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RRS / Really Right Stuff as a carbon fiber camera tripod manufacturer are top notch. RRS and Gitzo are perhaps two of the best tripod manufacturers out there so I see it's natural for RRS to extend their range to boom poles as well - although I do not know how their poles are / will be. But they sure do know carbon fiber tube manufacturing and assembly.

I've tried all different levels - 70mV, 600mV and 3V on LTC input for me Mixpre6 and it synced perfectly on all of them.

Yes. I noticed the CM4 after I posted! And a bit more pronounced cardio then the CM3. I placed an order for a pair as soon as I saw them. I have not yet received a confirmation on them though.

Looks interesting. I guess we soon will see these compared with a pair of cheap, tiny but well renowned CM-3.

I asked SD about the LTC input level on the mixpre 6 the other day in relation to the signal level feeds from my Ultrasync One. Dennis at SD told me that they did not have any specs on the matter but he measured the LTC Lemo output from the 688 - which always had worked great for them - and it was about 112mV. He recommended me to begin with then Mic level output on the USO which is 70mV and see if the Mixpre 6 was happy with that. The Low setting from the USO is 600mV. Unfortunately I’ve not been able to set it up yet as I have been away on travel.

I had some cable problems on several of my DPA 4066 close to the microdot connector and asked the leading supplier if I could order the microdot repair kit. But was told it was quite a challenge to do it myself and was asked to send them in instead for them to look at as they had all needed equipment and skills. A few days later all three 4066 was returned to me with refitted microdot connectors. I asked for the invoice which was not included in the shipment and was simply told it’s in the mail. Two days later I got it and it read something like: 3x Microdot repair and replacement, 0,- They had repaired them all, free of charge. DPA might appear expensive but they certainly are affordable in the long run. From now on I make sure the cables are looped and zipped to the strain relief itself to avoid any unnecessary stress to them. It have worked very well.

Yes they look like the Nokia BL-4 or -5 cells. Removing the betso sticker would reveal it. But it depends on the possible warranty validity if removed etc. But it do not appear to be that tricky to replace them yourself.

I do not own this kind of TC display unit but I’ve custom built and replaced many battery packs in other devices. I would first reach out to the manufacturer or one of their resellers and see if they have a price on a spare and if it’s enough to send the battery to you or if it really need to be replaced by the manufacturer. They most like say it’s needed. Ask yourself if it’s worth it or not. Hassle free often comes at an expense but also with a warranty. Not always a bad thing. After that it’s all about how handy you consider yourself to be. To do it yourself, take a peek at how they are attached to the pcb and fixed to the case. Any wiring can be detached and measured to see voltage. If needed you can remove the label stickers and see if there are a model number written on lipo-cell by the original manufacturer. The text often describe chemistry, size and capacity. Then it’s often as simple as searching for those numbers or sizes on the web and you will find that they are available for different sources. Not always as complete and drop-in ready but ready to solder and drop in. When I look at the photos of cells it looks to be those standard Nokia cells used by half of the world a few years back. I’ll look closer on the workstation later today and get back to you. If so it’s very simple to by new ones replace them.

If it’s new old stock I guess the internal li-ion cells have dropped so low that they are under the voltage level for which the protection circuit need it to be to initiate the charge process. And is the unit is set to need user initiated charge when connected to external power you are stuck I guess. Anyway, if there’s not warranty involved I would simply remove the back of it, disconnect the internal li-ion/lipo pack, measure its cell voltage and see if all have dropped low or only one of them. If they all are far below 2 V each I would not have any faith in them even though they might be able to get going again as they tend to be damaged anyway. If they are just under 2.5V I would use a dedicated li-ion charger from the RC world and use it’s often built in features to revive and cycle the cells besides settings for chem type, capacity, charge current etc. Or order a new pack or build one yourself. There are tricks far outside what should be recommended on how to force them to take charge and it involves setting a profile for NiMh cells and simply push them up to a higher voltage and then change battery type and continue charging as lipo. Unless you have the equipment, understand the risks and know how to take the precautions - this is nothing to continue with. Most often the cells have taken too much damage from being left in a low voltage state to long anyway and should be discharged and left for recycling.

There posts about it the Zaxcom forums. I’ve never used Zaxcom but many other CF card speced hardware. And there are quite a lot of the thicker Type II adapters but only a few thinner Type I adapters and I’ve tried many of them and some are really unreliable in low temps or does not write fast enough while others are stable and good performers. One of the better are the Type I in plastic from Delock. They are rock solid down to -25C during winters as well as high humidity and temps in the 40C. Ans they work great for WiFi cards like the FlashAir if that kind of function is needed. https://www.delock.com/produkte/S_62637/merkmale.html

Also - as the 2.4 GHz band is free there’s a lot of other equipment running on the same bands. WiFi, Bluetooth, microwave, RC-models etc. So even though all newer equipment is needed to do pre-jump channel collision detection it can get very crowded. And the higher frequency the more important line of sight between TX & RX gets. Concrete pillars, large metal plates in 55” displays and humans either reflect or absorb the 2.4 very effective.

Yes the mixpre3 photographed in the FCC docs differs as they used the poorer speced 5558VN during the certification. I believe the 5576EN was not yet released during development. The 5558VN can not reach the specified 120dB S/N unless you do 8-to-2 summing and then you are one channel short. Therefor it seems logical that the MP3 follow the same design solution as the 6 and 10 series which use the 557x and 8-to-4 summing to reach the 120 dB spec. Also the AK5576EN was released later then the 8 channel ADC and there for not available early in the dev process.

The mixpre3 uses the smaller 6 channel AK5576EN in a 6-to-3 mode giving it better dynamic range.

I might even have a pair of the 10k ohm model still at home somewhere. Will do some digging after the holidays. They have not been used for ages.

I experienced the same bit rate changes when I’ve been recording on the field in 192k and then connect it to the computer only to later notice it’s at 96k. Because that’s the max the MP6 support over USB and what used for usb I/o earlier. From that on it have not been a problem for me as I know what to check. But it would be very nice if the mixpre returned to the previous setting again on USB disconnect. Or asked the question to do so.