USM 69 i

The USM 69 i combines two dual-diaphragm condenser capsules in a single body, mounted one above the other. Each capsule has its own rotary pattern switch with omni, wide cardioid, cardioid, hypercardioid and figure-8 positions, and its own head amplifier feeding separate pins of the output connector. The upper capsule turns against the lower one over a 270° range, so coincident setups such as XY, MS and Blumlein need only one stand.

The capsules are the same large diaphragm type used in the U 87 Ai. The circuit is transformer balanced with a self-noise of 13 dB-A and a maximum SPL of 132 dB for 0.5% THD. An active subsonic filter protects the output transformers from overload caused by structure-borne noise. Because the two systems work independently, the microphone can also record a mono source with two patterns at once, or serve as its own backup. If the capsule bias DC converter fails, both systems switch to cardioid and keep working at slightly lower sensitivity.

It runs on 48 V phantom power and uses an XLR 5 output on the microphone, with an XLR 3 F matching connector listed. It is offered in nickel (USM 69 i) and black (USM 69 i mt).