Topic: microphone power questions

[saint-martin]

About this phantom, or external power, for the mics. That means what, exactly - external to the recorder, i.e. the microphone has its own battery? Or external to the microphone, i.e. you have the mic plugged into the recorder and a separate battery unit plugged into the mic?

[F.O.Bean]

phantom means that you run your mics and they are powered from anything but the mic

my chain would look like this

akg 480's(mics) >> v3 (phantom ON)(preamp/ad) >> jb3(recorder)

or a batt bow would werk

that would look like this if my preamp/ad didnt have phatom power on it

480's >> batt box >> v3 >> jb3

[Brian Skalinder]

Phantom power is external to the microphones, provided by a source outside the microphones themselves.  Usually, the preamp provides phantom power.  But there are also devices that provide just phantom power and do not act as a preamp (Denecke PS-2, for example).  Phantom power is usually 48v and follows a specific standard for how the power is routed through XLR connectors.

To further complicate things, there are also battery boxes - like those used with the Sound Professionals, Audio Technica, or other types of mini-microphones - which are external to the microphone and provide power to the mics, but do not provide *phantom* power.  For our type of recording, the recorders do not provide power to the microphones.

So, there are a bunch of potential setups depending on the microphones and other gear you have:

Mics (with internal power) > recorder

Mics > battery box (external power, but not *phantom* power) > recorder

Mics > phantom power box > recorder

Mics > preamp (with phantom power) > recorder

Mics > preamp / ADC (with phantom power) > recorder