Focusrite 18i20 3rd Gen Issue

[Papanate]

Holy moly, you really know your stuff Drtechno. I've come to discover that mics needing phantom power work well with the interface i just bought, Focusrite 18i20. I have phantom hungry mics but my new mic, Electro-Voice RE20 does not require phantom and I am a bit nervous to add phantom power to that mic for fear of damaging it. The Electro-Voice RE 20 is a very popular mic and now I'm wondering what is everyone plugging their RE 20 in to. Thank you so much for your well thought out advice. I have some thinking to do. I mean that mic is not friends with that interface so I need to take a closer look at the interface part of the chain. Cheers. Bobby P

Phantom Power won’t hurt the RE20.

 

[rob aylestone]

If you damage a mic with phantom it was dreadfully designed. I never turn phantom off, and we used to have mixers with global phantom, and you just pulled the fader to stop the crack, plugged in and went. At an exhibition, years ago, i asked the head of technical at Canford Audio, who handled most BBC purchases if they had ever had a mic returned, damaged by phantom? He said no. Ive tested all my ribbons, and old precious ones and no harm happened. Physics says it could under certain circumstance, with lottery number risk, but we only know friends of friends, who live next door to a famous engineers dentist for the facts.

 

[drtechno]

If you damage a mic with phantom it was dreadfully designed. I never turn phantom off, and we used to have mixers with global phantom, and you just pulled the fader to stop the crack, plugged in and went. At an exhibition, years ago, i asked the head of technical at Canford Audio, who handled most BBC purchases if they had ever had a mic returned, damaged by phantom? He said no. Ive tested all my ribbons, and old precious ones and no harm happened. Physics says it could under certain circumstance, with lottery number risk, but we only know friends of friends, who live next door to a famous engineers dentist for the facts.

Only times I was requested that an xlr should not have phantom power running was one time I had to di a pedal steel that the musician made a non-isolated DI. Other than that, I never had a mic that self destructed by phantom. However, I always find it curious why there is no DC coupled mic preamps on interfaces. Because dynamic mics sound better on them than these capacitor coupled phantom mics.