igorxa

a while back i inherited a pair of audio technica mini cardioids, at831c's to be exact. they came with no power module, and terminated in mini-xlr plugs. i've played around with them with my sony d7, and with or without phantom power (there seems to be little performance difference that i've noticed. it's been a while since i've used them with phantom power, though, so i could be remembering this wrong. the last show i used them with pp was coldplay in 2003. now that i think about it, it seems with pp the recording suffered from much less clipping.), by themselves they overpower the mic-in for most shows, and don't quite push enough for the line-in. my question is, instead of getting some electret capsules and making my own mics, could i use the at's with your battery box? i'd really like to come up with a sleek solution with the at's, since they're obviously higher quality than i could make myself (one day i'll track down and invest in a matched pair of omni caps to swap out when i want to. it was quite a pleasant surprise to find the heads unscrewed.), but i don't want to risk damaging them. i lost the pp supply and have since rigged up a variable line attenuator to keep the clipping to a minimum through the mic imput. and one day there will be a non-ipod linux solution to line-in recording with my ipod video, and i'd like to have these usable with that as well. any help/advice you have would be very welcome.