Maybe she was just too transparent for this century ? If you're unfamiliar with her/it...there's some additional info below.

Broadly speaking..."The system is based on the idea of Prof. Johann Hinrich Peters and is an improvement of the Jecklin disc.

A free-field equalized pressure microphone is installed on each side of the reflective acrylic body.

The plexiglass plate is curved like the bow of a ship to avoid disruptive reflections at the dividing body.

This parabolic curvature connects the timbre and sound pressure level of both sides"

Back in 2006, GS contributor Dan_F posted (in link below):

'Here's an interesting (an IMHO better) alternative to discs, by the way: Clara (see attached pic). Somewhat like a dummy head, but fully speaker compatible. Excellent imaging, even with some top/bottom localisation. Uses omnis at ear-distance. I don't use it often, but it can be a bit of a secret weapon. E.g. it produced an excellent result in a concert where there was taped electronics from speakers along with live music. It's out of production and extremely hard to come by - but I happen to know the inventor, and if a sufficient number of people are interested, maybe we could try to reproduce a batch...'

In terms of visual intrusion, CLARA might be less offputting to cameras than a dummy head, Jecklin Disc, Soundfield, Schoeps KFM360 or SASS ...and featuring a pair of BLM syle pressure omnis embedded in the sides is a cool idea too !

https://curdt.home.hdm-stuttgart.de/...fonsysteme.pdf

Anyone had success with spaced omnis on small ensembles?

I'd welcome CLARA's re-appearance...alongside the other baffled contenders, I reckon she'd still have something to offer ?

Anyone feeling confident with a rectangular sheet of clear acrylic/plexiglass and a heat gun ....?

It's odd that anyone should have described or compared this to a baffled pair; technically speaking there is no baffle; it's simply a stereo pair of BLMs (a baffle, by definition, both blocks and absorbs sound; that's not what a boundary does).

The only thing that distinguishes it from a near-coincident pair of plexiglass BLMs is the curved join at the front which avoids edge diffractions at the leading edges, but it still has them at the top, bottom and rear edges.

Without having heard a direct comparison I would expect a pair of plexi boundaries in the shape of the Neumann GFM132 to have considerably less audible edge diffraction effects due to it's shape, which was arrived at for just that reason. I have used just such a pair, both for music and Nature recordings. Pic is of the setup I use for outdoors (with it's overall windscreen removed.).

Also, unlike the GFM132, the Clara appears to have the mics placed equidistant from the top, bottom and rear edges, which is the worst possible placement because it results in the edge diffractions 'adding up'; that's why the capsule in the GFM is placed so off-center - it puts it a different distance from each of it's three edges.

If the curved, common-plate aspect of it produces a slightly more binaural effect - who knows? One could certainly make such a thing with GFM-shaped boundaries with the curved common edge being along the GFM's longest side, but whether such a difficult-to-make boundary would be worth the effort, again - who knows?

The 'top/bottom' distinction from the non-parallel sides also seems to me backwards, as the human head is slightly more HF sensitive above the median plane, not below it. That's why mine are tilted back, rather than straight up.

The Clara was a clever design for it's time, but it came before additional research into 'free-space' BLM boundary edge diffraction effects had been thoroughly studied.

It would be interesting to find out if it was used on any published recordings of the era (late 1980’s ?), as well as answers to questions such as: were the microphones an integral part of the package-as-sold, and who made them ? Was there any sort of pinnae moulding included in the mic capsule area (the photo suggests it’s not a simple plane surface face) ? Was it considered an improvement on the Jecklin Disc, in terms of loudspeaker vs headphone playback compatibility ?

Hopefully someone who’s actually heard or used it can provide some fill-in data here.

I have a vague recall of it being featured on an audiophile record or CD compilation/comparison of miking techniques ?

The microphones clearly are Schoeps with a swivel insert between the capsule and the preamp body.

Yes they clearly have that Schoeps/MSTC74 kind of accessoried look. Maybe Schoeps teamed up with the CLARA inventor to provide a special-issue run of the swivel head hardware…and lend credibility to it as a ‘serious microphone pair deployment’ ? It would also tally with the reputation of the array as being ‘significantly expensive’ !

If it’s running on the BLM principle, as M50k outlined, then the plexiglass surface area would play a part in the LF cutoff…and it’s not a particularly large surface !

EDIT: I was right in my recall of it being featured on a microphone sampler CD, for the label Tacet…see link below:

https://m.blog.naver.com/PostView.na...gCode=external

The brief description of the mic in the CD sleeve notes: “ Clara--Clara, a variation on the dummy head, developed by the German scientist J. Hinrich Peters from Goettingen. For this recording tis curved plexi-glass form was fitted with two Bruel & Kjaer 4007 microphones”

I’m sure Earcatcher is right about the Schoeps preamp, swivel heads and omni capsule…it’s likely that the array went through a few trial iterations using various mfrs microphones ?

https://www.prestomusic.com/classica...IwzGQsKlodHiak

A Volume 2 of the same concept mic-sampler CD was released in 1997, also featuring Clara…the original Das Mikrofon CD was released in 1990/91…and as SACD in 2004.

https://tacet.de/en_us/product/das-mikrofon/

https://www.amazon.com.au/DAS-MIKROF.../dp/B00000IGX0

Just too silly for marginal benefit? Who would tolerate setting this up in front of an audience and orchestra and remaining straight faced?

If you’re selectively singling-out laughter fodder, there’s a few other candidates to add to the same lineup of suspects…all equally risible, and bearing names like Neumann, Crown and Schoeps. At least Clara has a degree of transparency to mitigate the bulk.