[Harp-L] Connecting the 545S mic to low-z XLR - balanced or unbalanced?

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks to the many who answered my board line-out question.

New question regarding the Shure 545S mic.

Depending on how you wire the cable this mic can be:

- High impedance (for instrument inputs)

- Low impedance unbalanced

- Low impedance balanced.

Mine currently has a high-impedance cable ending in a 1/4" phone jack
for plugging into guitar amplifiers.

I'd like to use it with my wireless unit (AKG SR4000). The body pack
transmitter (PT4000) is made for low-impedance microphones but claims
to handle high-impedance instrument inputs as well. It uses a mini-XLR
input, with phantom power on Pin 3 for condensor mics, like the Audix
AD20-i mini-condensor on a gooseneck that I've been clipping to a
wristband for hands free acoustic sound. THis mic claims balanced input
between Pins 2 and 3.

I decided I wanted to start using hand-cupped mics with the wireless
rig for a more amplified sound in some situations, so I had an
XLR-to-mini-xlr 4-foot cable made to use between the wireless
transmitter and any dynamic mic with an XLR connector (by the way,
great service and decent prices from Northern Sound, highly
recommended).

However, the Shure 545 mic comes with a 4-pin Amphenol MC4M connector.
I know which wire goes to which pin for the three possible wirings. And
I have the parts to make a back-to-back plig-in adaptor that will
convert 4-pin MC4M to 3-pin XLR.

But I still have two questions:

1: MC4M pinout ID

The tiny diagram on the Shure 545 spec sheet doesn't give me a visual
clue as to which pin on the MC4M configuration is which number, and
there isn't a visual pinout anywhere on the net that Google can come up
with. The MC4M has a distinctive configuration with a wide and narrow
ends.

     x   x

 x            x

(exaggerated)

I know which pin is red is from my existing cable.

If someone can positively identify the pin numbers, that would be a big
help.

2) Best configuration

Going into a nominally low-z input that claims to handle hi-z, has
phantom power, makes no claim as to being balanced, but works well with
a condensor mic that claims balanced output, what's the likely best of
the three possible configurations - hi-z, low-z unbalanced, or low-z
balanced?

Sorry for the extremely techie content of this post. It IS for a
harmonica mic setup.

Winslow

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