Our free Stereo Miking guide goes into detail about the pros and cons of ORTF and other spaced, coincident and hybrid stereo mic arrays.
The 110‑degree spread of the ORTF array aligns the cardioid patterns so that each microphone is ‑3dB at the centre (55 degrees off‑axis), which avoids the centre being louder than the rest of the stereo spread as the microphone patterns overlap. A problem I perceive here is that no microphone is perfect, and therefore there is significant high‑frequency roll‑off as you get off‑axis. Even mics like the Neumann KM184 at 55 degrees off‑axis are down almost 10dB at 16kHz. The Shoeps MK4 is down about 5dB at the same angle and frequency, which might be hard to notice...
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