MKH416 very disapointed

Ted Spencer said:
Thanks. Sounds nice and scary re: ribbons! Happily I've never had occasion to worry about it. I use RCA 44s, 77s, Coles, Royers, etc. fairly frequently for music recording...

What kinds/brands of preamps/recording devices use T-power? What kinds/brands of mics require it?

I'm thinking this might be part of Nagra-world, which I have almost no firsthand experience with...
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Yep, it harks back to Nagra. Phantom is a relatively new powering method and many manufacturers used to market t-powered mics - Sennheiser, Schoeps, Neumann to name three - and Sennheiser and Schoeps still do. Even today you can buy a brand new Schoeps CMC4 preamp that runs on 12-volt t-power (they call it "parallel power") and add a MK41 hyper capsule to make up a CMC441 that is acoustically identical to the legendary CMC641 boom mic. To power it, Sound Devices 302 and 442 mixers, among a number of products from other manufacturers, have switch selectible phantom/t-power settings on each input. PSC makes an inline converter that lets you use t-power mics with any 48 volt phantom source. http://www.professionalsound.com/specs/barrels.htm
 
Thanks for all the cool info. Now I'm no longer ignorant of T-power. One more chip on the knowledge pile...

Regarding phantom power being "recent", it goes back at least to the late 60s/early 70s, which is only 'recent' for some of us... : )

That was the point when all the now-cherished Neumann tube condenser studio mics (along with AKG, Telefunken and most everybody else) either went from tube to transistor-based electronics or got discontinued. So the U67 became the U-87, the U49 got axed, the U-47 became the U-47 fet, etc. Thus was born (a few years later) the world we live in today: where Telefunken ELAM-251s, which were practically 'worthless' in 1967, run upwards of $25K.

But I digress...
 
Captain Pierce said:
If "Telefunken" isn't the name of a German funk band, it should be...

But I digress even farther... :D
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telefunken

They are a pioneering German electronics company, dating all the way back to 1903 in the early days of radio. Most notable to recording studio rats like me were its legendary microphone designs, some of which were later rebadged as Neumann (U-47) and AKG (The ELAM-251 became the AKG C-12) brands.

Those two 50's era designs (ELAM-251 and U-47) are arguably the most famous and (now) valuable studio microphones of all time. Original U-47s (either Telefunken or Neumann) in restored condition fetch upwards of US $10K, AKG C-12s a few thousand more, and ELAM-251s have been known to change hands for as much as $30K. I've used all three (and own a U-47), and they are worthy of every bit of the hype surrounding them.

An american company bought the USA rights to the Telefunken name and logo in 2000, and has been making reproductions of many of these designs ever since. I haven't tried 'em, but am told that they are very faithful copies. Telefunken USA (recently renamed Telefunken Elektroakustik) U-47s, ELAM-251s and C-12s run between about $10-15K list.

http://www.telefunken-elektroakustik.com/products/mics

Gotta stop all this digressin'...

: )
 
I wonder if the OP will come back and say ______ was the problem and/or ______ fixed it.

I hate these threads where people ask for help... get it... and then disappear. At least post a reply/conclusion to the thread... making the information contained in the thread valuable to people who may search the same question in the future.

It's rude to bash ANY product... from any manufacturer... with a thread title that implies sub-par performance... when it's an unrelated issue... or worse, human error... and then once the mistake is realized... simply leave that thread unfinished as a fly speck on that product for all eternity.

There's a couple of these threads a month on average... Hey I'm just sayin'...
 
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Ted Spencer said:
Well, I'll have to confess that after several decades in the field I have yet to hear of T-power until today. Maybe that makes me an ignoramus, maybe not.

So...could you please 'splain me what it is?
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I see the explanation of T-power (also called AB power) has already been given.

It was invented in the early days of location recording where you could not practically get 48V phantom from batteries - DC/DC converters did not exist and you had to carry batteries of the correct voltage with you.

This was in the days of the early NAGRA portable recorders.

12V was sent down the signal cables and kept out of the audio chain by blocking capacitors.

In the early days, T-power was the only way of powering condenser microphones on location and 48V was never used for this purpose.

T-power has one big advantage over phantom power in that the cable screen is not used for power, so you don't get crackling in the audio due to poor screening on old cables.

There used to be microphones by many manufacturers using T-power - but, since the introduction of small, efficient DC/DC converters, the studio 48V standard has become the norm for all uses and the only microphone currently on the market using T-power is the MKH 416T (also available in 48V phantom, of course, as the MKH 416 P48).

I hope this explains the whys and wherefores OK.
 
Ted Spencer said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telefunken

They are a pioneering German electronics company, dating all the way back to 1903 in the early days of radio. Most notable to recording studio rats like me were its legendary microphone designs, some of which were later rebadged as Neumann (U-47) and AKG (The ELAM-251 became the AKG C-12) brands.
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I think you'll find that Telefunken did not design the mics at all - Telefunken badged mics were OEM products. Certainly the Neumann Telefunken mics were Neumann designs sold by Neumann to Telefunken and badged as such.

It's misleading to suggest it was the other way round.


In the same way, the very first Sennheiser microphones were OEM products for other companies, before Sennheiser started marketing them inder their own name.

Telefunken were a manufacturer of excellent professional tape recorders and other electronics - the mics were OEM from microphone specialists.
 
MattinSTL said:
I wonder if the OP will come back and say ______ was the problem and/or ______ fixed it.

I hate these threads where people ask for help... get it... and then disappear.
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I totally agree with you here.

Very often, with a moan about any product like this, it turns out to be a rare faulty unit, problems with other equipment, or user finger trouble.

Such a post really needs a proper conclusion so we all know the fix.
 
John Willett said:
I think you'll find that Telefunken did not design the mics at all - Telefunken badged mics were OEM products. Certainly the Neumann Telefunken mics were Neumann designs sold by Neumann to Telefunken and badged as such.

It's misleading to suggest it was the other way round.


In the same way, the very first Sennheiser microphones were OEM products for other companies, before Sennheiser started marketing them inder their own name.

Telefunken were a manufacturer of excellent professional tape recorders and other electronics - the mics were OEM from microphone specialists.
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I'm sorry - you're absolutely right. I reversed the situation, going from my (faulty) memory. Neumann and AKG designed and built the mics, which were initially badged as Telefunkens. Both companies later took over the products themselves. The U-47 was otherwise unchanged, but the conversion of the ELAM-251 to the C-12 evidently involved more than just the name. While there's no disputing that the C-12 is a superb mic, the ELAM-251 is in a league of its own...

Otherwise, I stand corrected, and thank you for doing so.
 
I'll also point out that T-power travels on the audio circuit (pins 2 and 3) while phantom power goes between each audio leg and ground (pins 2 and 1, and pins 3 and 1, with the same positive voltage on both pins 2 and 3). This means that phantom power is not seen by the audio output of a balanced sourced, thus, the name "phantom". This is why you can plug in an dynamic moving-coil microphone into a phantom powered input without altering the performance of the microphone. Virtually all professional mic preamps and mixing consoles with preamps have 48V phantom power. T-power has always been relatively obscure, limited primarily to portable recorders and specialty mixers.

One reason for the decline of T-power is that it travels on the audio circuit, so any noise on the T-power voltage will go directly into the preamp and will be amplified along with the microphone's signal. This was not a problem in the Nagra days of D-cell batteries and linear power supplies, but modern DC-DC converters have noise that make it more difficult for manufactures to provide clean power for T-powered microphones, which is one reason this feature is more and more scarce. Any noise on phantom voltage is in phase between pins 2 and 3, and therefore completely cancelled out as it goes through a balanced input.

Glen Trew
 
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