D6
microphone
$199
Used market: $155*
Specifications
5 of 7 values have a recorded sourceExpert Audio Engineering Commentary
Tonal Profile
Kick-drum cardioid with a VLM Type E capsule, 30 Hz - 15 kHz, transformerless. The response is scooped by design - a big low shelf, a hollow midrange and a lift up top - which is why it sounds finished with no EQ and awkward on anything that is not a drum.
Gain Staging Advice
0.8 mV/Pa is -61.94 dBV/Pa: 6 dB below an SM57 and among the hungriest microphones in the catalogue. Inside a kick drum that is exactly right, because the source is over 130 dB SPL. Point it at anything at conversational distance and you are asking a budget preamp for 60 dB or more, which is where its own hiss becomes the loudest thing in the take.
What the datasheet actually says
Quoted verbatim from the manufacturer’s own page, with the date we checked it. We state what is printed, not what anyone intended by it.
«Sensitivity 0.8 mV / Pa @ 80 Hz ... The microphone shall have a sensitivity of 0.8 mV / Pa at 1kHz»
The same Audix data sheet quotes one sensitivity at two different frequencies: the specifications table says 80 Hz, the Architect and Engineer paragraph says 1 kHz. This is not a rounding difference. The D6 has a large low-frequency shelf, so its output at 80 Hz and at 1 kHz are not the same number, and every other microphone in this catalogue is specified at 1 kHz. Read the stored figure as the 80 Hz value the table prints.
checked 8/5/2026* Estimated with the depreciation fallback (~78% retained value). · checked on 8/5/2026