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PME number 165 is all about the sE Reflexion filter. This device is specially designed to dampen room noise using a small physical footprint.

Before opening the box, I envisioned a bit of a puzzle, with dozens of small pieces screws and washers. After taking a look inside, I found the screen itself fully constructed with just a few hand-tightened bars to hold it in place. sE even includes a wrench in case you need to further disassemble. The mounts are nice, solid pieces of polished metal. All of the mic mount adjustments are adjusted by hand and easily moveable. It is important to mention that you need to provide the actual floor stand yourself. The Reflexion Filter is meant to clamp onto a floor mounted stand that you supply. As an alternative, I assembled the mount while it was clamped to my mic riser.

Just how does it perform? The important part to remember is that this is not an isolation booth. This device is meant to tame room reflections. Just how much difference it provides is up to you. I’ll include a very non-scientific recording made in the office. As I recorded the noises of the office with an sE2200a, I noticed about a 3db softening of the average signal. It’s interesting to note that a few higher pitched noises kept the peaks equal, but the average lower. One thing that didn’t come across in the recording that I would have liked to capture is an unknown, low pitch rumble. I noticed the noise while assembling the unit. As I slid the Reflexion Filter down behind the mic, the noise disappeared. As I carefully slid the Filter away, the noise returned. This was a good reminder that anything you use for sound dampening is frequency dependant. As the sE site test graph suggests, there are “sweet spots” in frequency ranges where the Filter is much more effective than others. After 5Khz, it gets much more difficult to filter without taking more drastic steps.

With all that in mind, I made a few recordings to A/B the Filter on and off the 2200a. I made this recording without ANY processing, simply using the FirePods mic preamp directly. Of course, the show is encoded into an MP3. Visit NewMediaGear.com, where you’ll find the uncompressed WAV file.

Street Price: $299

Best,
MarkJensen

Filed under: Podcasts