If you’ve been lucky to use one of Yaesu’s showpiece products like the FT9000 or the Quadra Amplifier, you’ll know that this company is capable of producing top quality radio gear. A couple of months ago, I reviewed the extraordinary FT9000 transceiver thanks to a week long ‘lend’ of the rig from a mate in Brizzy and received numerous audio reports from stations around Oz. While these were glowing, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like with a Yaesu MD-200 Hi-Fi Desktop Microphone rather than the standard hand held version which was a standard feature of the radio.

Two weeks back, I convinced my radio buddy (A Yaesu distributor in VK4) to loan me the FT9000 for further experimentation and took the opportunity to rig up a MD-200A8X which I’d purchased from a supplier in the USA for near $500 AUS. Although a romantic weekend with the FT9000 is a dream come true for any DX’er, my primary aim was to review the performance of the MD-200 and provide some feedback to users of ‘11m DX Activities OZ’.

In my opinion, it’s always difficult to comment on a mic’s performance as we are dependent on another’s interpretation of what they consider to be our natural voice and/ or good or bad audio. For this reason, I always use the same stations for audio reports — those who know me personally such as 43AT162 Brett or 43FR155 Dave — who I know will provide fair and honest feedback. After all, unless you hear it for yourself, you are relying on what others say about your speech quality and experience tells you just never know what the agendas of some operators are. Nevertheless, I do glean some info when I receive consistent unsolicited reports of “good audio” and use this as well to mould my definitive opinion of a mic.

To me, the MD-200A8X sounds like a commercial broadcasting mic which makes it awesome for DX. According to the accompanying manual, “it employs a studio-quality Polyethylene Teraphthalate Film Dynamic element, optimised for high fidelity SSB operation, allowing faithful reproduction of the operator's voice during operation with negligible distortion.”

Going by most of the audio reports I received, the stock MD-200 element is a good match for my nasally voice and sounds about as natural as SSB is capable of doing. With the Heil HC-5 element, however, the MD-200A8X microphone works even better! As a matter of fact, there’s a remarkable difference between the standard Yaesu Ultra-High-Fidelity microphone element and the HC-5 with the latter providing a broader spectrum with more high tones and producing more PEP output power.

On the bottom of the MD-200A8X you’ll find a micro switch which makes it possible to switch between elements. In my opinion, this switch should be on top of the base, rather than underneath it. It could also be a bit larger and more clearly labelled. Despite these design blemishes, the micro switch is one of the great features of the mic as far as I’m concerned! When I asked for audio reports and switched the MD-200 between A (standard element) and B (HC-5), all of them chose B.

Unveiled at the 2001 Dayton Hamvention with the FT9000, the MD-200A8X does have lots of low frequency response (almost too much). It also lacks a nice peak in the ‘presence’ area even when the mic element is adjusted for max treble although with adjustments that you can make in the FT 9000 menu settings, the mic sounds okay.

In some forums, the MD-200A8X is criticised as being far too expensive but compared to the Electro-Voice RE-20 it is really not that bad. Straight from the box, the MD-200 has the looks of a thoroughbred and makes all those other stem mics look rather boring. It is constructed using a heavy-duty aluminium die-cast base and support frame, with a rubber shock absorber for the mic element housing to dampen low frequency vibrations. With a sleek black finish, I love the design, look and feel which I rate right up there with my fave mic of all time, the Heil Heritage. The MD-200 however, has a heavier base and is more stable.

Operation wise, the MD-200A8X is easy to use, with buttons not spaced to close together or too far apart. It has the usual PTT and LOCK switches plus UP and DOWN scan buttons and there is a red led which illuminates when in TX mode. This ON-AIR led, however, will not work with the FT-1000, FT-1000 D, FT-990 and FT-840.

Weighing in at around one kilogram, the MD-200A8X comes with a coiled lead with a modular plug on one end and a standard 8 pin plug at the other end. There are 2 mic sockets on the base of the microphone, modular and standard.

I have tried several mics with various MP series radios I have used in the past (My first about 4 years ago with 43SD121 and 133 in Sydney) but this is by far the best. This mic, along with the built-in audio tailoring of the MKV series, is all I need for great sounding audio from these rigs. I have tried going the external equalizer route with an FT1000 previously and have used various ‘third-party’ mics and while there’s nothing wrong with that approach, it just adds more clutter to the desktop (I know 43FR155 would disagree).

Specifications

Microphone Element: Dynamic
Frequency Range: 30-17000 Hz.
Sensitivity: -62 dB (1 kHz, 0 dB = 1 V/1 pa)
Impedance: 600 Ohms
Dimensions: 4.7x11.4x5 inches (120x290x125mm)

As far as I’m concerned, the MD-200A8X is an example of that old saying, “if something looks right, then it is right”. With this in mind, I highly recommend this microphone, with the addition of a Heil HC-5 element, to anyone using a Yaesu transceiver.

73

Darren
43SD054/ 43FR010
Admin Team