Older ribbon mics were often hard work, extracting a good top end, avoiding "muddyness", getting enough gain, were all concerns and if you weren't experienced in using ribbon mics most likely you would give up before achieving that wonderful sound that they are capable of giving. The "Naked Eye". This mic also has the added benefit of quite different sound responses each side. See sound samples below. More recently Robert Crowley came up with a new "space age" material he calls "Roswellite" for ribbon mics that renders the element unbreakable, the material also has a "memory" and thus retain's it's shape even under high spl's.

The Naked Eye is a unique dual-voice passive ribbon microphone. They were achieved not simply by offsetting the ribbon toward the front or rear of the microphone, as is done in the Royer R , but rather by tuning the acoustic impedance of the incoming soundwaves. A graph showing the frequency response of the front and rear demonstrates the effect. The differences are not subtle.

One of the most welcome developments of recent years in the microphone market is the growing availability of ribbon mics. This new model takes its place in the middle ranks of price but has a far from mediocre sound The Naked Eye mic is the fourth model to be launched, its elder siblings being the Proscenium, the Soundstage Image and the Studio Vocalist.