HELP: Killing a Microphone

[Guy Bruner]

I believe I have seen that mic in Best Buy although I can't find anything but the MZM-1 on their website.

[Tom Wills]

I bought it in Best Buy. Around $60. It has a TS plug.

[David Ennis]

Chris, here's the adapter cable you need to efficiently connect that mic to the camcorder. It's available in longer lengths also.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...ughType=search

The assembly of adapters that you already have may work too, but I hope not--because if it does it also applied that 45 volts to the mic. The reason it might not is that people often grab from what's available and connect stereo plugs to mono jacks and vice versa. Plus the fact that the 1/8 to 1/4 adapter could be mono to mono, stereo to stereo, mono to stereo or stereo to mono. All this matters as to whether a given conductive path makes it all the way through.

[Stephanie Wilson]

Originally Posted by Steve House

FYI...
TRS stereo: tip=left, ring=right, sleeve=ground
TRS balanced: tip=signal hot, ring=signal cold, sleeve=ground
TRS unbalanced, equivalent to TS: tip=signal, ring=ground (bridged to) sleeve=ground (TRS jack to TS plug wired like this makes an unbalancing adapter)

and just to make things interesting

TRS on mono mic, compatible with stereo or mono inputs: tip=signal (bridged to) ring=signal, sleeve=ground

Here's an exercise ...

How would you wire an adapter to connect a single, mono BALANCED mic so it could be plugged into a camera mini-jack input designed for a (two channel)stereo mic, disregarding any issues surrounding phantom power?
.
.
.
XLR pin 1 -> TRS sleeve
XLR pin 2 -> TRS tip bridged to TRS ring
XLR pin 3 -> unused or TRS sleeve

Steve,

I think I know what you're describing but I don't have the guts to respond. But if you are interested in a friendly, fun and intellectual challange, I'll hook you up with the smartest engineer in Los Angeles. He's a great guy and I'm sure you will appreciate each other's intellect.

And most importantly, it may help to educate us all. Look forward to your positive post,

Steph

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Stephanie Wilson

Steve,

I think I know what you're describing but I don't have the guts to respond. But if you are interested in a friendly, fun and intellectual challange, I'll hook you up with the smartest engineer in Los Angeles. He's a great guy and I'm sure you will appreciate each other's intellect.

And most importantly, it may help to educate us all. Look forward to your positive post,

Steph

Always nice to meet new folks. Was just gently correcting you where you said the ring of a TRS connector was "the only way to accept a ground" when in fact it is only grounded in a couple of special circumstances, namely when making up a balanced-to-unbalanced adapter and even then not always, sometimes it's not connected at all. If the TRS is used for a stereo signal such as a pair of headphones the ring carries the right channel signal while if it is used for a balanced mono mic or line level connection instead of an XLR connector it carries the "cold" side of the signal.

A lot of stereo consumer devices like cassette recorders etc, and I'd think that would include a lot of consumer camcorders, have a mic connector that can accept a "stereo" mic. A true stereo mic, two regular regular mic elements in the same handle, is wired like the headphones mentioned earlier with the left mic going to the tip and the right mic going to the ring, both sharing a common ground through the sleeve. A MONO mike intended to be plugged into such a device, which some manufacturers might actually label a "stereo mic", has only one capsule and thus one signal line plus ground. Since we'd usually want to record the same mono signal on both the left and right channels in the recorder, the mic might have a TRS connector that has the tip and ring connected together and so both are connected to the same signal. That way the mono signal is divided at the jack and goes equally to the left and right channels in the recorder. A lot of mics that come with computer soundcards or on computer headsets are wired this way. Over the years I've accumulated a pile of them and when I checked with a multimeter that's how they were all set up