XY stereo microphone technique



With the XY stereo technique (also called coincident pair) two directional microphones meet at the same place, and typically point at a 90° angle or more to each other. A stereo effect is achieved through differences in sound pressure level between two microphones. The level difference of 18 dB (16 to 20 dB) is needed for hearing the direction of a loudspeaker. Due to the lack of differences in time-of-arrival / phase-ambiguities, the sonic characteristic of X-Y recordings has less sense of space and depth when compared to recordings employing an AB-setup. When two figure-of-eight microphones are used, facing ±45° with respect to the sound source, the X-Y-setup is called a Blumlein Pair. The sonic image produced is realistic, almost 'holographic'.