GENERAL GUIDELINES
5
PHANTOM POWER
Your microphone is a valuable and important investment. Like any
piece of recording equipment or musical instrument, it requires
common sense and good basic care to keep it working properly.
Given simple, basic care, your new microphone will perform
admirably for decades.
R88 Passive Microphone
Phantom power is not required or recommended for the passive
R88. We recommend avoiding the use of phantom power with your
R88 as a general rule. With a correctly wired cable and a properly
working phantom power supply, there is actually little danger of
damaging an R88 microphone with phantom power. However,
passive ribbons such as the R88 will get hurt if ground Pin 1 is
accidentally shorted, mis-wired, or hot patched in a patch bay to
Pin 2 or 3. Using phantom power with a faulty or mis-wired cable or
a defective supply can severely stretch or break a ribbon.
Since passive ribbon microphones or other transformer-coupled
microphones are particularly sensitive to phantom-power, it is
recommended to make disengaging phantom-power before
plugging and unplugging a habit.
R88A Phantom-Powered Microphone
The phantom current draw for active AEA ribbon mics is 7
milliamps. IEC specifies P48 power which should be able to deliver
10 milliamps per input. Some USB and battery-powered audio
interfaces will not deliver this. Please check the current values
available on your unit to ensure the best performance.
Although the R88A needs a phantom power source to operate,
ensure that phantom power is turned off before plugging and
unplugging the microphone or when patching. The loud pops that
occur when the microphone is plugged in with phantom power
engaged can damage speakers, headphones, and ears.
