Just got back from a friend's house, he's just unearthed a pair of old Telefunken TD26 mics. Worth about £60/$100 each according to latest ebay sales, and supposedly a very good warm vintage mic. Fantastic! The trouble is the plugs... They're badly damaged and need replacing (no prob, I can swing a soldering iron at a pinch), but they've got me stumped.
In my naive simple little world, dynamic mics have hot & ground connections, and condensor mics have a third for the power they require. These those are apparently dynamic mics, and they definately have 3-pin dins that look original.
Does anyone know what gives?
Hi Misantrope
Ah, finding a gold mine...
Dynamic mics with a "balanced" 3 pin XLR connector has three connections :
1 = ground/shield
2 = Hot(+ve)
3 = Cold(-ve)
see also http://pinouts.ru/Home/xlr3_pinout.shtml
Old German mics used DIN connectors instead of XLR, but had the same 3 connections.
I found this this manual on the Telefunken mics
http://home.wanadoo.nl/audiotic/telefunken_manuals/
It should not be too complicated to change the DIN cable connector to a XLR cable connector.
Tanglewood TW28STE (Shadow P7 EQ) acoustic
Yamaha RGX 320FZ electric guitar/Egnater Tweaker 15 amp.
Yamaha RBX 270 bass/Laney DB 150 amp.
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Thanks Kalle, a manual was more than I'd hoped for :)
A couple more questions though, if I can just pick your brains a little more...
The manual doesn't mention it being balanced (you'd think it would if it was, wouldn't you?), and also mentions a "stereo combi plug" about which it says, paraphrased, "if the recorder only has one input socket, plug one mic into that and the other mic into the back of the the combi-plug of the first". The specs also don't differentiate between the two signal connections. Given all that, do you think it might not be balanced at all, and that the 3 pins are just to accomodate this funky two-mics-into-one-socket deal instead?
Is there a safe way to test it all - I have an ohmeter kicking around somewhere, if that could be used to deduce what each connection is?
If there are 3 wires in the cable between mic and DIN connector, they are most certain balanced.
Professional Mics has used balanced wiring for ages, as it gives the best noise suppression with long cables.
Yes, you should be able to use an ohmmeter to find out each connection. You will easily find the Hot+and Cold- ( will be 750 ohm between them) , but wich one that is + or - cant identified with an ohmmeter.
If you connect them "wrong" the only thing that happends is that the phase response will be inverted and that only matters if you do stereo recordings with two or more mics.
Kalle
Tanglewood TW28STE (Shadow P7 EQ) acoustic
Yamaha RGX 320FZ electric guitar/Egnater Tweaker 15 amp.
Yamaha RBX 270 bass/Laney DB 150 amp.
http://www.soundclick.com/kalleinsweden
Forget the plugs, check the cables - why didn't I think of that? :roll: ;)
Cheers again Kalle!
I'm guessing, here, but I think the "combi" plug may well be simply a converter from 3-pin DIN to 5-pin DIN (sort of "stereo 3-pin")
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The cables should have 2 internal wires ( + & -) and a shield(ground).
Tanglewood TW28STE (Shadow P7 EQ) acoustic
Yamaha RGX 320FZ electric guitar/Egnater Tweaker 15 amp.
Yamaha RBX 270 bass/Laney DB 150 amp.
http://www.soundclick.com/kalleinsweden
I'm guessing, here, but I think the "combi" plug may well be simply a converter from 3-pin DIN to 5-pin DIN (sort of "stereo 3-pin")
That's what I thought at first, but the wording of the manual is quite specific - you plug one mic's connector into the back of the other. The plugs on these ones are just plain 3-pin DIN, so they're probably not original after all.
I think the safest course is just cut the plugs off and pretend they were never even there :wink:
