Phantom Power

Phantom Power is DC electric power transmitted through microphone cables to operate microphones that contain active electronic circuitry. It is best known as a convenient power source for condenser microphones, though many active direct boxes also use it.

Phantom power supplies are often built into mixers, channel strips, microphone preamplifiers, etc. In addition to powering the circuitry of a microphone, traditional condenser microphones also use phantom power for polarizing the microphone’s transducer element.

A condenser microphone requires phantom power to produce a DC polarizing voltage and to power an internal amplifier required to drive long cables.

Want to receive the Daily Goody in your email, daily or weekly? Subscribe free here.

And please keep in mind, the Daily Goody is only a tiny little tip, fact or lesson everyday. Please don’t expect any of these posts to be long, earth-shattering masterpieces that instantly answer every single question you can think of and completely transform you into a world class podcast engineer. “Little by little, a little becomes a lot.”

.