As an audio engineer and as a retailer, Taylor Johnson’s experience left him dissatisfied with contemporary microphone design. Making connection with Andy and Cristian Hohendahl in 1998 gave him the chance to do something about it. The goal was to build microphones that would be extremely quiet, with a fast and accurate response, and be durable.
The unique design of T.H.E. microphones begins with the electronics. “I’m really happy with the electronics design,” says Johnson. “Our electronics, the basis of our pre amp electronics, are our own patented design. They’re excellent. They are no electrolytic capacitors, they are transformerless, balanced and they sound wonderful. They are high gain, low noise–some of this is a result of our testing and matching on the parts that can’t be done by anybody else.”
The Andy Hohendahl pre amp design uses a trio of FETs in an entirely balanced, Class A circuit. The design is complemented by careful component selection. “We actually match all of the parts to each other in the circuit board,” Johnson elaborates. “But the trick to doing that is we actually built the test equipment. Therefore, even if someone were to understand that you have to match it a certain way, you still can’t get the test equipment that matches it exactly the way we do. Now that takes full advantage of the circuitry.
Instead of looking to the Far East as many new microphone manufacturers have done, Taylor Hohendahl Engineering looked to eastern Europe and Latin America for their manufacturing needs. “We have parts manufacturing in Germany and in Argentina,” says Johnson. “The primary assemblies are done in Argentina–that’s also where the circuit boards are made because that’s where my partners actually have dual citizenship.
Johnson also has ties to Russian manufacturing through his import of the RTT, Nevaton and Oktava lines of mics. Heavily modified Russian capsules with a “German/Russian deep math design” graced some of the early T.H.E. mics, but now T.H.E. makes their own capsules, and are gradually moving all of their capsules to designs using a proprietary sputtering and tuning techniques along with innovations in lead connection and capsule mounting.
The T.H.E. microphone line includes the KR-25A and KR-33A (with the distinctive ‘lollipop’ design and large 25 mm and 33 mm diaphragms, respectively), the TT-3M and KP-6M reference mics, the KR-1D and KR-1F omnis and the unique KR-2W ‘wide’ cardiod—a happy medium between cardiod and omni response characteristics along with a set of state-of-the-art cardioid and hypercardioid capsules. Add the BS-3D Binaural Sphere and the modular KA-04 based system and you have a broad, moderately priced microphone line.
One might note that the line includes no tube microphones, and that is indicative of T.H.E.’s design goals—trying to provide ‘an improved model of audio capture’ using the most transparent circuitry with transducer and physical design that incorporates all that modern engineering science has to offer. Add clever enough marketing prowess to trademark THE and you have a unique company offering an equally unique product line.
