PD170 mic vs. mic att settings
 

Hi. Can someone please help me with the mic settings. My question is what is the difference between mic and mic att and when would one use or not use each setting.

I just bought a PD170 and did some testing on the various mic settings and it seems to me that the best sound comes with the settings at mic att with +48V on and with the sound levels manually adjusted through ‘audio level’ turning AGC off. The mic setting seems to produce much higher sound levels (without any adjustments) but there seems to be more hissing and background noise.

I also changed the preset audio settings from the menu from +32K to +48K. Will this have any effect on the +48V switch. Thank you.

The attenuator does exactly what it says. It attenuates the sound level by 10 dB. In a very loud environment or with a really hot microphone you may need to use it.

The 23/48K refer to the sample rate of the audio circuit and has nothing to do with 48 Volt phantom power.

Thanks very much Mike for your response on this and my zoom ring problem. I guess my zoom ring is faulty.

Does it make more sense to set the input level to 'mic' rather than 'mic att' (with manually adjusted sound levels) in normal (not very loud settings)? I seemed to hear more hissing at the 'mic' setting.

Thanks again.

You are hearing more room sound, that's all AFAIK. I normally don't use the -10 dB setting with a microphone but with feeds I get from sound boards. They are invariably, in output level, right between line and microphone. Sometimes the -10 is enough and sometimes I have to insert a -10 dB pad in series with the cable.

Mainly, I suspect, because of the difference in reference levels between the equipment.