I noticed a few Sennheiser ME66 mics for sale on ebay. Then read closely and it says "without the K6 power supply". Then I checked to see how much the K6 is and it's more than the mic! The power supply is more than the mic which is crazy.

So my question is, what exactly is the K6 power supply? Is it just that, a power supply or does it do something else?

Here's a link..K6 power supply..
http://cgi.ebay.com/Sennheiser-K6-Microphone-Power-Supply-for-ME66-NEW-NIB_W0QQitemZ150112625187QQihZ005QQcategoryZ83857QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem

It actually screws to bottom of ME66, or other Sennheisers providing power for the mic, and also is the connection for the XLR cable. Have to have it.

Anthony,

Think of the K6 as really being the mic body, and the ME66 and the rest being the interchangeable front elements to get different spreads of sound, kinda like audio lenses to the K6's audio body, so to speak. Now it's not like that, of course, in reality, but I found that it helped me to visualize the systems that way.

You can buy one complete mic and the rest can be just the front end if you interchange the K6.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I understand it now!

It's still kind of shocking that the power cord would cost more than the actual mic! I have never seen an electronic device where that has occured before!

Not the power cord, K6 contains all the microphone electronics and the battery. ME66 is the (short shotgun) mic capsule. You buy the electronics once, but can use several different capsules with different pickup patterns depending on the need.

This modularity makes one mic more expencive, but with a set of different capsules the total price of the system is less. Or that is the idea behind it.