I finally figured out how to power the Sennheiser MKH-104, 404, and 804 from 48 V phantom power (P48) which is very common on professional and many prosumer mixers and recorders. The MKH-X04 series requires -8V for operation. Please note that some portable recorders do not generate P48 even on their XLR connectors. This will not work with P12 or P24 inputs. It works like a charm on P48 inputs (at least from Mackie, Yamaha, and Sound Devices). Thanks to everyone for their input and assistance.
Month: March 2009
Microphone Powering Schema
In addition to my business of transferring tapes, I also record a few community groups for fun. Someone recently gave me an older Sennheiser MKH-804 interference tube (“shotgun”) microphone. Finding information on how to connect it proved more difficult than expected.
In the 1960s, transistorized microphones from AKG, Neumann, Schoeps, and Sennheiser became available. There are several niches of early microphone powering that continued on for many years. Perhaps the easiest way to look at it is backwards.
An unorthodox dual-WAN approach
Since moving to Aurora in the fall of 2004, and going into audio tape restoration full-time, I have struggled with the correct mix of connectivity. My rather unique needs require that I have upload speeds as fast as reasonably possible.