Had a bit of a panic yesterday when I unplugged my Soundelux condenser and plugged my old Beyer M260 into the same cable. I turned around to see the phantom power button on the TG2 engaged and my heart sank into my stomach. It was on for about a good 10 seconds when I switched the phatom power button OFF on the unit. I then proceeded to check signal with the same chain (minus the phantom) and to my surprise, the signal was full and beautiful.

What gives?

Thankful,
J.

I swear I saw Fletcher comment once that people's beliefs that phantom power would kill any ribbon mic are false. Now I thought to myself, which ones will get damaged but I never asked. So I guess you have one that phantom power won't kill.

Well I'm sure as hell on gonna do it again to see if you're right. stike

Fletcher, you out there? Will you comment?

j.

If you stab yourself, you might not die, either.

Excuse me?

Are you saying that phantom power slowly "stabs" the micrphone until it can't take it anymore and dies? That seems...weird.

j.

I've heard that you CAN damage a ribbon, but it's a worst case scenario. I've also heard that some ribbons, maybe older mics, are more sensitive to this. Than again, I dont' know much. I do know that just last night I tripped over the lead to my R84 and knocked it on the floor and that can definitely hurt a mic. I actually yelled out involuntarily in anquish as I felt hit hit my arm and heard it clunk on the floor...felt kind of embarassed afterwards. Luckily it seems to be OK.

On a side note, isn't it supposed to be bad for mics to unplug them when leaving phantom power on?

I was led to believe it will only kill the ribbon if you have a short in your mic cable, something to do with the very nature of how phantom power works and how that interacts with the ribbon when the cable is incorrectly wired or shorted. I'm no technical expert though........

Under normal circumstances with properly wired cables and mics, you will not harm your ribbon mics with phantom. Same goes for plugging in and unplugging mics with phantom engaged. On the other hand, the surest fire way to damage your mics is to patch them into pres on a patchbay with phantom enabled. I saw a 414eb with a CK12 capsule die this way...

that's right... in a TRS patchbay there is the potential for the tip to touch both the ring and sleeve at the same time, or both the tipn and ring at the same time, as it slides in.

at an XLR mic connector, there is no such potential.. all three pins are isolated from each other and go in at the same time.


With a properly wired mic and system there is NO proeblme with leaving phantom on all the time on everything.

and that's just what every studio in the world did for many many years.

Phantom powering places the same DC voltage on both signal lines of a balanced connection. Thus, if any microphone is not "looking for" phantom power, it will not see it. The balancing of the signal effectively cancels the current in a balanced mic. If there is a short, however, it may send a shock into the microphone. That is how ribbons are damaged.

You all are wonderful. Thanks for the lesson.

J.

I could have SWORN that I read a couple different places that you should turn phantom power on before plugging in the mic as to "avoid power spikes". If this is false info I need to know cause I make it a point to do that

It only kills oldschool ribbons. Old RCAs and the such.