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Reviews For: Sennheiser MD441U

Category: Microphones for ham radio

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Review Summary For : Sennheiser MD441U
Reviews: 2MSRP: $1350
Description:
The MD 441 is acknowledged as the most accurate and versatile dynamic mic
available. It is a microphone of exceptional quality: its acoustic properties
come as close as possible to those of a condenser microphone. It has a nearly
textbook perfect supercardioid pattern, a five-position low frequency
contour switch, a two-position high frequency switch, a critically dampened
internal shock suspension, and a hum-bucking coil. Accurate signal
response and low distortion are ensured, even with the highest sound
pressure levels. Perfect for vocals and virtually every instrument. Surface: all
metal casing with black simulated leather finish, sound inlet basket: nickel
plated.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.sennheiserusa.com/media/productDownloads/productSheets/MD441_ProductSheet.pdf
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0024.5
W6LBV Rating: 2019-07-10
European Luxury at a High Price Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I was given a (used) Sennheiser MD 441-U super-cardioid pattern studio dynamic microphone as a gift from a ham friend who knew of my interest in microphones. He supposedly got it in a trade involving other ham gear but he had no use for it.

The 441-U is a very high quality, German-engineered and -manufactured, broadcasting and recording microphone, built to professional standards and used by professionals. It is certainly a respected product. I have used mine on ham air and I have done test digital voice recordings with it, and I appreciate its reputation.

But it is the wrong microphone for ham radio use, and I would not recommend it for this purpose. Although it has several user-accessible internal filter and configuration settings, I was not able to tame a booming low frequency voice response without using strong external audio processing. I do not know, however, whether this was a problem with my particular unit, or whether it is characteristic of the entire production run.

Moreover, it is a very expensive microphone, well into the sales price range where it would need to be used as part of income-producing projects in order to justify its purchase cost. No ham should have to — or want to —spend this much on a microphone. Ordinary ham voice transmission work can very well be handled by many of today’s $25 dynamic microphones plus some speech processing, at far lower cost. Using the 441-U in a ham station would be like driving a Ferrari down to the local food market. This mike was intended for much more than merely ham use.

It’s a pretty and stylish microphone, and it can do very high quality work. But it does not belong in a typical ham station. For cost reasons, therefore, it gets a “4" rating.
MD11DRIVER Rating: 2009-08-03
A legendary microphone and for good reason Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I originally used an IC-50 mic on my IC-7700 and found it to be good in terms of response and the workmanship was good, but I didn't like the goose neck design and the sensitivity of the mic was not satisfactory for my radio room. The tone was also very lacking in depth and even with bass boosted on my radio, I found my voice hollow sounding. I then went to the Heil Classic which not only looked great, but was priced well.. I was immediately disappointed with the quality of the mic upon unpacking and assembling the base as two screws were stripped and a rubber boot covering the wiring going into the mic was lose.. then to make matters worse, the mic was not very sensitive in general, and when I would turn my mic gain up enough for the vox to work with my level of speech, it would pick up extraneous sounds from around the room and the over all pattern of input was too broad.

This brings us to my 3rd and current mic, the Sennheiser MD441U. I originally bought one of these a while back for recording music and was floored by its quality at the time. It ended up getting stolen and due to the high price I never replaced and have since stopped recording music. After getting into ham, and experiencing the poor quality of the two prior aforementioned "ham" mics I decided that maybe I would try a hi-fi type mic again. We'll as the old adage says, you get what you pay for... the response is amazing, the tone equally, and the angle or pattern of the cardioid is as they say "Text book".. the workmanship as with most things German is amazing as is the look of the mic. I cannot strongly recommend this mic enough. With the optional stand I was able to get it for under $1000 as most places will sell it at a substantial discount. If you want the best possible mic for your rig, this is it. Just be advised, you will need to use a blocking capacitor on your pin #2 should your radio (as the Icoms) have the 8v output on pin 1 (of the 8 pin connector). Heil makes a great cable for $36 that work perfectly for this mic... it's their Icom 3-XLR cable. They also make similar cables for Kenwood and Yeasu.