Nolonemo

I have an Audio Technica AT-822 mic, it has 200 ohm unbalanced output to a 1/8" stereo mini plug. I want to run it into a Rolls MX34 mixer, which has 2 (mono) XLR inputs. Can anyone point me to an adapter to go from the stereo unbalanced to dual male XLR connectors? I've seen some 1/4" phono plug to XLR adapters, but these are sold as being used to pass a high-impedance signal (like a guitar pickup) to the XLR input. This is not my situation as the mic's output is not high impedance. Thanks, Nolo

Guitarfx: There are posts in the H2 thread on the O'Reilly site (link below, near the top of the thread) that indicate that the H2 limiters kick in AFTER the A/D coversion, so all they do is knock down the gain of an already-clipped signal. Since the H2 mic in sucks, and your only beef about the minidisc recorder was that it lacked a limiter, it sounds like your H2 would be going back anyway. Too bad that bad design didn't allow the H2 to reach is full potential. http://www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/blo...rder_detai.html

Thanks for the XLR-phono pinout. What about the impedance mismatch between the Rolls and the H2 (the specs for the Rolls at B&H give its output at 50 Ohms while the H2 line in is spec'd at 10K Ohms in the H2 manual) would that be a problem?

The Rolls looks nice, and the price is right. I notice the input impedence is "600 Ohms or greater XLR," is that close enough to the AT822 (200 Ohms) to be ok with that mic? Also the specs for the Rolls at B&H give its output at 50 Ohms while the H2 line in is spec'd at 10K Ohms in the H2 manual. Problem there? Thanks for your help on this.

Ahh, thanks for the info on that, very interesting.... I also have an AT822. I recall you mentioned the impedance mismatch with the H2 in another post. Do you think I would get better results with an impedance matching transformer, or should I just go for a battery-powered preamp and run the mic into the line in (a considerably more expensive solution). Thanks.

The effect OzPeter is talking about, I think, is illustrated in this thread on the 0-127 adjustment on the H4 changing the level of signals that are clipping, but because it's happening after the A-D conversion, it's just adjusting the gain of the clipped signals: http://www.2090.org/zoom/bbs/viewtopic.php...8447d4e56fc9e86 (see screenshot halfway down the page) Seems to me, and I believe this is what OzPeter is saying, that IF the limiter acts on the signal after the A-D conversion and not before then all it's doing is knocking an already clipped signal down to 0 dB, which really accomplishes nothing, since it doesn't avoid the actual problem, which is the clipping of the peak. Of course, when a limiter kicks in before the A-D conversion, that's not what is happening, and clipping is avoided. Of course, it's easy to test what the H2 is doing: set the L-M-H switch so that the signal is clipping, and record. Egage the limiter and re-record the same sample. I suspect that both samples will show clipping, the difference being that the second sample will be limited to 0dB at the peaks.

Guitarfxr, could you clarify as to your technique. Are you saying that with the H2 you use the limiter so you can use M rather than L without clipping, or that you use the limiter so you can record at, say, 118 instead of 100? If the latter, it seems from what ozpeter is saying that you wouldn't actually be capturing any quieter details because you'd just be boosting what you had already captured. Bear with me, I'm new to audio and trying to get a handle on this stuff. Thanks

Right, in a world where a mic can be over $1,000, "cheap" is a relative term. In this case, I was thinking of under $100.

Can anyone recommend a cheap (but good - natch) small battery powered preamp? Thanks.