Reply #29: From an ex audio engineer [View All]

[mrdmk]

What you say is almost true. The PA system Howard Dean was using that night was very basic. I can tell from the feed from the Aux send to the broadcast station, there was a lot of distortion, which made the speech very difficult to listen to. As far as the mic Dean was using look like a SM 58 by Sure Microphone which is for close proximity use, meaning anything far away will be lost starting with the lows then the highs and the SM 58 Mic has a bump at 1k hz which can sound very harsh under extreme conditions. All broadcast stations have limiters in their audio systems (including Cspan) so they do not run out spec because of a loud mouth (limiters are used in commercials to make the audio seem louder but electrical motivation does not run over +3db thus distortion does not occur, but tends to sound phony and loud when the input is ran hot to a low threshold). Dean’s speech was nothing more than a Pep Rally to his supporters because he was the front-runner that came in third place.

Edit: Saw the video again; the mic was a cordless EV (Electro Voice do not know which model), which can distort badly if not adjusted to the tee. The PA in the crowd had some distortion but I remember the Cspan broadcast was not of broadcast quality. Dean actually sounded horsed.