Voyage Audio Spatial Mic Dante

Has the addition of Dante allowed Voyage Audio’s Ambisonic mic to realise its full potential?

There are times when an otherwise great product is held back by a single limitation. Voyage Audio’s Spatial Mic, which I reviewed in SOS October 2020, is a good example. This is a nice‑sounding second‑order Ambisonic mic at a price to rival most first‑order mics, and as it has built‑in preamplification and A‑D conversion, it does not require expensive matched preamps and converters. However, in a music‑recording context this second positive is also a negative. The Spatial Mic can connect either to a host computer over USB, or to an audio interface over ADAT Lightpipe. Both options mean it can only be used with extremely short cables, and make it very difficult to record with other microphones simultaneously.

I ended my review of the original Spatial Mic by wondering whether Voyage Audio might consider developing “a ‘pro’ version that could be powered and connected to an audio‑over‑IP network using an Ethernet cable”. And evidently I wasn’t the only person who felt that way, because that’s exactly what they’ve done. The Spatial Mic Dante is, well, a Spatial Mic that hooks up to a Dante network over Ethernet, presenting up to eight channels of audio at sample rates up to 192kHz. This is already an improvement over its predecessor, which topped out at 96kHz over USB and 48kHz over ADAT Lightpipe. A 48kHz‑only AES67 mode is also supported for connection to other audio‑over‑IP networks, though I did not test this.

Inferno

The Spatial Mic Dante is similar in shape to the original but marginally larger, with a tough but low‑key matte black finish. This time around, however, there’s no headphone socket and no physical gain control. The assumption is that anyone using a Dante network will have a proper monitoring setup and access to a computer to adjust Spatial Mic parameters, which seems entirely reasonable. If the Dante version feels more substantial than the USB/ADAT version, that’s mainly down to the presence of a large metal heat sink, which is clearly needed, as the mic gets quite warm in use.

The Spatial Mic Dante uses a locking Neutrik connector that will also accept standard RJ45 plugs.Mounting arrangements are carried over from the USB/ADAT version, meaning that the mic itself has a 1/4‑20 socket of the type used on camera tripods, which can be paired with the supplied ball‑and‑socket adaptor if you want to mate it to a mic stand. Given that this is a much more expensive and pro‑oriented product than the original, it might have been nice if Voyage Audio had included the optional Rycote InVision mount and a proper carry case.

The base of the mic houses a Neutrik NE8FBH‑C5 locking etherCON connector, which is also compatible with standard RJ45 plugs. Either side of this are two LEDs indicating the presence of power and network activity.