Today I had the pleasure of meeting Timo from Sonar Surround at the SAE alumni convention in Berlin. He developed a new line of hydrophones that are based on the underwater technology of Reson, a company usually producing equipment for military purposes, sonar systems and marine research. The microphones of Reson are of the highest quality, but because their business laid exclusively in the industrial and military area, those superb hydrophones were not available for the consumer market yet. Sonar Surround will change that. The TC 4032 hydrophone has the most natural sound quality and the lowest signal-to-noise ratio one can imagine. We did a very quick shoot-out of my DPA 8011 hydrophone against the TC 4032 in a small aquarium in the booth of Sonar Surround at the convention. Only the high output level of the in-build mic preamp of the TC 4032 with literally no audible hiss was reason enough to get excited. I had to lower the gain input at my Sound Devices recorder to zero while the DPA hydrophone had to be preamplified to about 30 dB to get the same input level with correspondingly much more noise floor. Here are some short sound bits that we produced with a pipe bubbling into the aquarium and recording simultanously with both microphones. First the DPA:
Then the same take with the TC 4032:
The difference might even get clearer with this second sound bit of water dripping in the aquarium. In the background one can hear the chatter of the people at the convention which is transmitted over the glas and the water in the aquarium. Again first DPA 8011:
Then the TC 4032:
The deeper rumbling are footsteps on the wooden floor of people passing by… I hope it gets clear how much better the TC 4032 sounds and how balanced the frequency range is. The typical sharpness and biting higher mids of hydrophones on the market – which is already rather soft with my DPA microphone – is completely avoided with the TC 4032. And the low noise design of the Sonar Surround microphone is especially helpful when recording sound sources from far away distances, because that’s where the hydrophones I know add too much noise to the signal. Moreover, this comes at a prize roughly the same than for the DPA. Of course the flagship status of the TC 4032 is not affordable to everybody, but still this is the highest audio quality one can get in the mid prize range for the first time. Sonar Surround has some smaller and less expensive microphones as well so it might be worth a look. And if I sound like a sales person here, I’m sorry for that. I was just carried away by some crazy ideas that would be possible with such hydrophones… By the way: does anybody wants to buy my DPA 8011 second hand?
More about underwater recording and an overview of other hydrophones can be found here.
[dreaming] might the TC 4032 be cheaper than the DPA 8011?
Hi John, no, I think you have to acquire an additional cable which adds to the price, so it will be a little bit more expensive than the DPA, though I don’t know how much a DPA is in the moment. It was great meeting you recently, by the way, I hope your stay in Berlin and the workshop was nice! Best wishes, Andreas
Hi Andreas. Which portable recorder do you plug your new hydrophone into? Did you purchase the 3pin XLR connector, and if so, does this connector introduce noise into the signal path(do you think)? Also, the Sonar surround hydrophone operates from -2 degrees celcius and above whereas the DPA operates at much lower temperatures I think (minus 10 off the top of my head). It’s hard to pick between the two but I like the sound of the TC4032 from your samples. If you can upload some more samples comparing the two that would be much appreciated. Cheers, Lizzie
Hi Lizzie, the portable recorder is a Sound Devices 722 and I plugged in the XLR cable of the DPA hydrophone directly. The higher noise floor here is because of the lower output level of that hydrophone, the TC4032 has so much level that I had put lower the input range on the recorder and still with the gain knob on zero it produced tremendous level. The samples were just spontaneously done on the fair, therefore this is the only stuff I have. Interesting question about the temperature range of those two hydrophones, didn’t thought about that. I think you can approach Sonar Surround via their homepage for further questions, they are very friendly. Thanks for commenting, Lizzie, best wishes, Andreas
Hi Andreas. Thanks for your reply! I meant to ask whether you plugged in the TC4032 to your Sound Devices recorder with the extra adapter that they offer (at extra charge) to change the connection from a 5-pin XLR to a 3-pin XLR?
Also, Heike Vester has a CD recorded with a ‘reson’ TC4032..I’m assuming this is the same hydrophone? There are samples on the Gruenrekorder website of this cd and it sounds amazing.
http://www.gruenrekorder.de/?page_id=382
Best, Lizzie
Hi Lizzie, now I understand. Yes, we used the adapter to plug in the TC4032 into the Sound Devices recorder and it definitely did not add any noise to the signal. The thing was that the DPA produced more hiss and sounded less balanced and transparent, something which is not easy to hear with the uploaded MP3s I guess. And also good that you mention the Heike Vester CD and the link, Lasse from Gruenrekorder put my attention to it a few days ago as well. It is in fact the same microphone and her recordings are stunning, you are right. Hope, I can help you with your question.
All the best, Andreas
Hi Lizzie,
I’m sorry that I just sent you a list of the different components without further explanations.
About the TC 4032:
The TC 4032 is originally manufactured by Reson. Reson sells (with some exceptions) only to Navy or biological research institutions. That’s why you only can use their technologies with their own measurement equipment. This equipment offers sensitivities and Signal Noise Ratios 2.5 times higher than normal audio equipment (like Sound Devices). The problem is that you have to pay for this high-end technology without ever using the capabilities.
That’s where Reson asked us to work along with them. So what we do is to take their hydrophones and manufacture cables and adaptors to use them with standard techniques. Hydrophones for example need a DC Supply strictly separated from your Audio Signal. So our Y-Cable is just one possibility to get a 3-Pin XLR and the additional DC Supply.
For the Supply we would go by your equipment (camera, recorder) and manufacture a cable to use your already existing DC Supply.
Of course you can just buy the hydrophone without a cable or any adaptors. So the offer I sent to you was just the standard setup we sell usually. Because I didn’t want to just give you the price of the hydrophone which would have given you a wrong impression of the price to pay to get a fully working hydrophone.
About the temperature:
If our data sheet tells you that our hydrophone is working up to -2 C than it’s just the lowest working temperature to get the same measurement frequency range. So you can use the TC4032 at lower temperatures, too because your recording equipment won’t even get the difference at 50-120kHz.
Please contact me if you still have some questions.
Cheers, Timo
P.S. Thank you for your lovely article Andreas!! It means a lot to us get reviews from people working with underwater sound. ( Especially if they like our articles
)
Thanks, Timo, for these Information. I’m still pondering about the idea of acquiring the small hydrophone which i could use in an upcoming project. I will get back to you later this Year about that. Best, Andreas
Hi Timo. Sorry I didn’t get back to you! I’ve had a lot on and had started to draft you a reply but forgot to finish it.
It was all very clear, but yes, I was wondering about the operational temperatures (which you now cleared up for me!).
I’m still very much interested in this hydrophone, but I need to think through my purchase carefully (as the conversion from Australian Dollars to Euros is quite a jump!)
Cheers, Lizzie
envy desire appetite !
…or also called: G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome)
looking for a general purpose hydrophone for purchase
Hi Sobhan, sorry for not replying earlier, it seems I forgot you. I can’t really give you good advice, I heard many good and bad things about several hydrophones in the lower price range, but I never used them so I can’t comment on them. In this post I linked to several of the cheaper hydrophone like those from Aquarian, Catacean and Jez Riley French, also Sonar Surround released a somewhat cheaper hydrophone in the meantime. Maybe its good to look at the frequency responses of the various hydrophones and read through the data sheets of the manufacturers, contacting them an have a little email conversation can’t harm either, that can give you a feeling for how reliable they might be in case you face problems with a microphone. Good luck, Andreas