C300: C300 MkI Audio - to use power or not to use power?

New_Zealand

New_Zealand

Veteran
I have the Sennheiser K6 which has power but the question is would it be better to have a battery in the mic and run off of it or use the camera power? I know it will drain a bit of power from the C300 battery but with traveling to China would it be best just to leave AA battery home?
 
I'd run the mic off your C300's battery; just one last thing to worry about (and one less type of battery to charge) during a busy time. I haven't quantified it, but the draw isn't that much.

However, I'd bring a few AA batteries along in case something goes wrong (like you end up having only one working camera battery), or if you need/want to record some audio-only bits, or if you want to stick the mic on a second/backup camera that doesn't have phantom power.

That's my take, at least. Have a great trip!
 
New_Zealand said:
When you say "headroom on the mic" you mean? Thanks
Click to expand...

Well now I can't find the specs page where I saw that but I was researching a mic last year that could use phantom or battery power and the maximum input levels were higher when using phantom power. In all honesty, unless you're shooting something very loud, this will not be a factor anyways.
 
You didn't ask so I may be off base here but objectively the Sennheiser K6/ME-64/66/67 is a pretty bad sounding mic. I would suggest you buy or rent a better mic if you can. I have them all (the K6 and capsules) and my $175.00 AudioTechnica AT-875r blows the K6/ME-66 out of the water in sound quality and costs a lot less. Back in the early 90s, when cameras like Betacams had horrible analog sound circuitry, nobody noticed how crappy the K6/ME sounded other than pro sound mixers but today when everything sounds so much better, a dinosaur that never really sounded objectively good sounds even worse.
 
Generally those shotguns with an option with internal powering with an AA do perform a little better with phantom power instead.

But in general it doesn't really matter because:

a) they're low end mics
b) they're just being used as on camera mic, which is just for scratch reference and never production audio

So not a big deal either way, do whatever.
 
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