What are some good microphones to get USB microphone data into LabVIEW?

[bmihura]

Right to the point:

I want a USB microphone in the $8 to $800 range with a very flat frequency response in the 20 Hz to 20 kHz range, and I want to use LabVIEW to analyze its data.

I can easily figure out how to do this in LabVIEW, but what are some good microphone choices for this where the manufacturer shows me a graph of its frequency response?

Possibly too many unrelated details:

I'm buying gold coins and I want to tell what percentage gold they are so I don't get duped by counterfeits. Currently I measure the coins with a micrometer, weigh them very accurately, and do image processing on them; but I want to take it a step further.... When I flip a pure gold coin in the air (e.g. Canadian Maple or Austrian Philharmonic), it has a nice ring to it. When I flip an impure gold coin in the air (e.g. American Eagle or South African Krugerrand), it has a different ring. I want LabVIEW and its signal processing functions to do the same thing my ears do.

[Matthew-B]

Hi bmihura,

Unfortunately, National Instruments doesn't recommend a specific USB microphone so I will let the community chime in with their recommendations. To be complete, we do sell some acoustic sensors but they are not USB.

Best Regards,

[ejkaiser]

You may want to check Brüel & Kjaer: http://www.bk.dk/

Why does it need to be a USB microphone? You won't get something well specified and reproducible in this field.

Cheers

Edgar

[bruce008]

That's quite the impressive site, thanks. I want USB so I can connect it to a laptop and make it portable.