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R-121
The R-121 is the world's first radically redesigned ribbon microphone and Royer's flagship product. Like most ribbons, the R-121's pattern is figure 8, its sensitivity is roughly equal to a good dynamic mic, and it exhibits a warm, realistic tone and flat frequency response (see R-121 Frequency Response). But when it became time to design, we threw out the molds and took a fresh approach to ribbons using advanced materials and cutting edge construction techniques. Today the R-121 completely redefines ribbon microphones, leading Recording Magazine to say "the Royer R-121 is destined to become one of the classic microphones of the 21st century". It's a sleek, light, extremely versatile microphone that is easy to use, wonderfully musical, and sturdy enough for us to give it a lifetime warrantee!
Recording With The R-121
An R-121 hears things the way your ears hear them. Many microphones are effects in a way; some add top end sizzle (like many condenser mics), some push the mids and roll off everything else, some respond to nothing but low end. They all serve a purpose and have their place in recording and live work. But if you've ever heard that incredible guitar, melodic trumpet, sweet flute, deep kick drum, (pick your sound), and found that getting that sound to tape or hard drive was impossible, you owe it to yourself to try a Royer ribbon. On playback you'll notice that the recorded sound is natural and alive, with a panoramic, ambient feel much like what you heard when you were standing in front of the instruments you recorded.
An R-121's response is flat and well balanced; low end is deep and full without getting boomy, mids are well defined and realistic, and the high end response is sweet and natural sounding, never edgy or sibilant.
Recording LOUD!
Need to record at insane levels? No problem! The R-121's maximum SPL rating is >135dB and it can take that all day long. In practical terms, that means you can put your R-121 directly in front of a souped up mega-watts Marshall and turn it up to 11 (see what Pro Audio Review had to say about this) without microphone distortion or doing any damage to the ribbon. We don't recommend trying this with other ribbon mics, but the R-121 can take it, no sweat.
Features
High SPL Capabilities
No internal active electronics to overload or produce distortion up to maximum SPL rating
Extremely low residual noise
Ribbon element is not affected by heat or humidity
Absence of high frequency phase distortion
Equal sensitivity from front or back of element
Consistent frequency response regardless of distance
Field replaceable ribbon transducer
R-122
Introducing the ACTIVE SERIES
Royer Labs is proud to announce the unimaginable-become-reality with the world’s first phantom powered, active ribbon microphone – the R-122! The R-122 is the first in our new line of phantom powered ribbon microphones, a line that will ultimately include a variety of active ribbon microphones.
While the idea of a phantom powered ribbon microphone was enticing enough, we didn’t design the new Active Series mics simply to do something different. This new ribbon microphone technology addresses two major issues common to conventional ribbon microphones - gain and impedance matching.
Gain
Our Active Series ribbon mics are as sensitive as condenser microphones, allowing you to use practically any mic preamplifier or board pre (even those of nominal characteristics). Conventional ribbon microphones are, on average, 15 to 20 dB less sensitive than condenser mics, necessitating the use of high-quality, high-gain microphone preamplifiers for recording softer sound sources like acoustic instruments, vocals and room ambience. The Active Series ribbon mics, starting with the R-122, contain fully balanced, discrete head amplifier systems utilizing ultra-low noise FET’s. This system, designed by David Royer and Rick Perrotta, is extremely quiet, can handle 135 dB SPL and allows our Active Series ribbons to deliver a sensitivity of –38 dB! Go ahead and plug an R-122 into any preamplifier with average gain characteristics - you’ll get full Royer performance regardless of how quiet the sound source, and you’ll have enough gain to drive any recording medium.
Impedance Matching
The electronics in the Active Series ribbons provides a perfect load on the ribbon element at all times, meaning that R-122’s are able to deliver 100% of their full sonic potential regardless of the input characteristics of the following mic-pre. Due to the low-impedance output, Active Series mics can also be used with extremely long cable runs with minimal signal loss.
A good impedance match is critical with ribbon microphones because impedance mis-matching “loads” a ribbon improperly, resulting in loss of low end, diminished body, lowered sensitivity and overall compromised performance. With the Active Series ribbons, the ribbon element lives in a perfect world; it sees an optimum impedance match at all times regardless of the following equipment, so its performance will never be compromised by the effects of improper loading. In addition, the ribbon element can’t be damaged by phantom power, electrical glitches or miswired cables.
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