GENERAL GUIDELINES
5
PHANTOM POWER
Your microphone is a valuable and important investment. Like most
recording equipment and musical instruments, it requires common
sense and basic care to keep it functioning properly. Given care,
your new microphone will perform dependably for decades.
Phantom power is not required or recommended for the passive
KU4. With a correctly wired cable and a properly working phantom
power supply, there is actually little danger of damaging a KU4
microphone with phantom power. However, passive ribbons such
as the KU4 can be damaged if ground (Pin 1) is accidently shorted,
miswired, or hot patched in a patch bay to (Pin 2) or (Pin 3). Using
phantom power with a faulty or miswired cable or a defective
supply can severely stretch or break a ribbon.
Since passive ribbon microphones and other transformer-coupled
microphones can be particularly vulnerable to phantom-power,
it is recommended to make disengaging phantom-power before
plugging and unplugging (the microphone) a habit.
MICROPHONE STORAGE
Keep the microphone covered when it is not in use.
This will
reduce the damage that may result from a gust of air. Place the
supplied protective bag over the microphone when it is not in
use. For long-term storage, keep the microphone in its protective
case. An unprotected ribbon microphone can attract minute iron
particles, sometimes known as "tramp iron". If allowed, tramp iron
can penetrate the screen of a ribbon mic, sufficiently build up in
the magnetic gap and rub against the ribbon, causing distortion,
electrical shorts or tearing of the ribbon.
