Aston Microphones Stealth Cardioid Broadcast Microphone for Streaming & Podcast

Manufacturer's Description

If you take your sound as seriously as you take your gameplay, the Aston Stealth is the most technologically advanced and versatile mic in the world for gamers and streamers everywhere.

Stealth provides a choice of four professional broadcast quality voices, to suit pretty much any sound source and environment, at giant-killer pricing.

The 4 switchable voices give you a range of sound options, from a bright and open modern sound, to a dark and moody vintage ribbon mic sound and everything between. And all of this is done with discrete analogue circuitry… no faked up digital EQ here.

Stealth also features a Class A built in mic preamp, automatically engaged by the world’s first Phantom Power autodetect feature, so you don’t have to buy an external mic pre-amp to get that super-pro sound.

To cap it all off, a unique Sorbothane internal shock mount system eliminates handling noise and Stealth’s excellent off-axis rejection minimises annoying keystroke noises.

If you’re serious about your gaming audio set-up, Stealth is only the mic to aspire to.

The making of Stealth - The Aston 33 and the blind testing process

The Aston 33 (so named after the original members) is now a panel of more than 120 top producers, engineers and artists who work with Aston on new product development to ensure every mic is best in class before it is released to the market.

They perform blind listening tests on a range of possible versions of each new mic, plus ‘industry standard’ models from key manufacturers and vote on performance on a variety of sources (vocals, guitars and so on). In tests the panel do not know which mics they are listening to, so the resultant votes can’t be affected by brand reputation, or an expectation of how a certain microphone should sound.

Some surprising results arose from the Stealth project testing. For example the prototype Stealth voicing that consistently came top in the voting for female vocal takes came off worst for male vocals and vice versa, regardless of the pitch of the singer! Furthermore a different voicing came top for ALL guitar sources, from finger picked acoustic through to mic’d distorted guitar cabs.

These discoveries, derived from more than 9000 data samples, were the catalyst for the Aston team to set about reimagining the microphone from the ground up. Stealth truly excels at capturing professional quality audio in almost every situation, and masters them all.

Specifications

• Transducer Type: Moving coil
• Directional Polar Pattern: Cardioid
• Frequency Response: 20Hz – 20kHz (+/-3dB)
• Equivalent Self Noise Level: 10dB A-weighted
• Sensitivity at 1kHz into 1kohm - passive mode: Average 1 mV/Pa (varies across 4 voices)
• Sensitivity at 1kHz into 1kohm - active mode: Average 150 mV/Pa (varies across 4 voices)
• Maximum SPL for THD 0.5%: 140dB
• Product length: 196 mm / 7.72 in
• Product width: 58 mm / 2.28 in
• Product weight: 692 g / 1.52 lb