CHAPTER 5

FIRST-ORDER DIRECTIONAL MICROPHONES

INTRODUCTION

The great majority of directional microphones in professional use today are members of the first-order cardioid family. The term first-order refers to the polar response equation and its inclusion of a cosine term to the first power, or order. These microphones derive their directional patterns from combinations of the pressure and gradient microphones discussed in the previous two chapters. By comparison, a second-order microphone will exhibit a pattern dependent on the square of the cosine term. Stated differently, a first-order microphone has response proportional to the pressure gradient, whereas a second-order design has response that is proportional to the gradient of the gradient. ...

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