PGA81

Tonal Profile

Small-diaphragm electret cardioid for acoustic instruments and hi-hat. Flat rather than tailored, 129.5 dB SPL before 1% distortion, and a phantom draw of only 2 mA, which matters on a passive splitter or a battery-powered mixer.

Gain Staging Advice

At -48.5 dBV/Pa it needs about 6.5 dB less gain than a PGA58 and 7.5 dB less than an SM57 - but it is a condenser, so the 600 ohm output plus phantom means it must see a real mic input, not a line input with a barrel adapter. Shure publishes no self-noise figure for it, so how quiet a source it can serve is not answerable from the sheet.