SE Electronics RNR1 Rupert Neve Active Ribbon High Frequency Microphone SE Electronics

Rupert Neve’s new custom circuit design now allows high frequencies to be captured and output from the capsule for the first time ever in pristine detail. Standard performance of the RNR1 is an unprecedented 20Hz to 25KHz – three times the frequency range of even the best available competitor ribbon mics on the market today!

More than this, Mr Neve’s hand-wound custom input and output transformers create huge amounts of headroom and effectively lower the noise levels by using gain stages to amplify the signal. The slight dip in the frequency response from 16-25KHz in the RNR1 can therefore be effectively flattened if required, producing an almost perfectly flat response, way beyond what human ears can perceive. This is crucial in making the RNR1 by far the best performing ribbon mic in the world today.

For many decades ribbon mics have been used by engineers for their extremely natural sounding reproduction of source material. The nature of their performance differs greatly from condenser mics, which by comparison sound very ‘up front’ and lack the harmonic depth of a good ribbon.

Even at the high end of the market, the customary roll-off of almost all the top end frequencies has always been a major drawback. The frustration with all ribbons is – depending on the model – little or no performance past 7-10KHz, which is why condenser mics dominate the recording market.

The traditional appeal of the condenser then has been the assumption of consistent frequency response from 20Hz to 20KHz. The pay-off of course is that these mics require a certain degree of circuit board magic to achieve this, since the taughtness of the diaphragm – compared with relatively slack ribbon membranes – means condensers tend to be more ‘coloured’ in their sound.

Traditionally engineers using ribbons, however expensive, have had to accept their significant limitations or have had to augment the recording with a condenser mic to capture the high frequency absent from the ribbon output.