Mic And Preamp Impedence

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bdam123

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I was reading about impedance (still confused) but from what I gathered it is preferred that the input impedance of the preamp be about ten times the output impedance of the mic. I'm running a Telefunken u47 which has an output of 400 ohms into a Neve 1073. According to the manual, the Neve is 300 ohms on lo z and 1200 on hi z. I'm assuming hi z should be the setting but that's only 3 times that of the output of the u47. Can someone school me on how this should work? I've been trying to find a clear explanation but can't seem to find on I understand. All help is appreciated. Thanks
 
In this (lengthy) interview, somewhere around the 14:00 or 15:00 mark, Aspen goes into a great description of impedance between the mic and the preamp:



The rest of the interview is pretty good, although he gets pretty exhausting by the end of it!
 
You won't break anything by trying the different settings. Use whatever sounds best. Out of habit and experience I'd start with the higher setting, but it's worth comparing.
 
I wonder if you're not looking at a preferred source impedance rather than an actual input impedance. Those numbers are pretty damn low.
 
I find that at higher impedance in general the mic will "open up" a bit and sound brighter and at lower-z sound more round/colored, but like they said reversing that won't hurt anything, and the differences are subtle in my experience. Just listen to which setting sounds best on the mic and for the source. You can use impedance as an effect kind of. They also make something called a variohm where you can select different impedances. I'm not sure if it adds noise or color to the signal chain, tho
 
But more importantly, are you really plugging an $8000 mic into a $3000 pre and "still confused" about impedance? There's a lot of talk about what's "wrong" with home recording nowadays, and this might be my exhibit A.
 
A couple of reads about mic impedance attached. Focusrite and Summit Audio seem to differ a slight bit on preamp load impedance, Focusrite 10x and Summit Audio 4x.
 

Attachments

  • Mic Preamp Input Impedance.pdf
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  • 2BA-221manual.pdf
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ashcat_lt said:
But more importantly, are you really plugging an $8000 mic into a $3000 pre and "still confused" about impedance? There's a lot of talk about what's "wrong" with home recording nowadays, and this might be my exhibit A.
Click to expand...

You mean those aren't typical home recording mics and pres?


By the way, that's a good video with Aspen Pittman. I only made it about 20 minutes in then had to stop. Will check more later.
 
Greg_L said:
You mean those aren't typical home recording mics and pres?


By the way, that's a good video with Aspen Pittman. I only made it about 20 minutes in then had to stop. Will check more later.
Click to expand...

Oh man, when he goes into how his GT Vipre and GT compressors work, he loses me about every other sentence. But I'm still captivated. I did actually make it through the whole interview a couple of weeks ago, but man that dude is exhausting due to the depth of knowledge he has about music tech. And what a ridiculous man cave he has...ridiculous in that I want to live there and play with all of that stuff.
 
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