pbl question

[mikkpeace]

Question..i have 4 pbl peavey mics,3 dont work and look in good shape...do the switches go out in these pretty common???

[studiodtk5]

I don't have any of these microphones and don't know how well the switches last, but thos microphones are about 30 or so years old.

You can check to see if it is the switch by taking the microphone apart and bypassing the switch with a wire. If it works with the bypass wire, then it is the switch. If not, then possibly the capsul. I have had PVM480 microphones the lost the wire connection from the capsul to the output jack. A simple resolver and it worked great.

[Reno400]

Of the eight PBL/PBH mics I've worked on, five of them came to me with bad cartridges. All eight switches (made by Chicago Switch in this case) worked fine. With a bad cartridge/element (with switch in the ON position), you'll typically hear a hum accompanied by crackling noises. However, as studiodtk5 said, you should check the wiring. Wiring on these is most prone to breaking where it's soldered at the switch. First, check the wiring at the element and the switch. With switch in the OFF position, you should hear nothing. That should kill the noise completely. If you have noise with the switch in the OFF position, chances are there's an issue with the wires between the XLR connector and the switch, or the switch is bad. I don't write the cartridge off completely, until I've performed the bypass studiodtk5 mentioned. You can see in my "Meet The Microphones" thread where I use completely different wiring and a known working switch (you can do it with no switch, if you like) to test the cartridge outside of the mic. That's basically the "last stop" before I toss the cartridge. There's a pic of what that looks like, using the cartridge from an Electo-Voice 671. That revealed an unseen problem with one of the original wires.