Chances are , you ’ve hear a difference between a National Public Radio ( NPR ) show likeAll Things Consideredand some other radiocommunication talk show . NPR just has that sure auditory sensation .

One reason is that NPR hosts lean to have acertain beat . But the signature strait is also technical . The public media news outletCurrentdescribes NPR ’s key signature audio as “ crisp and hopeful . ” Last year , its podcast , The Pub , interview an audio engineer to figure out how exactly NPR creates its one - of - a - kind audio style .

Part of the upshot comes from using specific microphones . NPR is a radio scheduling powerhouse , and it uses top - of - the - melody Neumann U87 microphone . These microphones are specifically tuned to make NPR voices clearer to multitude mind in their railway car by filtering out very low frequency ( below 250 cycle per second ) .

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

“ The reason NPR come to this standard — and this was decades ago — was because most of our listeners are consuming in an car or with something else in the background knowledge , ” audio engineer Shawn Fox tellsCurrent . “ Back in the daytime , and even to some degree now , you undulate down those window and find out those grim growl frequencies . We wanted our voices to get above that so that they could be clear , undecided and perceivable to improve our storytelling . ”

The studios are also crafted to assure high - quality audio . “ We have a very low - reverberant studio , and we make trusted that there are n’t a lot of solid wall , ” Fox says . “ Most of our facility are all centrally located in spite of appearance , right in the centre of our newsroom , so we ensure they ’re keep apart so you do n’t get a line anything else but the soul talk . ”

For more sweet - sound sound recording nerdiness , check out thefull conversation .

[ h / tCurrent ]

Know of something you call up we should cover?Email us attips@mentalfloss.com .