Europe - Sennheiser has launched a new, compact stereo shotgun microphone, the MKH 8018 for broadcasting and filming applications. The mic completes the company’s MKH 8000 range of RF condenser microphones.
Providing flexibility to the audio engineer, the compact and lightweight MKH 8018 features three switchable stereo modes: MS stereo, wide XY stereo and narrow XY stereo. The MS mode allows the engineer to adjust the spatial imaging steplessly on the mixing desk, while the XY modes are premixed in the MKH 8018, with settings fine-tuned in many tests. The microphone will be on display at NAB, at the Sennheiser Group’s booth N1428.
“The MKH 8018 is a high-class shotgun model that rounds off our MKH portfolio at the top end,” says Kai Lange, senior product manager for the MKH series. “It has extremely low self-noise and truly excellent sound, very clear and pure due to the mic’s great off-axis rejection. Moisture resistance, minimal non-linear distortion, and a balanced audio signal at the transformer-less, fully floating output are further benefits of the RF condenser technology, which Sennheiser has been perfecting for more than 60 years.”
To make the MKH 8018 as easy to handle as possible, the Sennheiser engineers have given it an aluminium housing to have less weight on a camera or boom pole. Also, the microphone is – unlike most of the other mics in the 8000 series – non-modular with a fixed XLR-5M output and integrated -10 dB pad against overdriving, filters for tailoring the frequency response, and an additional switchable -3 dB low-cut filter at 70Hz.
As the MKH 8018 has been designed for broadcasting and filming applications, the usual wide frequency response of the MKH mics has been limited to 40 - 20,000 Hz. This avoids any overloading of the mixing console with unhearable distortion below 40 Hz and above 20 kHz, where ultrasonic camera lens measurement systems are active.
