What kind of jack is this?

StarNet

New member
So, I really thought I'd seen them all, that is until I met this sucker.

mic.jpg

It's a microphone and the jack body is a quarter inch, but it's got two rings and the tip. It's too big for a regular stereo quarter inch, as the two rings make it is too long to fit normally -- thus my loss as to how to connect it.

Anyone ever seen anything like this, or more importantly -- know what is the name for this kind of connection?

Your input is highly appreciated!
 
1/4" TRRS. It's certainly unusual. The only time I've seen one is when I photoshopped one as a joke. But reality turns out to be stranger than fiction. What's on the other end?
 
What is more interesting is the hinge to angle it. If it's for a mic, then I'd say it is probably a tube mic and goes between the mic and its power supply.
 
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First, let me thank you for your replies.

Photoshopping an extra ring, that's ripe! Funny, I guess -- but none of those shenanigans here.

I have taken another picture so you can see the microphone in all of its glory. It is one piece with the hinge and spring designed to hold the microphone at the desired angle (plugged in to God knows what).

You would think stereo signal plus mic, right? That's what I would like to think but -- huh? That makes no sense...

Anyway, I thought I would ask to see if ANYONE has ever seen this, because I've got a ton of years under my belt and never have I seen this, and heck -- I would love to fire it up...

The full Monty:
mic2.jpg

Chili -- I never thought about power. That might be the ticket. Two for power and one for the mic signal. Now, that makes sense. I guess it will take what's left of my life to find what in tarnation has that kind of mic configuration.
 
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More likely one for positive DC voltage and two for hot/cold balanced, which leaves the shield as shared ground for both.
 
I bought this cable in amazon but in female pin the positive and ground is jointed and connected in one pin. Another is negative and remaining one pin is connected with rod.
 
I've circulated this in some of the places I inhabit and nobody has ever seen one. Plenty remember similar, but the most common comments suggest it's a one-off. The mic section is very much like the Eagle ones of the early 70s, but the jack end suggests something constructed as a special, as 4 circuit jacks were not common then, or indeed now. 4 circuit jacks exist in NATO aircraft and other specialised equipment but that looks like a Japanese product, and the connector looks very similar to Japanese electronic construction at the time. One suggestion was an early TOA product - they did lots of conference kit back then.
 
In the 60s 4-pin output on mics was fairly common. The transformer had low impedance balanced and high impedance unbalanced taps, so one pin was ground, two were hot/cold lo-Z balanced and the last one was hi-Z unbalanced. You'd order or build cables to use the appropriate outputs and terminate as needed.
 
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