new beyer m130 - noisy

[the finger genius]

So I picked up a new Beyerdynamic m130, and I was surprised at how quiet the mic is and conversely, how much noise is audible when the preamp is cranked so that the source is at a reasonable level.

My source is a fairly loud acoustic guitar, the mic placement is about 6 inches from the guitar, pointed at the spot between the neck and the soundhole. I've been switching between two preamps, a summit 2ba 221, and the stock preamps in my mbox pro. I'll also try a few other preamps in the coming days, but for now the mbox pro actually seems to have less hiss / fuzz. I wonder if the increased noise from the summit could be attributed to the unbalanced connection I'm using to hook it up? (a 6 inch 1/4" cable.)

I've used some budget ribbon mics in the past, and realize that they generally have a pretty low output, but I figured the Beyer would do a little better from a noise perspective. Is this to be expected, or is it possible that my new mic is defective?

[@?,*???&?]

Yep, Ribbon mics have low output. You've now learned that. That's why several companies have been starting to release phantom powered ribbon mics so that they can avoid the output transformer and end up with a hotter output and more level in to pre-amp.

[winky dinglehoffer]

Try a different pre or two--I have one ribbon that can sound very noisy with certain preamps, but not so much with others. If it's lower output/higher noise than you're used to getting with ribbons, there might be a problem.

[@?,*???&?]

Try a different pre or two--I have one ribbon that can sound very noisy with certain preamps, but not so much with others. If it's lower output/higher noise than you're used to getting with ribbons, there might be a problem.

Impedance matching can help some, but in general, these are low output devices.

[ulriggribbons]

The M130 should be slightly lower output than an SM57 (1.3 mV/Pa for the M130 vs. 1.6 mV/Pa for the 57).

If you have one mic pre that sounds good with the microphone, and another that is noisy, I would say that is a function of the mic pre ( many mic pre's can get noisy at the upper range of their gain settings).

The test would be plug in a 57 to the noisy mic pre and crank the gain. Is the output/noise on par with when you plug in the M130? If not, you may have a bum mic.

Regards

Jon

[ott0bot]

I used a summit 2ba-221 to mic a quiet amp with a modded Apex 210 recently.

4 things that could help you.
-Try not to use the tube saturation, using the solid state pre worked best.

-Use an xlr to trs cable. It'll increase the level a bit.

-adjust the 2ba's impedence to match the mic's.

-flip the polarity, just to see if that helps.

And one issue:
You are using the m-box's line in. It may still pass through the mic pre gain stage, it did on the old m-boxes anyway. Pro may not, but if it does that'll give your more noise.