MICROPHONE OF THE MONTH APRIL 2026

The Turner 211 is a classic 'Salt-Shaker' type moving coil dynamic microphone, produced by my favourite microphone company, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

No other firm had such strange 'space age' designs. Although this model, which was introduced in 1941, does not have a fin, like many other Turners, it stil has an alien shap, which I doubt any other company would ever have come up with.

The 211 was promoted as a 'Broadcast Type', and it was the second most expensive model, of the era, that the Turner company made, in quality it was only surpassed by the large 101A, B & C types (MOTM April 2016), which were cardioids with both a ribbon and a moving coil element.

The 211 had an omnidirectional pick up pattern, although at the time it was advertised as uni-directional, later that term was strictly used for cardioid, directional microphones. Facing a sound source, it was somewhat directional for the higher frequencies, if tilted upwards it had a more true omni directional pattern.

Unlike most Turners, there was no version with a crystal element of this model. The 211 had a very rugged design, and, with an improved magnet structure and acoustic network, to extend the high frequency range and raise the extreme lows, it recorded high fidelity sound from 30 to 10.000 Hz.

A specially designed precision diaphragm resulted in unusually low harmonic and phase distortion, without sacrifice of high output level. The 211 was also unaffected by temperature or climate. This made it, according to Turner, the ideal microphone for quality recordings, PA and broadcast, including FM (the older AM frequency was limited to 100-5000 Hz). It was available in four versions; 30-50 Ohms, 200 or 500 Ohms, or High-Z.

The later versions had a squared grip, the earlier had a rounded grip. Although production ended around 1960, because they were well-made, many of these microphones stil function. Luckily, mine does too, so you can listen to its sound.

These and many more types feature in my book Witnesses of Words. More information about that can be found at www.witnessesofwords.com