Soundfield, Ltd.

The SoundField range of microphones is designed to capture the most realistic and technically correct acoustical “picture” of an acoustical event and assemble it in a way that can be heard over any playback system, past, present or future. A SoundField is unsurpassed at capturing the real sound you experience in person. It is especially exciting when the acoustical event has motion (sports), a very powerful image (a high performance recital hall) or when background sound is critical to the overall experience (ambient sound like the ocean). It’s best feature is that it is both backward and forward compatible (mono to stereo to 5.1 to 10.1 and back again) without phase error. The technology is so fantastic you can change the location of the microphone AFTER you have recorded the event!

SoundField Technology is based on the principle that all acoustic events can be represented by four basic elements. These are 'X' which is front/back information (depth), 'Y' which is left/right information (width), 'Z' which is up/down information (height) and 'W' the central point from which the other three elements are referenced. Collectively, W, X, Y and Z are entitled B-Format - SoundField are the only microphones in the world that deliver B-Format which can be stored on four tracks of any recorder.

Because the SoundField capsule array captures three dimensional sound at the same 'central point' all time - or phase related anomalies created by spaced microphones are eliminated. Once in B-Format the point of acoustic origin is defined and all output variations i.e. mono, stereo, M/S, 5.1, 6.1 etc. are derived from this same 'central point'. Thus, surround recordings made with SoundField microphones can be collapsed to stereo - or stereo to mono - without the phase cancellation and high frequency differences encountered when 'summing' multiple spaced microphones. The result - spatial 'you are there' imaging and consistent surround recordings which are backward/forward compatible.

The Soundfield microphones are available for Broadcast or Recording Studio, both in digital and analog formats.