« Reply #6 on: December 11, 2005, 09:26:35 AM »
I have got the Sennheiser's MKE2 from Microphone Madness [/url](http://www.microphonemadness.com/products/mmhlsomsenmi.htm). I am using it with a minidisc (Sony MZ NH-1). They are suppossed to be balanced and come with "mogami" cables, but I don't know if they are two or three wired design. Really, I don't know even what is two or three wired design. Can somebody, please, explain this concept?
Another question is if they can be powered with phantom power, since they come with a stereo 1/8 minijack. The originals MKE2 can, so, what modifications should I do to have them phantom powered?. Thanks a lot.
Do *not* apply phantom power unless you know what you're doing!!! All of these small mics use low (battery level) voltages. They may run off phantom, but you'll need some sort of adapter (voltage dropper, plus transformer of some kind usually) to make it work.
What are you trying to do? I would try them first with "plug in power", set your MD to "manual level" and "mic sens" to "lo". If they overload/brickwall with this, try a battery box (www.soundprofessionals.com is a good starting point). If you've still got problems, open up the connector. How many wires are there *from each mic*? If there are two (eg. shield plus core wire), it is two wire. If there are three (eg., shield plus red plus blue, or something like that), then they are three wire. If you've got three wire, you can use a battery box like I show at: www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~mannr/AT853.
Enjoy...
Richard
Sorry for being so late to answer. I am recording violin rehearsals and classical music concerts, and I am getting pretty recordings in these situations. However, when recording very quiet ambient sounds, the results are worse, since there is too much "self noise". I have recently upgraded from another MIcrophone Madness microphone (MM-BSM-1) with worse self noise specifications, but I haven't notice it in the results. So, my main problem is not overloading, but the self noise. I think that, since the MKE2 is a phantom powered microphone, I would get better recordings with a phanton unit. What do you think about?
What are you recording to? Minidisc or Nomad Jukebox or ?. Perhaps your noise is coming from this. Just how quiet are these "ambient" sounds? Are you trying to record crowds/traffic/public spaces or quiet nature scenes? More info would help isolate your problems, be it mic, pre, or recording device.
Richard
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Mics: Sennheiser MKE2002 (dummy head), Studio Projects C4, AT825 (unmodded), AT822 franken mic (x2), AT853(hc,c,sc,o), Senn. MKE2, Senn MKE40, Shure MX183/5, CA Cards, homebrew Panasonic and Transsound capsules.
Pre/ADC: Presonus Firepod & Firebox, DMIC20(x2), UA5(poorly-modded, AD8620+AD8512opamps), VX440
Recorders: Edirol R4, R09, IBM X24 laptop, NJB3(x2), HiMD(x2), MD(1).
** This individual has moved to user "illconditioned" **