NAB Event News
Audio-Technica Unveils 2020 USB Mic, Spectra Pulse White Spaces Solution
By
Apr 14, 2008 - 10:35:07 AM

By Carolyn Braff

New for NAB, Audio-Technica is rolling out the AT 2020 USB studio microphone, a perfect solution for quick turnaround, on-the-road productions.

“For a field reporter or someone that’s on the road and needs to do quick production, the 2020 is perfect,” explains Steve Savanyu, director of educational services for Audio-Technica. “You plug it right into a laptop and there’s no software, no drivers, it comes up as a device and you’re good to go to record.”

The compact microphone retails for $249, but its sound quality makes it unique.

“The thing that sets us apart from the other USB microphones is it sounds good,” Savanyu explains. “We’ve got the technology of the 2020 which is one of, if not the largest single-selling side-addressed condenser microphone, period.”

AT is also unveiling a new version of its classic handheld interview dynamic microphone, the AT 8004L. The latest version accommodates wireless plug-on transmitters and a mic flag with a longer handle and a low-reflectance matte finish.

Audio-Technica sent 1,400 microphones to Torino for the 2006 Olympic Games and will send a comparable number to Beijing this summer, but an exact number will not be available until sound design is complete. The mics will be a mix of the 4071a, BP4027 and BP 4029 stereo shotguns.

Audio-Technica is also showing its solution to pressing white space issues, the Spectra Pulse UWB Wireless system.

“You need to take everything you know about carrier-based wireless and throw it out the window,” Savanyu says. “Spectra Pulse is a completely different concept than wireless because it’s time-based, not carrier-based.

“Instead of using a carrier frequency, Spectra Pulse uses a wide spectrum or ultra-wide band of frequencies in which time-based pulses are transmitted. The receiving device looks for a set of pulses at a given time for a given transmitter, and that is how it transmits. There’s no carriers, no frequency coordination; you address each one of the transmitters and away you go.”

The FCC currently restricts the technology to 75-foot, indoor transmissions, so the generation of product on display at NAB is a conference table microphone system, but Savanyu expects to see the technology evolve into a body pack, a handheld and other broadcast applications in the near future.