The reason given is that the cable was "professionally made" - the implication being that I'm not capable of fitting the adapters (I've done network cabling in the past). He is being very precious over something that has sat in his loft for 20yrs or more until this need arose. I think we'll just buy some new cable - once I work out what is the most economical we can get away with - mono only - probably get away with 70' but a bit of spare would be handy.
How's your soldering?
Is the mic in question actually any good?
What is the install location?
What is the sound source?
What is the recording device?
What is the desired quality?
I'm slightly confused - nothing new there. What is on the other end of this Reslo cable? The most common domestic connector in those days would have been a TRS jack - as used on things like a Ferrograph mic input. Although there would also have been an inline matching transformer for use with that.
It's possible there were male and female 'Reslo' line connectors made at one time, so you could make an extension - but I've never seen them. And they are very likely to be more difficult to solder than the XLR, which must rate as one of the easiest ever. The BBC certainly used Reslos for some things, but as with other mics which used their own connectors, would end up with the standard BBC one at the other end of the cable. The only practical way in a studio - otherwise you'd need different connectors at the wall box mic points. That also allowed standard extension cables to be used with all.
Twin screened microphone cable similar to that used for your Reslo is still used for just about any balanced output mic, ie most.
BTW, I'd say it likely much more than 20 years old. Reslos fell out of favour about 1970. ;-)
Can I ask what it's being used for? It was not a bad mic in its day - but very low output and will be noisy if trying to pick up a quiet source.
If it is in good condition, it might make more sense to sell it to a collector and use a modern more suitable mic.
OK to answer a few questions from several (Adrian, Jeremy and Dave):
1) The mic will be up above church bells. Quite loud. The recording needs to be quite accurate as the sound is subseqently analysed by some specialised software.2) We do not want to use the ribbon mic in that environment and want to use a fairly straightforward dynamic mic that can be left in situ.
Nonetheless the ribbon mic is fine and has worked as a test.
3) The cable will come down into the room from where the bells are rung. That is typically 70' or so depending on finding a sensible route.4) The end of the current mic cable is a standard 1/4" jack plug which is fine other than there is a passive transformer (needed for the ribbon mic) that is superfluous.
5) Recording quality needs to be around CD quality. We have had enough success with a budget external USB sound card connected to a laptop and using Audacity. Bit rate needs to be 44100Hz.Anything below 150hz is dropped by the sound analysing software.
We may either stay with the laptop solution or purchase a digital recorder. There must be no Auto gain control and no clipping. Volume needs to be set at approx -20dB from peak.
6) The ribbon mic and cable are around 50yrs old. It just has been unused in the owner's loft for 20yrs. It probably would not have been used again except for this project and hence the frustration at not being to adapt it to readily connect to a standard XLR mic.7) I have ended up with 2 dynamic mics, one a Maplin bargain drum mic which was reduced to 5 because of a damaged box, and another which was from a box of 3 for 30ish and has worked in a similar situation elsewhere. Both of course have XLR connectors.
8) My soldering is adequate. I recently replaced a dozen capacitors on a power supply successfully.I hope that has answered all the questions.
Suggestions and advice as to mic cable quality to suit above welcomed.
Standard two core and screen cable from Maplin should do it. The larger the diameter the better, as that normally indicates a lower capacitance per metre, so you will lose less of the high frequencies. As it's a fixed installation, you don't need to go overboard with flexibility.
Should do it, assuming a 600 ohm impedance balanced system.
Humm... So why do you want to do that then if I may ask?. Research or got a crack somewhere?.
I spend a bit of time hanging around such places and are those bells loud!.. I'd have thought most any half decent mic would have done that job for a few 10's of pounds you can get half decent capacitor ones that can handle quite a bit of overload a decent windshield will keep out the LF wind noise that seems to prevail in such locations.;)..
Might be wary leaving it up there thru the summer, such places are sods for being walloped by lightning as I've just this week changed out Two microwave units that caught a big one a while ago, earthed or not they don't like it up 'em Captain Mainwaring .. as Cpl Jones once said ;).....
Right.
A ribbon mic would be hopeless in any wind. I'm also not sure how well it would cope with humidity, etc.
Different matter being left there year round.
Part of the Reslo setup.
As I said, sell it complete with cables and transformer on Ebay. I've not looked, but I'd expect it to fetch a goodly sum.
Yes. But many of these mics are designed for specific use. You'd be best with a general purpose omni moving coil.
As I said any suitable cable. Lots of places sell it. I'd look at CPC first as they have no minium charge and do free postage on web sales.
I'm even more confused about the Reslo connector now that I was before. ;-)
You'd need a very odd twin screened cable that would loose HF over that sort of run.
In article , AnthonyL writes
Busy day, so quick comments (not explaining, too busy - Google is your friend here):
That will give very good results for a long time as it's largely weatherproof and won't be upset by the sound levels encountered.
S.
Excellent choice. I'm told by a pal on OBs that these were once used for Big Ben? May even still be?
As the signal's being fed into analysis software, as Tesco say, "Every little helps". We also can't yet be certain of the output impedance of the microphone, unless the OP does actually want to put a 50 year old ribbon microphone into the fresh outdoor air of a belfry. We don't even know if he's analysing the ultrasound from the bats in said belfry.
The matching transformer in the original line is the clue - it is low impedance.
Also the actual mic is likely to cut off at HF long before any cable with this sort of run.
Remember at one time every transmitter round the country was fed with twin balanced cable. True the HF did drop off there - but we're talking many miles of cable, not feet. ;-)
In article , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes
Bring back lump loading!
At Aberdeen in the days of analogue land lines, there was no apparent HF difference between AM and FM when both carrying a national service. The very rare local opt out on FM was a revelation. ;-)
Had a BBC engineer pal who lived near Cheltenham. He had an aerial tower in the garden and a rotator for the FM aerial - and could receive about a half dozen transmitters. Reckoned you could plot the distribution by the HF loss.
In article , Dave Plowman (News) scribeth thus
FWIW many years ago we did a RSL broadcast, one if the first in the UK, and we had one studio some 2 Km from the other. Fortunately at that time we were on very good terms with Cambridge cable who provided us with some link lines and over bog standard copper which were flat to 15K...
Exactly - that's why I said we do not want to use it in that environment.
If you can explain what is confusing you I'll try to clarify.
If you have no intention of using the Reslo for this, why were you asking about the connector? Unless you intended using the Reslo cable with a different microphone - which would also mean hacking off the matching transformer.
The 100' of cable has Reslo connectors. The owner of the cable doesn't want me to splice in XLR connectors so unless we can persuade him otherwise we will have to buy 100' of cable. The transformer part isn't a big issue as that is in an extension part of the cable again using Reslo connectors so the 100' is really 3 parts: mic + its cable
-> 80' or so extension cable -> 10' cable with transformer terminating in 1/4 jack plug. All the joins are Reslo.
My original question was how to get from Reslo to XLR.
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