Three wire power does NOT require the phantom adapters.
he is right here
You can run the miniXLR terminated mics directly into a suitable 3 wire battery box or preamp. Not many people offer them but I believe Chris Church can make you one if you wish.
he is right here. Some where around here you can find plans for making a 3 wire battery box. I know "Sanjay" (don't know if that's still his name) did make a few a bit back
The phantom adapters do nothing but add bulk, although if you've got them you might as well use them. There's nothing inherently bad about them (other than the bulk) but not worth seeking out IMO.
they do add bulk. But they do do more than that. Like nameloc01 said The adaptors step dowm the 48v to a smaller usable voltage.
if some how you ran the 853's into phantom power you would kill them.
Edit: Also, there's nothing "inferior" about the "low sensitvity mod" offered by SP vs. the 4.7K mod invented by Chris Church. It's the same thing. One might not like the fact that they copied it (then again, it's not as if Chris patented it and I doubt he gets rich doing it for people, seems like he's doing you a favor by offering the mod at the price he does), but it performs exactly the same because it is the same. I'd suggest if someone is buying a new set of mics from SP they might as well have SP do it rather than wait for the mics to arrive from New Jeresey only to ship them off to Canada.
from where i am standing i don't see why anyone would do this mod when you could just get a good 3 wire battery box made. Hell, with my 933's a lot of the time i'm looking for more gain
The main reason to do my mod is simple you want to reduce the size of your gear. The second thing to remember is three wire also reduces the output by 12.5 db. My mod reduces the output of the mics by 10.5 db. And you can use my mics after the mod with a standard plug in power input and not have to use a battery box.
For example when using my mics with a R-09 you dont need a battery box to power the mics you can use the 5 volts of plug in power and still have the same performance of a 9 volt battery box. And last but not least my preamp does more then just a regular battery box it adds flavor and warmth to the signal.
Thats something you dont get with a regular three wire battery box. But for the people that want to keep there mics stock I make a 9100 with my 4.7k mod built in so in situations where you need more gain you can switch my mod off and run the mics standard 2 wire and get 30 db of over all gain above standard three wire Or conversly turn on my mod and get 20 db of gain + very high spl handling.
My question is why would someone not run my mod if they were going to stealth with the mics they use?
Chris