My practice is to consider ALL ribbon mics vulnerable to phantom
damage, to keep them all safe, even though if properly wired
hopefully none of them will be damaged unless there is a wiring fault.
Kinda like not dropping ANY babies, even if the one you hold may not
get hurt when you drop her. Just sensible practice. Ignore at your
peril (and the baby's!).
Image this: Your $2,000 mic (or a rented or borrowed one) is up on a
stand at a concert, and a lady in spike heels takes a misstep even
though you ran the cable carefully and taped it down. Heel pierces
shield, shorts inner conductor to shield, and you hear a POP in the
monitor... lost recording AND expensive repair, just because the
phantom was on unnecessarily... (or you are in the field and a
critter decides to take a bite out of your cable...)
Believe it or not, I have dreams like this occasionally... Just don't
do it! No phantom on any ribbons. If your mixer (or recorder, etc.)
has global phantom, either get a better one or don't use ribbons.
Sorry, I know we are off topic but it is all valuable to know.
<L>
On Nov 16, 2007, at 6:41 AM, Richard Humphries wrote:
> I read recently that only _some_ ribbon mics are damaged by phantom
> power. It has something to do with how the transformer within the mic
> is tapped. Since I don't own any ribbons the details are fuzzy in my
> mind. I think I read this on the micbuilders list.
>
>
> The point is only that you may not need to worry about the recorder
> passing phantom power depending on which ribbon mic you own. But I'd
> check with the manufacturer just to be sure.
>
>
> -Richard
|