Aston Microphones Starlight Small-diaphragm Condenser Microphone

ASTON STARLIGHT

The Aston Starlight is the first ever laser targeting pencil microphone, allowing for recall of mic position in studio use, and incredibly quick and easy set up in live applications. This truly astonishing microphone also showcases Aston’s unique variable voice switching for sound contouring, a nearly indestructible build quality, our signature sintered head, and Aston’s, now famous, tumbled 100% stainless steel chassis.

The Starlight features a 20mm cardioid capsule hand-picked by a panel of more than 50 top producers in double blind listening tests conducted during 2016.

Laser

The addition of a Class 2 laser to our Starlight SDC, with on/off switch, allows the user to recall mic positions in the studio so set up can be easily replicated. It also means, for touring bands, that mic positions can be marked off on drums etc, and set-up becomes a breeze. It’s a world’s first and a big leap in helping to get a consistent sound whatever the situation.

Sintered Metal Head

Sintering is not new to the mic world, though seldom used… but we’ve taken the technology a step or 2 further than ever before. We tested many thicknesses of sintered head, as well as the average size of the sinter spheres, and combined that with nickel plate which is controlled to only a few nanometres thickness to achieve near perfect acoustic porosity. In addition the head is virtually indestructible, so like all Aston mics, it can take any amount of studio or even live use and will never let you down.

Voice Switching

Yet another remarkable step-up in technology, performance and cool features! The Starlight has 3 modes of operation, courtesy of some very fancy front-end filtering between the capsule and PCB. You can chose between Vintage, Modern and Hybrid settings to get the perfect tone response for your application… guitar cab, drums, strings, even vocals… whatever the application you’ll get a perfect fit for your music, and each setting has been carefully tuned to give superb top-flight performance, way beyond Starlight’s price point.

Chassis

Now deeply rooted as part of Aston’s beautiful engineered looks, and rugged un-killable performance, Starlight utilises a 1.5mm solid stainless steel chassis, tumbled for up to 4 hours to achieve our signature finish. Beauty, and a beast!

Discrete Mic Amp Circuit (PCB)

Starlight employs an extremely fine-tuned discrete mic amp circuit with high-spec components, to achieve an extremely sensitive, low noise design with loads of headroom. This allows the Starlight to handle quiet or very loud sources without compromising noise or tonal performance. Crucially, the higher output level of the Starlight’s output stage allows microphone preamps to operate with lower gain, where their distortion performance is at its best. The final result is a beautifully clean and detailed sound. The Starlight’s voicing control employs inductive active filters at the front-end of the microphone circuit to alter the response of the capsule without adding any noise to the circuit. The benefit of this means that the voicing switch is effectively the equivalent of changing the capsule to achieve different tonal characteristics and frequency response.

Eco-Friendly Packaging

We have put our hearts and minds into creating the most beautiful performance pieces possible with each Aston product. When it comes to packaging we believe simplicity is king. Protective, re-useable, environmentally sensible packaging that doesn’t cost the earth.

STARTLIGHT SPECS

• Transducer Type: Capacitor

• Acoustic Operating Principle: Pressure Gradient

• Directional Polar Pattern: Cardioid

• Frequency Response: 20Hz – 20kHz (+/- 10dB)

• Equivalent Noise Level: 15dB A-Weighted

• Sensitivity at 1kHz into 1kohm: 42.1mV/Pa

• Maximum SPL for THD 0.5%: 130dB/ 140dB/ 150dB

• Signal-to-Noise Ratio (rel. 94dB SPL): 79dB A-Weighted

• Pad Switch: -20dB/-10dB/0dB

• Low-Cut Filters: 80Hz, 140Hz

48 Volt Phantom power (+/- 4 Volts) is required for operation