Mid-Side Comparison Schoeps CCM vs Sennheiser MKH 80

There are a lot people out there who wonder and ponder what the sonic differences between Schoeps and Sennheiser’s MKH lines are. Most people will only want to purchase one of these microphone pairs. i am lucky enough to own both systems. With this post i am aiming to aid those who are are interested in purchasing something along these lines. Maybe it is the legendary Sennheiser MKH 30 with a MKH 40 or 50, alternatively the ultra compact and sonically excellent Schoeps CCM 8 with paired with a CCM 4, 5 or 41. This last weekend with a little spare time between my son and wife i decided pop up both sets and take a listen. If you missed my Mid-Side Basics post or my Mid-Side Matrixing and Decoding write up click the links.

 

The Microphones 

Schoeps Midside Set

– Schoeps CCM 41 (hyper)

– Schoeps CCM 8 (Fig. 8)

Sennheiser Midside Set

– Sennheiser MKH 80 (hyper)

– Sennheiser MKH 80 (Fig. 8)

The Test

The test was a pretty short spur of the moment test. Nothing critical or that would be used for a job. Strictly test recordings for evaluation. Additionally owning these microphones this was just something i had wanted to do for a while. The setting is Orange County CA late afternoon. For me personally I think both sets sound great. it comes down to just a matter of preference and application. For ambience recordings will almost always pick my MKH’s over the CCM’s. The MKH 80’s are much larger then the Schoeps CCM microphones but they out preform the Schoeps in low noise applications. For hard FX recording the CCM are my go to. For what i do they simply just sound great for that kind of thing. In the future i would like to add a CCM 5 to my locker and do some extended traveling.

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