The DSF-2 Broadcast Microphone System has been specifically developed to simultaneously provide both the surround and stereo soundscape at large scale outside broadcast events such as football stadiums and concert hall venues.

Its advantage over alternative methods is that the multichannel audio it generates from a ‘single point’ source is completely phase coherent. This enables the broadcaster to collapse the surround to stereo or mono for TV and radio feeds without loss of information, frequency imbalance or any of the other phase problems associated with spaced microphones or multi capsule ‘dummy head’ arrangements.

 In 1933, British scientist Alan Blumlein was issued a patent that stands today as a landmark in the development of stereophonic recording and reproduction. Among its numerous declarations, it defined the basis for all coincident microphone techniques, including the Mid/Side and crossed bidirectional configurations. (The latter, in fact, is commonly referred to as a “Blumlein Stereo” pair.) In the 1970s, British mathematicians Michael Gerzon, Peter Craven and colleagues expanded upon the stereo concepts pioneered by Blumlein to develop the concept of a microphone system that could reproduce a full three-dimensional soundfield. Both Blumlein and Gerzon realised that only when a soundwave is captured at a single point in space can it be reproduced faithfully and without the phase distortion anomalies inherent in spaced microphone techniques.

Early SoundField prototype models were developed using Gerzon’s theory in conjunction with the National Research Development Corporation of Great Britain and Calrec Audio. Chief Designer at Calrec, Ken Farrar, and colleagues played a leading role in turning Gerzon’s theory into a real product and Ken Farrar’s contribution was later recognised by his appointment as a Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (F.I.E.E.). In 1993, the company SoundField Ltd. was formed specifically to manufacture and further develop the range of products and their application in both stereo and multi-channel audio environments. SoundField Ltd. is the owner of all patent and intellectual property rights relating to SoundField Technology. Visit the Soundfield website to learn more