• Registered: 2012-02-13
  • Posts: 19

Topic: Babyface: Is changing snapshots damaging to the preamps, or speakers?

I have set a few snapshots in TotalMix for recording vocals and a few for playback without powering the pre's. When I am only using the Babyface for playback, no phantom power is fed to the pre's and no gain is added to the inputs. My snapshot for recording though, has phantom power turned on and gain of +48dB is applied to the input channel. When I change from snapshot to snapshot, there is a small lag before the microphone gets powered.

My question is: Is it damaging to the Babyface pre's or the microphone, when I change snapshots (e.g. from no phantom power and 0dB gain immediately to phantom power with 40db+ of gain)? Similarly, if I set presets for monitoring through speakers and monitoring through headphones which mute/unmute one or the other, can the sudden change in levels (e.g. from -inf. to -6dB) potentially cause damage to the speakers or headphones?

Thank you.

  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2007-04-10
  • Posts: 9,782

Re: Babyface: Is changing snapshots damaging to the preamps, or speakers?

No damage...

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

RME Support's Website

  • Registered: 2012-02-13
  • Posts: 19

Re: Babyface: Is changing snapshots damaging to the preamps, or speakers?

This is great to hear. smile

I've noticed that plugging/unplugging the headphones even when the signal fed to them is hot (0db) doesn't cause the nasty pop sounds, typical for analogue gear and other audio interfaces that I have used. Suddenly boosting the gain of a microphone (like when you change snapshots), although producing a tiny pop when phantom power kicks in, still doesn't yield abrupt noise.

How come changing levels doesn't produce big pops in the phones or speakers? Does the Babyface have some kind of attenuator in the circuit that allows for the gradual boosting of the signal?

Would be happy to know more on this topic.

Thanks.