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From: agn@unh.cs.cmu.edu (Andreas Nowatzyk)
Newsgroups: rec.music.synth,comp.music,comp.dsp
Subject: Re: Ariel Digital Microphone
Keywords: Digital Microphone
Message-ID: <7471@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 5 Jan 90 07:43:35 GMT
References: <2782@radio.oakhill.UUCP>
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 22

Some time ago, I had a chance to play with it, but the unit in question
may have been a prototype or an alpha version, so take the following
comments with a grain of salt.

Electronically, the unit is indeed cute. It is a bit warm because it
consumes a bit more power than you'd like. The LED's are fine and the
fidelity from electrical signal in to digital out is probably ok
(golden ear audio nuts will certainly dispute this).

So if you use an external microphone with this microphone (it has a
connector for that), you could get quality audio out of it.

BUT, it you use the build-in microphone elements... They use 2 plain
electret pressure capsules side by side in a block of foam! Similar to the
50cent Radio-Shack special. Channel separation is about nil, and the
overall quality is marginally better than a telephone. It is really a very
odd device: state of the art electronics with sub-consumer grade acoustics.
-- 
   --  Andreas Nowatzyk  (DC5ZV)

   Carnegie-Mellon University	     agn@unh.cs.cmu.edu
   Computer Science Department       (412) 268-3617