Brauner Microphones VMA - Manual (Page 5)

Thank you for purchasing this original Brauner microphone and thus supporting a
part of the world famous German craftmenship and our love for quality, detail, preci-
sion and persisting values. Our microphones go to the full extent of what is physically
possible today to achieve unparalleled results.
To reach this high level of perfection only best components are carefully selected,
assembled and calibrated to become these wonderful works of art and sound. Even
though this is a time-consuming and costly process, it ensures the quality of our
microphones in a way industrial mass production could never do. As our goal is to
offer the best micophones money can buy, we will not make any compromises for
the sake of our products‘ quality. Thus a Brauner microphone is not only a professional
and reliable tool for your daily work but also a lifetime investment.
According to our company‘s philosophy we try to think of sound recording as an art
rather than a technical method. For this reason we build and develope our micro-
phones not just as pure technical but also artistic tools. Of course, one emphasis of
our work is reaching the best physical limits (e.g. extremely low self noise, highest
possible dynamic range and proper impulse response), but the most important, as
we believe, is the sound.
As „sound“ cannot be entirely evaluated with audio measurement capabilities given
today, a very important part of building our microphones is a severe listening test.
Not one microphone will leave our factory unless it has passed tests by the critical
and unforgiving ears of our engineers who do not tolerate the smallest deviation from
our high standards.
This approach has created the enormous reputation and esteem Brauner products
have become famous for. A reputation we feel deeply committed to.
We would like to wish you success and enjoyment with your new microphone into
which we have put all our experience and knowledge and which will surely accom-
pany you during your work for many, many years.
The difference between VMA, VM1 and VMX
At first sight these three microphone models seem to be almost identical, just with
one little difference: the toggle switch found on the front of the power supply (not on
the „pure cardioid“ power supply) will turn on a 10 dB pad on the VM1 and VMX (good
for extremely high sound pressure levels), but will select between the two available
microphone circuits on the VMA.
In fact the VMA represents the combination of VM1 and VMX. In the lower switch
position it is tuned like the classic VM1, in the upper it sounds like a VMX. Both tonal
characters of VM1 and VMX – and thus of the VMA, too – excel in high resolution of
finest sonic detail and enormous depth and space of sound. But whereas the VM1
represents the classic and famous Brauner sound – wide open and transparent, with
all detail and resolution and homogeneous imaging over the whole frequency range,
the VMX has a soft and silky top end and a slightly pronounced high mid and bottom
range. This sound is a reminiscence to the classic vintage microphones and is very
popular in the USA.
Both sounds are useful in a variety of applications depending on whether you like it
more soft, silky and warm or more shiny, wide and clear. We know it is hard to describe
the sonic characteristics of a microphone especially as we are talking about subtle
nuances which might not become obvious instantly.
1.1 Introduction
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