23v Phantom Power?

Lame Thrower

Lame Thrower

New member
I was wondering if anyone could enlighten me about the disadvantages of phantom power with too low voltage.

I'm the (proud?) owner of a Behringer mixer, that I bought awhile ago without researching enough. I just discovered the other day that it only supplies 23v phantom power!

I use it with an MXL v67m, which sounds good, and a pair of ECM 8000s. It's very difficult for me to get enough gain out of the ECMs without a rediculous amount of hiss. At first I just thought it was that the ECMs are sensitive omnis and my computer was too loud in the background, but now I'm curious if the substandard phantom power might contribute to this.

Any thoughts are appreciated.
 
Believe me, I'd like to, but funds dictate that I have to live with it for awhile.

By the way Chessrock, I figured out that it was Chessparov that I was confusing you with. So I guess I'm not quite as dumb as I thought. An easy mistake I guess.
 
Hmmm... I guess my computer is just too noisy then.

Do you have any idea what happens when phantom power is insufficient?
 
I'm no pro for DAMN sure, but my guess is that 23v won't matter much for most mics in an already less than perfect environment but if you hook up multiple condensors your mics will feel the drain.

I understand the funds thing so I wouldn't worry about it much but I would definitely upgrade something in the near future even if it's just a matter of buying a decent pre with phantom power and by-passing the board pre.

(the above is an educated guess and in no way is guaranteed to be hard fact:cool: )



heylow
Rock Jedi/Indie Snob
www.heylowsoundsystem.net
 
ok don't mark my words 100%, but it has to do with the element of a condensor. Electrets don't need as much juice to get them flowing as the phantom power is only used in the board, and true condensors need the phantom power to charge the diaphragm therefore requiring more juice. I know thats along the right lines.
 
Quote: I'm no pro for DAMN sure, but my guess is that 23v won't matter much for most mics in an already less than perfect environment but if you hook up multiple condensors your mics will feel the drain.

Now that you mention it, the hiss did seem more prominant when I was running the ECM8000 and V67 simultaneously on acoustic guitar. I had the V67 on channel one and the ECM on channel 2, maybe I will experiment and reverse them.

Quote: I understand the funds thing so I wouldn't worry about it much but I would definitely upgrade something in the near future even if it's just a matter of buying a decent pre with phantom power and by-passing the board pre.

Yep, I'm saving up for the RNMP as we speak.

Thanks for the info everyone.
 
Which Behringer mixer only puts out 23V phantom? I just measured a couple of my MX602s (which I use only as headphone mixers), and they put out a very solid 48V. And they are just abouth the cheapest mixer on the planet. If Behringer has others that don't do real 48V, that'd be very good to know.

You're right, though; 23V phantom is way too low for proper performance of an externally-polarized condenser mic. Some condensers contain internal voltage-doubler style supplies to take the 48V up to 60V or higher. But not many in our price range do that! Most just use the phantom voltage directly on the diaphragm, so the lower the phantom voltage, the lower the signal-to-noise ratio for the mic.

A lot of electret condensers (internally polarized) just need enough power to run the FET that does the impedance conversion, and can run down to just a few volts.
 
Skippy, it's the MXB1002. It's only been out for a few months I think. I got it because it has the ability to run on two 9v batteries, which I thought might be cool for doing some field recording with a portable MiniDisc recorder.
 
Ahhh! Thanks- I hadn't even thought of that one. With that, then, you're going to be stuck using dynamics or electrets- the low-end true condensers aren't going to like that low phantom voltage very much.
 
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