Y-split on phantom powered mic

[Adrian Tan]

Hi, I'm clueless about all things audio.

I was wondering if anyone could comment on the two arrangements below and whether they're good/bad/dangerous/crazy/stupid/etc.

1. Phantom powered mic. Y-split XLR cable, female to two males. Female plugs into mic; males plug into separate recorders. One recorder has phantom power switched on, the other doesn't. Would that work?

2. This is more of a "What would happen if...?" / "Would anything explode?" question... Male into two females. Male plugs into a recorder supplying phantom power. One female plugs into a phantom-powered mic. The other female plugs into a second recorder with phantom power turned off. (I don't know why you'd want to do this; maybe to combine two signals into one.)

What do you think?

[Paul R Johnson]

Some devices don't object to this, while others do. Feeding a phantom powered connection into a Soundcraft mixer can do very odd things - perfect audio, but all the LEDs on the mixer light up, or strange warbles, or sound that fades in and out on a Yamaha - just a few observations from my own productions. As I said in the other topic - the biggest snag is unbalancing the audio - by shorting one of the two audio legs to ground. This stuff the phantom power system, so to make the splitter idea work, you'd need a small mixer to plug the mic balanced audio into, then the output, suitably padded to match the camera needs would be the solution.

[Richard Crowley]

The main question is whether the non-powered device will tolerate the phantom voltage from the other device. The worst case is that the powered device puts out the full 48V, but the non-powered device only does 24V or 18V or 12V, in which case it may not be able to handle the 48V coming in.

This is dangerous as a generic question. It can only be answered correctly for a SPECIFIC combination of gear. Without knowing exactly what gear you are talking about, we can only say "Maybe. Be Careful."

Plus, as Mr. Johnson has observed, there may be additional anomalies from feeding phantom power into inputs that aren't expecting it.

[Battle Vaughan]

disregard, html link was goobered. Repeating below.

[Battle Vaughan]

You might find this device useful: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/356436-REG/Rolls_MS20C_MS20C_Splitter_Combiner_Isolator.html

[Rick Reineke]

Multing a mic to two inputs via a Y-cable is not a good idea.. especially when PP is present, which 'could' cause damage to the input devices or the mic
That said, Sescom makes an in-line PP blocker.
Sescom SES-IL-PPB XLR Inline Phantom Power Blocker

[Daniel Epstein]

If you could find a phantom power supply that works by itself you could split the output from that to your separate recorders. Y cables are useful but not good in all cases of sending signals to different places. A mic splitter may solve your issue more consistently.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...l/prm/alsVwDtl

Whirlwind SP1X3 | Sweetwater.com

[Paul R Johnson]

Phantom power is a problem when uncontrolled, but Y-splits are in use in pro audio gear for live audio and are very common - subject to the care with phantom. For those of a delicate nature, a couple of capacitors will keep the DC at bay. In fact, it's not uncommon to have three way splits, where recording, monitor and FOH mixer all need the same signal source. It is getting less common now that we can do digital splits via CAT5.

[Bruce Watson]

Originally Posted by Adrian Tan

1. Phantom powered mic. Y-split XLR cable, female to two males. Female plugs into mic; males plug into separate recorders. One recorder has phantom power switched on, the other doesn't. Would that work?

Phantom Power with Mic Splitter