There's your hypothetical, but I've never actually seen it happen.
Have you? I've plugged ribbon mikes into phantom powered preamps many
times, and I know a great many other people have too, in studios where
the phantom is on 24/7 and they never give it a passing thought. Do
those people find themselves reribboning their mikes on a weekly basis?

Or yearly even? There are much easier ways to blow a ribbon, and I
would bet that most of the time the user doesn't necessarily know
exactly what the cause was. I've heard some tall tales about airflow
from drums, amps, the lid to the microphone's carrying case, etc.
Obviously ribbons do get wrecked occasionally, so at least one of these
is a reasonably common occurrence. But the way you hear people warn
each other on these forums about the fragility of ribbons, you'd think
they're made out of cobwebs and butterflies. They're not. All of my
ribbon mikes have been very robust and reliable. The risk of blowing a
ribbon is hugely overstated. I'm not saying it never happens.

ulysses



Don't do lit with an RCA 77DX that hasn't been modified to fix the grounded
center tap thing.

Been there, done that, paid for a new ribbon.


Richard H. Kuschel
"I canna change the law of physics."-----Scotty