found a long-lost AKG D 900!
 

The strangest thing happened the other day; a friend of mine came in lugging a long cardboard cylinder and handed it over to me saying his uncle gave him a microphone and since he didn't have any use for it I could keep it. I opened the tube only to discover the AKG D900 carefully wrapped in its original packing! It must have been lying unused for decades but is in pristine condition (no i'm not selling it!).

I can't seem to find any info on it though. Is there anyone who can point me in the right direction or give details on it?

I've never really used a shotgun mic before, i predominantly use the Audio Technica AT831R with its little gooseneck clip-on mount for my dramatic video shoots and clip it on clothing for interviews etc. Would appreciate some guidelines on using the shotgun mic effectively. I don't even have a boom yet!

A quick google turns up several hits, including the information that it is a dynamic mic - veeeery interesting for a shotgun! Why don't you drop over to the AKG website and send them an email query along with the serial number and see what they can tell you about it? Most manufacturers of serious professional gear keep good records of all their previous equipment - wouldn't be surprised if they couldn't come up with PDFs of the data sheets and/or manuals for you.

Long shotgun mic, most likely used in film in tv - though it is hard to determine to what extent or efficacy - and if I had to guess, it has probably been out of production for at least 15 years - probably more. Most of the search references I've seen list it as a used sale item from old posts from various gear exchange outlets, and a few studios listing that model in their on-site gear lists.

The AKG site offers very minimal info on it, but at least you can download some specs on it.

http://www.akg.com/site/products/pow...nguage,EN.html


-Jon

Dynamic!!!???
 

Yikes!!!!! I was sure as all hell that this would be a condenser so in my initial test run I ran a phantom feed into it! I must have tested it for like ten whole minutes!!!! Hope I didn't fry anything inside!!! Do dynamic mics take well to mistaken phantom power?

If your phantom was wired properly there shouldn't be any damage. The ability to interchange dynamic and condensor mics on the same equipment was why phantom was invented and replaced T-power. The older T-power (also called A/B) put a voltage across the coil of a dynamic mic and could easily damage it. But phantom puts its voltage equally on both sides of the audio - it's voltage is between the two of them together on one side and ground on the other. Since it's equal on both the 'hot' and 'cold' audio conductors, it essentially disappears as far as a dynamic mic is concerned, hence the name "phantom." In XLR terms, T-power puts its voltage across pins 2 & 3 while phantom puts its voltage between both pin 2 and pin 3 together, and pin 1.

If you notice the output is low don't worry that you fried anything ... dynamics are typically much lower output than condensors and need a decent, high-gain, preamp to work well.

Yes phantom on balanced will be no problems, there are two 4.7k resistors across the hot and cold legs and they will make the phantom cancel the voltage out when connected to a dynamic mic.

We own it and its condensor successor. I prefer the dynamic version for its naturalness, even though the condensor's high end is perhaps more extended.

You can use it with no-phantom powered wireless transmitters.

We like it so much we keep looking for others. They are rare.

Enjoy.

I see you could order it with "Cannon or DIN connections".

Ah, the DIN plug - there was a soldering job and a half - I had to try and keep sober for about a week before attempting to make up DIN cables. Do we miss them? Naa.
I know the mini ones are still around but I wouldn't even dream of attemping one of those.

Ironic that in these days of micro miniaturisation standard jacks and XLRs are still the industry standard because they are chunky and reliable.

The D900 was a bit like a D202 with an interference tube on the front.

Being a dynamic mic. it was a bit insensitive and cannot really be used like a normal condenser gun mic. can.

But it's a good useful mic. used properly.

Re: found a long-lost AKG D 900!
 

As significant benefit of the AKG D 900 is its two way design. A lot of both wind noise and proximity effect is low frequency and this mic's capture of lower frequencies is all at the bass. When I first got my first one I thought it was noisy but it is not, it is a dynamic. It benefits from a very clean high-gain preamp. I also use a Cloud product. Using the Cloud this mic performs even better.