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Gear / Technical Help => Ask The Tapers => Topic started by: Cheesecadet on April 04, 2018, 04:28:08 PM

Title: Battery powered mic used with preamp ?
Post by: Cheesecadet on April 04, 2018, 04:28:08 PM
Does anyone know if it is possible to use a battery powered mic (with battery installed) into a preamp like a Naiant Tinybox or PIPsqueak before going into a recorder and that would. It negatively effect sound?

I ask because I have an old vintage mic that has relatively low output even when running mic in and I would like to have a clean gain stage instead of running Hi Plus on my dr70d deck ( which has way too much noise).

Thx
Title: Re: Battery powered mic used with preamp ?
Post by: seethreepo on April 04, 2018, 05:48:01 PM
As long as there is no phantom power going the other way I dont see any problem. but there are smarter folks than me here   :-\
Title: Re: Battery powered mic used with preamp ?
Post by: Cheesecadet on April 08, 2018, 03:55:44 PM
As long as there is no phantom power going the other way I dont see any problem. but there are smarter folks than me here   :-\

So the Naiant Tinybox and PIPsqueak are both preamps that provide powering to mics ans well as gain.  If these preamps are typically sending power to mics and I add a battery powered mic to the input that is not bad for the mic or create any other problems? 

The pres do not provide +48 phantom power but they are still sending power to the pre's input (thus mics downstream).
Title: Re: Battery powered mic used with preamp ?
Post by: IMPigpen on April 09, 2018, 10:01:44 AM
I'm not sure about the Tinybox and PIPsqueak particulars.  But like seethreepo said, as long as you can turn off phantom power, you have no problem running battery powered mics into a preamp.  20 years ago I used to run a pair of AKG C1000s that each had a 9V internal battery and I ran them into a Beyer MV-100 preamp with the 48V phantom turned off.
Title: Re: Battery powered mic used with preamp ?
Post by: goodcooker on April 09, 2018, 10:46:10 AM

If you are talking about using a battery powered mic and applying P48 to it since you can't turn off mic power you SHOULD be okay. MOST mics will ignore power they don't need - with the exception of ribbon mics.

If you are talking about Plug In Power from a mini input I wouldn't worry about it at all. I used a battery powered mic with my old MD and could not turn off the PIP  and never had any problems.

YMMV of course...