Superscope EC-3S "unusual connection"

A

Alden_Sloe

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I picked up a Superscope EC-3S Cardioid Condenser Stop/Start Microphone off of craigslist. This was from back in the day when Superscope was the division of Marantz that made tape recorders. Anybody know if these mics are good for anything other than a conversation piece.

It uses a battery rather than requiring external phantom power which can be handy. I thought Stop/Start meant it was an on off for the mic. No, it's designed to Stop/Start the tape on a Reel to Reel or cassette. From the included instruction sheet, "When the dual pin microphone is inserted into a tape recorder equipped with the appropriate MIC and REMOTE jacks, tape motion can be controlled by this switch."

It looks sort of like a dual mini headphone jack except the "remote" pin is shorter. Any clue if there are still adapters on the market for this plug? I think a normal 1/8" to 1/4" adapter will still work. I'm not sure what utility the Stop/Start would have with today's equipment. Maybe there are video cameras out there today that support this?? If I could find the socket for the shorter 1/8" pin I suppose I could build a box that turned the Start/Stop into an On/Off and output to a 1/4" phone jack.
 
I presume it's this:-

ec3smic.jpg


Probably the best way, if you want to actually use it, is to cut off the plug and solder on a standard jack or XLR. Just leave enough cable on the cut-off plug so you can buzz it through and work out which colour lead goes to which part of the plug.

Or, if it's a removable cable, put on a complete new cable.
 
Yep, that's it exactly! You're probably right; just cut the end off and solder on a 1/4" phone jack since I wanted to try and use this in place of a dynamic mic where there's no phantom power. Like with our Fostex MR-8 for example. Would it be bad for the sound signal to loop the output of the mic back through the Start/Stop switch?

Did you just find the picture on the web or do you have one of these mics?
 
A few things to look into here:

First of all, that mic is an electret condenser design, a design that was common amongst mics designed to be used with portable recorders back in the 60s and 70s. Which makes sense, as portable recorders is what Superscope was really known for back then (BTW, it was not unusual at all to find such portable electret mics to be equipped with remote on/off switches and plugs like that.)

You say you have an instruction booklet with that mic; does it include any kind of spec sheet? I'd be concerned about it's compatibility with today's typical preamp specifications, as far as sensitivity and/or impedance, not to mention it's own self-noise levels and frequency response. That looks like a bit of a higher-end model when it comes to old portable electrets, but many of those back then were not exactly built for high-fidelity purposes or for standard studio-oriented preamplification. You may not have a problem with any of that, but it's worth looking into.

I believe the Remote switch/plug just dumbly opened and closed a circuit within the recorder that let the motor in the recorder run or not depending on whether the switch was closed or open.

G.
 
Alden_Sloe said:
Yep, that's it exactly! You're probably right; just cut the end off and solder on a 1/4" phone jack since I wanted to try and use this in place of a dynamic mic where there's no phantom power. Like with our Fostex MR-8 for example. Would it be bad for the sound signal to loop the output of the mic back through the Start/Stop switch?
Click to expand...

I would check to see if the mic. is wired balanced (it may be, even if the plug is unbalanced. Tandy used to do it that way with the PZM). But I would NOT wire it through the switch; just insulate the switch wires from the others so they dont cause problems and leave the switch unworking.


Alden_Sloe said:
Did you just find the picture on the web or do you have one of these mics?
Click to expand...

I just Googled the model number and found the picture on the web.

No, I don't have one, but had something similar. Back in the 1970's I had a pair of Unisound condenser mics, which were probably quite similar.
 
Alden_Sloe said:
How would I check to see if the mic is wired balanced? :confused:
Click to expand...
It's most probably not. From the picture, it's using only a 1/8" TS 2-conductor plug for the audio and an unshielded 4-conductor cable (2 unbalanced for the audio, and 2 for the remote switch circuit).

While it's not impossible to run a 2-wire balanced signal, I have never seen either a portable electret mic that was designed/wired like that when they used one of those combo mini/micro-mini plugs like that, or a portable recorder that offered a balanced input on a mini plug. It's a highly unlikely combination.

G.
 
But if it was wired balanced how can you test for this? I noticed poking around that some very similar Superscope mics were wired balanced. I suppose it's possible they used the same mic and just wired a different cord for the Start/Stop feature to keep production costs down. Anyway, it's something that would be useful to know; how to check to see if it is (or could be) wired balanced that is.
 
Alden_Sloe said:
How would I check to see if the mic is wired balanced? :confused:
Click to expand...

You will see when you cut the plug off.

How many wires are there?

Buzz the cut-off plug to find out what colour wire goes to which part of the plug.

If it's wired balanced then there will be an extra wire and most likely shorted to screen in the plug - so on the mic. bit you will get one wire to tip and another wire and the screen going to the sleeve.

If the mic. side only has a single wire and a screen, then it's wired unbalanced.

I hope this helps.
 
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