With an internal 'head amp' and a special Royer-designed toroidal transformer in the R-122 MKII, the necessity of owning an expensive, super high gain pre-amp is gone. The MKII's utility is further expanded with the addition of a switchable -15 dB pad for recording close in to loud sources--drums, guitar and bass amps. With the pad switched in, the R-122 MKII has a 2 dB lower output level than the Royer's original (non-phantom-powered) R-121 microphone.

The proximity effect, or a boost in the low frequencies, caused when any cardioid or Royer's Figure-of-8 pattern microphone is placed close to a sound source is reduced with the new built-in, switchable -6dB/octave high pass filter that rolls off low frequencies starting at 100Hz.