Topic: how does preamp battery level affect sound

[SBW]

I'm new to this stuff and I'm just starting recording stuff with ca-14s with a ca9100 preamp and I was wondering, what happens to the sound quality if the 9V battery gets low?  Should I be using a rechargeable battery or should I just use regular batteries and toss them after X number of hours?

Thx

S

[stevetoney]

As far as differences between the battery types and how it affects your sound, I wouldn't think it would matter whether it was a rechargeable or regular. 

But to answer your main question...yes for sure, you should determine how many hours of run-time to expect from your battery (give Chris Church a shout...he knows) and then just change out for new batteries or recharge before that point in time.

As far as what happens if you let the battery drain down, I'm not sure about the 9100, but one of several things happens to my preamps; my levels will slowly start to fade downward, the sound will start to distort, or the output just drops immediately to zero.  Sometimes when the levels start fading, the sound won't distort for awhile after the levels start to die off, but at some point they both happen simultaneously...sound distorts and the levels continue to die off.

[F.O.Bean]

As far as the 9100 goes, I ran a regular alkaline energizer and got 75 hrs of continuous gain"!!! I would say toss each battery after around 40 hrs just to be safe. That's what I do anyway!