You are WRONG about preamp noise!!! - (condenser vs dynamic mic preamp myth) 

And tomorrow kids, we expect you to have that formula memorized for Julian's quiz.

Too much SCIENCE BRUH. Record 'engineers' just use their feelings bro. You're absolutely right though.

This probably answers the question I was going to ignorantly ask, of how come the noise of the preamp doesn't just add to the noise of the mic. It's because the mic noise is first in the chain and louder, so any softer noises after aren't added linearly. Because the physics of noise VOLTAGES getting added together isn't the same as what you'd get from hearing different audible noises added together in a room. Do I have that right?

Who cares about a Schoeps MK41? or an RN17?

any idea what the EIN number is for those, as well as onboard sound card?

For example if the condenser mic has 20dB amplification inside it, even 3X or 60dB in the sound interface will not allow it to play an extra role in the system's noise.

Bin kein Experte, aber ich könnte mir gut vorstellen, dass das Interface einen Bereich hat, in dem es optimal arbeitet und einen Bereich, der zwar nützlich ist, aber nicht unbedingt maximale Performance bringt. Z.B. beim UMC404HD Review ist das Interface bei maximalem Gain nicht mehr so sauber, wie wenn man ihn ein wenig runter dreht. Wenn du keinen Unterschied hörst, sollte das aber auch kein alt zu großes Problem sein ;-)

Not sure a hypercardioid will solve your issue without adding other problems: Hypercardioid microphone do pickup some sound at the rear of the microphone and that may not suit your needs and also have a significant proximity effect (extreme bass amplification when you are close to the capsule). Maybe you could consider using a dynamic microphone (to naturally reduce the ambiant noise) that has a fairly high outpul level (to compensate for the preamp noise). A microphone such as the Prodipe TT1 has a much higher output level as the SM57 and costs next to nothing. Or you could try the Aston Element that has a very special capsule to provide the behavior of a dynamic microphone with a high output level and excellent high end that you usually lack with dynamic microphones

You've got to see the whole package. This type of interface is going to be just fine for a spoken word application (voiceover or podcasting), where mid-80s dB of dynamic range is perfectly adequate und nobody cares about the last bit of filter ripple in the frequency response or whether distortion is 80 or 95 dB down. In fact, when using a dynamic mic I'd much rather have one of these than the Presonus Audiobox 96 with its terribly noisy mic input. Add an XM8500 or PGA58 and a basic mic stand, and you've got a decent cheap and cheerful podcasting setup. What they do not have (and that's something shared e.g. with the Behringer UMCxxxHD series) is very high maximum input level... the M-Tracks seem to max out at -1 dBu, and then ADC clipping starts at -4 dBFS so it's more like -5 dBu tops. If you have a condenser mic on the hot side like an AT2035 or TLM103, this would mean clipping at ca. 119 dB SPL, which could get tight for singing. You clearly won't get much street cred for using an interface with a near two decade old USB single-chip audio solution, but they've got a time and place when it needs to be simple and cheap. That being said, pre-pandemic I was able to buy a used Mackie 402VLZ4 compact mixer for roughly the same price... if you have some half-decent onboard audio mic or line input available that can be wrestled into cooperating if necessary (e.g. turning off noise reduction, enable 24-bit recording via modded drivers), that's another option no doubt. You'll want to set output level to ca. -15 dB for a decent match to the onboard input, but this mixer's mic inputs can take up to +22 dBu or something silly like that, so no problems with hot mics for sure, and input noise is good regardless. I'm running mine into a trusty Asus Xonar D1's line input.

Tubes just make the noise nice harmonic noise. ;-)

There isn’t much correlation between a condenser microphone’s noise and its price, meaning low noise is *not* a feature of expensive condenser microphones. For example, Røde’s NT1 has a stated noise of 4.5dAB and costs only $299 US (and that’s in a kit with shock mount and pop filter). Lewitt Audio’s LCT540 Subzero is currently the quietest mic on the market at 4dBA, and costs $699 US (again, sold with shock mount and pop filter). Neither of those could be called ‘expensive’ and yet they’re the two quietest microphones on the market at this point in time. Meanwhile, Earthworks QTC30 has a noise of 20dBA and costs $799, Neumann’s classic U87 Ai has 12dBA of noise in cardioid mode and costs $3650 US, and Neumann’s latest revision of the U67 has 17dBA of noise in cardioid mode and costs $7225 US. So more money does not mean less noise… [All prices here are from B&H’s webstore.] There are two noise sources within a condenser microphone. The first is Brownian noise (named after botanist Robert Brown, nothing to do with colour), which is due to air particles randomly rubbing against the diaphragm. It sounds rather like white noise passed through a very steep low pass filter, considerably darker than pink noise. Then there is thermal noise (the classic white noise style of ‘hiss’) which is related to the impedances of the mic’s internal circuitry and the temperature. The total noise coming out of the microphone is the combination of both, and to accurately represent that the term ‘Equivalent Noise Level’ is often used in preference to ‘self noise’ in contemporary specifications. Although there is no significant correlation between noise and price, there *is* a significant correlation between noise and diaphragm surface area. If we double the surface area of the diaphragm (and keep all other parameters the same), we’ll get twice as much Brownian noise and twice as much signal. The Brownian noise is uncorrelated, so doubling the diaphragm’s surface area creates an increase of 3dB (i.e. x √2) more Brownian noise. The captured signal is correlated, so doubling the diaphragm’s surface area creates an increase of 6dB (i.e. x 2) more signal. End result: double the diaphragm’s surface area and get 3dB more Brownian noise but 6dB more signal. So the signal going into the impedance converter circuit is 6dB stronger while the Brownian noise going into the impedance converter is only 3dB stronger. In other words, a higher amplitude signal with 3dB better S/N ratio going into the mic’s impedance converter. The microphone gets lower noise and higher sensitivity; the latter meaning it outputs a larger signal and therefore requires less preamp gain (technically the noise from the preamplifier is there but it’s not very significant compared to the noise from the condenser microphone itself, and especially less significant compared to a higher sensitivity condenser that requires less gain). The NT1 and LCT540 Subzero are large diaphragm mics (around 25mm), which is part of how they achieve their low noise. The QTC30 diaphragm is tiny in comparison, which is why it has such high noise. Similarly, DPA’s 4060 has a noise of about 23dBA and a diaphragm of around 5mm. So why bother with small diaphragms? The advantages of very small diaphragms are higher SPL handling and excellent off-axis response. As we make the diaphragm larger we get less noise but also reduced SPL handling and worse off-axis response (the microphone becomes increasingly directional as the frequency gets higher because the diaphragm itself literally gets in the way of very high frequencies). Rough late night examples, but the point is that price and noise aren’t really connected. Diaphragm surface area and noise are, however…

@@gregsimmons1709 Well marketing spec sheets are one thing, but then there's experience. Low self noise is a costly thing to guarantee, with consistency and quality control being big factors. If marketing spec sheets were what mattered, we'd have a lot more $40 "studio quality" condenser mics selling to big name recording studios.

Your question is almost two decades late - I think the last ADC chips with fancy dithering options came out in 1997, and all parts introduced since the early 2000s have been straight 24-bit (and lately 32-bit) out. Since then, dither is (or may be) applied in the mastering stage in software, when it comes to creating 16-bit output for CD. If you set your audio devices to 16-bit in or out, chances are samples will just be truncated. At full bit depth, what you hear will be plain analog noise. I've tried a fair few dithering algorithms, and I think I may have come across a possible reason for reservations against shaped dither... the shaped dither could have a rather nasty peak right around the area where human hearing is most sensitive to noise (4-10 kHz), poking out well above the flat dither spectrum. The most audibly benign one I've come across is Foobar2000's heavily perceptually shaped dither, as accessible when using its converter. Using an audio player for mastering may not be overly convenient but you can also get a highly optimized SoX-based resampler DSP for it so you may at least be able to kill two birds with one stone. It be noted that dither and 0dBFS+ levels do not mix, as dithering assumes linearity. Keep true peak below 0 dBFS, with dithering on you can definitely afford it. As an aside, lossy data reduction formats (MP3, AAC etc.) generally use floating point arithmetic and as such can be encoded from higher precision data. Later Minidisc recorders seem to have supported encoding ATRAC from 20-bit input, DCC could do 18 bit recording then, and retro activists have managed to even stuff 24-bit samples into its MPEG layer 1 audio recently (though I don't think any DCC deck ever had more than a 20-bit DAC). This may seem silly but does mean that lossy formats support higher total dynamic range than CD audio (which, mind you, is generally twiddling its thumbs as-is, given that its capabilities already exceed those of practical listening environments).

PileOfEmptyTapes and you made some good points. The reason you do not need any dither even for 24 bit in modern sigma delta converters is that they do not capture the signal in PCM but rather in a single or multibit stream that runs at much higher sampling frequencies (actually quite similar to DSD). These converters have high amounts of quitisation noise but this is pushed entirely out of the audible range resulting in an extremly high usable dynamic range. The thermal noise in the converter is often the limiting factor for the noise floor providing essentially natural dither. When the captured bitstream is converted to 24 bit PCM there is simply no dither needed. But most ADCs have the option to add dither, when they are set up to output 16 bit PCM as this can improve the usable dynamic range of the otherwise limited 16 bit format. Tbh, the dynamic range of ADCs and DACs these days is so big that it is often more likely to hear other noise like ambient noise or inherent noise of the mic or preamp.

the noise rating itself is only good to allow you to compare the mic to other mics. sure, a lower selfnoise is better, but not everyone needs ultra-low-noise-microphones. if you want to do asmr or other super quiet and fine sound-recordings, 18dB(A) is probably too high. if you want to record vocals for lets say a band or just your voice while gaming, you are most likely fine. A microphone has characteristics other than just its selfnoise and giving that the mxl770 is a popular and well-recognized microphone you likely had a very good reason to pick it. tl;dr: If selfnoise is the most important aspect of the microphone for you - lower is better. but thats not the case for most people. if it sounds great for the things you capture with it - awesome!

For condenser mics you can look up the equivalent input noise in their spec sheets and for dynamic mics you would need to calculate it. I have roughly shown this in this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_P8AJxVepUE.html

whether or not you need an inline preamp depends on the audio-interface and its preamps and their capabilities and not just on the microphone. The PreSonus Studio 24c has good preamps with low selfnoise. It can power the SM7B as long as its close to your mouth - just plug in the microphone, turn the preamp all the way up and see if your audio-meter reaches a proper recording level. if you have it further away you might benefit from an inline preamp due to the 24c's limited gain supply - check the video here ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-s3a-MnP2GFA.html The USB96 unfortunately has really noisy and weak preamps so you would absolutely benefit from an inline preamp there - check the video here ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-phiFdrsijI4.html

@@DrWurzeli Thanks!

Thank you too! :)