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Mike Rivers[_2_] Mike Rivers[_2_] is offline
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Default Mic preamp comparison

On 5/24/2021 8:23 PM, Tobiah wrote:
This leads me to wonder why it's not more popular to put the
whole preamp in the microphone.Â* At one time the answer was
that the preamp was expensive and many mics could use the same
preamp.Â* Now I wonder (and am asking) whether it would be more
advantageous to engineer the mics to output line level signals
all by themselves.


Well, a dozen or so years ago, we started to see ribbon mics with a
built-in preamp. But this brought the output level of the mic into the
ballpark of a condenser mic. It does provide (we hope) the proper load
on the ribbon assembly, eliminating one variable when the mic is part of
a system, but the output of the built-in "pre-preamp" isn't line level.
One reason for this is that today's generation of "engineers" wouldn't
know what to do with it.

Also many inputs on a preamp or mixer that are labeled "line" are
actually the mic preamp with an attenuator and a couple of capacitors to
block phantom power. Personally I don't think that's as bad as some
people do, but it's a hurdle for some users and manufacturers.

Short story: If you have a low sensitivity microphone, a built-in
amplifier that brings it up to the sensitivity of other mics you may be
using is a smart thing. But a mic with line level output is still an
oddity.


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