USB to Mini-USB cable, which would give you a lot more reach.

-Sam

I just discovered, and many of you may already know, that tripp lite makes an active USB 2.0 repeater. I'm curious to see if this would cause any signal degradation, although it claims not to even with its 65ft length. I'd like that length just to ensure I'm well out of the way and not causing any additional reflections from LP measurements.

probably it won't. the signal have already been converted to digital for usb transmission.

Unless you're twelve feet tall and just as wide don't worry about it. Besides, for a totally accurate LP measurement there should be an L in the P.

How will the timing reference loopback connection be done with this USB mic?

So can this new Mic be used solo with just a laptop to run measurements from REW? I have been meaning to pick up some measurement equipment, and being that this mic is so cheap, I will likely go with it. Will I not need an external sound card, or a mic pre-amp? My laptop is a Samsung RVS10, and it only has a couple of inputs, one is for headphones and the other looks like it might have a mic above the port, but I am not really sure what that other input is for. It also, obviously, has a usb port.

I run it with just my laptop. It is plug and play. When I got the mic it only took a few minutes to download REW, hook up the mic and start measuring. It is a great deal.

Just ordered the miniDSP mic.. It'll ship when theyre available again (1/29). Im a bit intimidated by the software (Ive downloaded it and poked around a little) but very excited to try this out!

Ditto for me too.

Mine came the other day, not very well packed (2 boxes in a plastic envelope). But appear to have made the trip unscathed. After mutilating several XLR adapters (wish they would ditch the phoenix terminals), I got the mic and dsp up and running. Still have a lot to learn though.

Ordered mine on Jan2, tracking shows it has been in US customs for several days...

mine only was in customs for 1 day, then in transit for 2-3 more days after that, it came usps.

Thanks - that tells me it should be in my mailbox for the weekend!

They require a signature for delivery so I would plan on being home for it. I missed my delivery on a saturday and had to wait until monday to go pick it up at my local usps.

I thought these were new to Parts Express? How was one tested already?

I wondered the same thing, but figured I must have been mistaken.

Ordered the Minidsp mic today. Hopefully it will ship by the end of the month since I will have my subs up and running within the the next 3-10 days!

Got home tonight and my better half signed for it (was ordered on the AM of Jan 2nd).
-plugged it into my XP 32 bit laptop (with very latest version of REW already installed)
-Fired up the laptop (the UMIK mic was recognized)
-Opened REW and was asked for the location of my UMIK cal file, pointed it to the location, and the cal file loaded.
-clicked on measurements tab, guessed at next steps, clicked measure, and could actually see a FR graph of background noise in my room, tapped on countertop and could affect graph.

All seems well

Shut everything down until I get back from my travels and have time to give it a proper setup/tryout.....

I quit procrastinating and ordered one yesterday. If everything goes well, I'll follow it with a minidsp.

I currently own an SMS1 which has a mic. Would I be better just ordering an Icicle converter over this option? This mic sounds hella easy to hook up and run.

Does this mic ship from China? How long does it typically take to arrive? Is there no calibrating necessary if just using a regular laptop with its' stock sound card? I will order mine on Tuesday of this coming week, and I wonder how long it will take to arrive?

Per their site this mic is backordered until late January when they expect the a new shipment. So at the earliest you are looking at early February by the time it gets to you. Possibly later depending on how many people are on the wait list and when they actually get the next shipment. I don't believe the mic is shipping from China (most likely where it is made). You should probably contact the vendor if you want more detail, but again, don't expect this for 4 weeks +.

The mic does not require a sound card or calibration. It is plug and play USB for Windows and Mac.

everything is shipped from hong kong.

they're new, but it's been a couple of months now. crossspectrum ordered one unit to sample the response in the first couple of weeks it's sold. after a few days preliminary results were posted. the mics are discussed in detail over in hometheatershack.

uncalibrated, the umik-1 have better factory calibration compared to the umm-6. umik-1 is a better choice.
after calibration the umm-6 should be more precise just because the umik-1 isn't available (yet) precalibrated by a 3rd party.