Why should we think of "what microphones heard " as a standard

flashbazbo’s post says it all; that’s EXACTLY how almost all commercial recordings are made. It is also the reason why using any of them in the attempt to assess the accuracy of a system, or loudspeaker, or any other component, is pointless. One CAN make other judgments about the above (transparency, low level detail, PRAT, dynamics, "involvement", etc.), but not (timbral) accuracy. The recording itself is not literally accurate, so even a "perfect" loudspeaker (if there were such a thing) would not be able to produce a completely natural sound from such a source. In the end, the accuracy of the microphones used to make any given recording matters little after the signal they create has been subjected to all the electronic manipulation and processing that commercial recordings are.

In contrast, audiophile engineers work very hard to create exactly the opposite kind of recording---as close to a virtual replication of the original acoustic event as are they capable. Those engineers DO value the accuracy of the microphones with which they make recordings, some of them going to great lengths to optimize their performance, including building their own mic pre-amps, tape recorder electronics and heads, etc. Both Roger Modjeski (Music Reference) and Tim de Paravicini (EAR-Yoshino) have worked on the equipment used by engineers such as Water Lily's Kav Alexander, perhaps the greatest living recording engineer.

Let me go back to the beginning. The world of music recording is comprised of two, completely separate entities: the audiophile, and the mass market. Audiophile recording engineers evaluate microphones in purist terms---accuracy, etc. Inna, your question is a valid one when speaking of them. But the bulk of your music collection was recorded by engineers with an entirely different approach---using microphones to get a "good" sound, the sound they want. What constitutes good to them? One thing it isn't is literally accurate sound.

The instance I cited above, of micing a snare drum with a Shure SM57, a mic with a presence peak deliberately designed in (the mic is intended for on-stage vocals, where a presence peak makes the singer more audible) is a good example. A mass market recording studio engineer often uses a different mic on each instrument, the sound of the mic used to get a specific sound, one having nothing to do with literal accuracy.

A drumset is often recorded with this collection of mics:

- An Electro-Voice RE20 on the kick

- A Shure SM57 on the snare

- AKG 414's on the toms

- Small diaphragm condenser mics (often Shure or Sony) overhead for cymbals, and on the hi-hat

Each of those mics produces a different recorded sound when used in the same application, the engineer obviously not so much concerned with replicating the actual sound of the drumset, but rather of getting a "commercial" drum sound. I routinely watch an engineer A/B his recording of my drums with a CD of a current hit record, and make adjustments to narrow the gap between the two.

Not only are the mics not used to achieve an accurate recording, the feed from the mixing board is passed through many outboard pieces of outboard electronics on it's way to the recorder. The worst of them imo is the parametric equalizer; when it's adjustment knob is rotated, the sound of the recording is drastically changed, no longer bearing any relationship to the unequalized sound.

It's not simply the microphones whose sound should not be assumed to be providing an accurate recording, but every link in the entire recording chain. The electronics that the sound captured by the mics are passed through are far more responsible for the sound you hear on the vast majority of your LP's, CD's, etc. than are the mics themselves.

inna, the Pink Floyd recordings you cite were made long before their London studio was built, and were recorded in other studios.

Where did you get the idea that microphones are the bottleneck in the recording process? Most commercial studios have a whole plethora of mics, different ones preferred for different applications. Each has a response characteristics that makes it more suitable for one instrument than another. Mica are transducers, just like loudspeakers, but in reverse. And just as do loudspeakers, they all sound a little different. Some are known to be highly neutral in timbre, others somewhat colored. Lots of recording engineers like the Shure SM57 as a snare drum mic because of it’s slight presence peak, which makes the drum "pop" more in the mix. No one thinks of that mic as a sound "standard", but there are mics that are.

As onhwy61 mentioned, Doug Sax (Sheffield Labs) tested mics (and other pieces of recording and playback gear) by doing a by-pass test. He would listen to the musician’s in his studio, then move into the control booth to compare the live sound to that coming out of his monitors (custom built horns, by the way). Doug was after maximum transparency and life-like timbre (not all engineers are), evaluating each pieces by how little it changed the sound in ways other than it’s intended purpose.

The reason John Bonham’s drums sound the way they do on Led Zeppelin’s recordings is not because of the mics used to capture their sound, but rather how those mics were employed. Bonham wanted a "big" drum sound, so he played his drums undamped (no muffling used, leading to an open, ringing sound), the opposite of Ringo and Levon Helm (The Band). Then his engineers didn’t use close-micing (putting each mic right up against the drum head), but rather put a number of mics a fair distance away from the drums, with "room" mics placed even further away. That increased the room-to-drum ratio/balance, and required Bonham to create his own balance between the different drums and cymbals---the balance couldn’t be "fixed in the mix". There is much more that can be said on the subject, as it is a large one.

There have been great microphones for many, many years. The Telefunken U-47 from the 1950’s ( a large diaphragm condenser tube mic) commands massive amounts of money on the used market (it is still considered the best mic of all time for vocals), and the Sony C-37A is considered it’s equal by some. Mark Levinson used B & K mics in his fabulous recordings during the 1970’s and 80’s

The electronics in the best studios (Pink Floyd’s in London, designed and built by EAR-Yoshino’s Tim de Paravicini) are at least as good as any consumer gear, and there are quite a few companies making new tube mic pre-amps (including Manley), limiters, etc.

Tape recorders themselves remain a weak link, as a listen to any direct-to-disk LP makes obvious. There are a few exceptions, the custom made recorder used by Kav Alexander of Water Lily Records being a notable one. With advances in digital standards, that may eventually be a thing of the past.