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INRAD DMS-1 Desk mic base stand (this things da bomb)

TruckerKevin

KD9NTD
Nov 9, 2017
234
142
53
58
Buckner, Illinois
www.qrz.com
Hello all radio lovers united, and everyone else in between :).

First of all the mighty disclaimer, I’ve never left a product review before. And I am not associated with this company, nor any company for all that matter. There is nothing in this for me. I’m just a lowly ham. Second disclaimer,,,, I have a thing for desk mics :p. I’ve had desk mics of all makes and models, young, old, fat, skinny, nice, terrible, tall, short, you know the drill. I’ve had everything from old GE models made for heathkits, D104s, turners, modern deltas, branded, you name it. Even though there are some lousy desk microphones out there,and some mighty great ones, I’ve never found one that did not look bad in my collection even if it was a pos lol. (My Icom SM-50 and my Yaesu MD-100 are at the top of my all time favorites right now as far as sound quality goes. Both mighty fine mics, albeit a bit pricy.

Some of you may already know about this product. I’m not sure how long they have been out. Some of you may be rolling your eyes as this may be old news. If your one of them, I won’t be angry if you move along. But then there might be some of you out there, but if you’re anything like me, you’ve never even heard of such a product before. I had no idea they existed.

A couple of weeks ago, I was just browsing around the somewhat expensive DX engineering site, (did I say that), and I stumbled across this INRAD microphone and base combination. I was immediately intrigued. Because what separates this from all of the other desk microphones that I’ve ever had, this is the first product I’ve ever run across, brand new that is, that permitted me to hook up any XLR microphone to it, and just talk. I just so happens that I have several of these old microphones laying around. some I got from our Church basement that has long been retired, some I got through horse trading, and honestly, some that I don’t even really know how I got them. But lo and behold there they are in my box of junk, like the one sock missing it’s mate. I thought to myself, how cool that would be, to have that base stand and I can just put my own microphone in it. Product link https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/inr-dms-1

But would it work? I think that’s the question all of us have when we run across a different product that we’ve never heard of. So then we go to the reviews, and there was only one review from some girl with a five star saying that she liked it and that’s all there was to that. I figured, oh well, I’ll go ahead and take my chances on this and if it sucks I’ll just return it and pay a little bit of shipping to send it back. But I thought that it was so nice that I was willing to take the chance.

Apparently this base is made to hook up the inrad microphone to, which is a separate purchase. But as I previously mentioned, I did not need a microphone because I have plenty. I wanted to try out my own first. You will also need to purchase a cable for your particular radio. there was Icom, Yaesu and Kenwood. I went ahead and purchased all of them, because of all the radios I have and all of the buying and selling and trading I do here, I figured that eventually I would need to attach it to just about everything that passed through, besides the cables was only an extra $12.95.. That is certainly much less than the special Heil boom cable that I paid over $35 for. So just to be clear, your initial purchase will consist of the base stand, which comes with the 3 pin XLR cable to hook YOUR XLR microphone to the base. You will then need to buy one more cable to connect this whole base to your radio, specifically whichever radio you have. There were 3 cables to choose from, all for the 3 big radio companies.

Now before I go on, I have already used a boom microphone with my set up before. I bought the Heil Icom ICM microphone, and the before mentioned cable, that was made by a bob Heil to work with the 7300 out of the box. I spent a little more than what I could’ve made something for, but at least it was ready to go and I did not have to solder any capacitors in, it was already done for me. And indeed it twas plug and play. But I didn’t like it. Why didn’t I like it? Like many of us trying new things, the boom mic/stand sounded good on paper, but was in reality a bit of a pain. I didn’t realize how much work it was going to be pulling that boom down every time I wanted to talk and then pushing it back up out of my way. Plus it was always in my face, I just didn’t like that. When I want to answer an impromptu DX call, I prefer just hitting the desk mic and having my girly voice go out right away :p. I know that some of you were probably rolling your eyes right now, but hey we all have our little pet peeves and that’s one thing that just bothered me and made talking on my radio less than optimum. So I sold that whole set up and went back to the stock hand microphone, which always got me great compliments.

Well, this setup arrived today. I greeted UPS on the street, and happily took off running with my box like a dog with a treat, hiding under the sofa so the other dogs didn’t steal it from me. As I unboxed it, it was just like in the pictures. I knew that the base was going to be heavy because I had already read about it, but boy they was not kidding. I’m not sure what kind of metal it’s made out of but it feels like cast-iron, and if I had to guess I would say it’s at least a good 3 pounds. Very very sturdy to say the least. No microphone sliding around here, Felicia. The only thing I had to do after unwrapping it out of the plastic, is to screw in the neck to the base, then screw on the mic clip to the neck. There is a screw to butt up to the holder when you get the right angle, so the holder don’t keep spinning. I already knew which way it went in by looking at the pictures when I ordered it. then I attached the included cables, inserted my microphone, and hooked it up to my radio.

First of all before I go on to how it sounds, I just want to tell everybody about the fine quality that this thing feels like. And I’m not kidding you, when I press down on the microphone button it is very sturdy and precision feeling. Not creaky and plasticky, not shaky or anything else, but just a good solid professional feel to it. I was already very impressed with the build quality of this item. But, the big question,,,,,, does it work :;

My chosen weapon was my Icom 7300. I have plenty of radios to try it on, but this happens to be the closest and easiest to get to. I went into my settings and adjusted a few different things just to hopefully get it into the ballpark of what I think that it needed to be set at. I was quickly disappointed when I spoke into the microphone, that my ALC meter did not move at all. I double checked the microphone, and there was a little slider switch on the top that was turned off. DOH. So I slid a little switch forward, and then tried it again. Still, the ALC meter did not move. I turned up my microphone gain all the way up to 100%, and turned the monitor up, then I turned compression on. lo and behold, there was life. A squeally life, but it was there. But I did notice that I had to get pretty close to the microphone to get the ALC meter to move up to 50%, which is recommended by ICOM. I was hoping to be able to sit a little bit away from the microphone so I wouldn’t have to bend forward. but I tweaked a few more settings here in there, and I finally got the ALC meter to move up to about half The recommended scale with me sitting comfortably about 2 feet away from the microphone. A nice enough compromise.

I had no choice but to get on 80 meter, it’s a long story that’s neither here nor there. It’s the only antenna that I can use for now until I can get outside and fix my other one from a recent arm wrestling match with a windstorm that ultimately reigned supreme. Not my ideal choice, simply for the fact that it’s in the middle of the daytime, and I knew that the band conditions were probably going to be less than ideal, if not flat dead all together.

I did find a few people talking here in there as I scrolled the frequencies. But every time that I tried to communicate with somebody I did not get an answer. I was starting to worry that my microphone was not even working at all, despite what the meter said. So I started swapping them around, reaching into my junk box and trying this one and that one but everything remained the same. I finally just put my old trusty Shure in that I started with, and left it alone. After a series of trying, somebody from Tennessee, which is only two states south of me, came back and said that I sounded really good. He did say that everybody had left because of the band conditions, where nobody could hear each other, so that explains that. Which I pretty much knew already. I was concerned that my set up is just not working as well as it should. So that was actually kind of a relief to make the QSO.

After the conditions finally dropped and I could no longer make QSO with him, I decided to jump down to 20 and I just use my automatic tuner and tuned the 80 m dipole up and see what would happen. Fortunately for me I did make a contact up in Michigan. And the guy helped me dial things in just a little bit better. after turning my compression setting up just a little bit he said it came in really really nice. so this was fantastic! I have this desk microphone now that’s not restricted to any specific radio, I can just swap around the cables it will and use them on my Kenwood or my other radios that I have around here. Plus it just looks soooooo sexy on my desk .

I just love this microphone base. Enough to make me get on here and review it, I think that this is really a good choice. I paid just a little over $100 for the base with the cables, tax and shipped. That may sound high to some of you, but compared to the recent Heil episodes that I’ve encountered, I think it was pretty darn affordable for what I got verses what I spent in pursuit of that “perfect sound that so many of us desire”. (Yeah John, that’s aimed at you).

if you buy one of these you will not be disappointed. If your like me, and have an assortment of XLR microphones laying around that’s not paying you rent, this is a very worthy purchase. Unlike other microphones, if your not happy with your sound, you can simply just swap them around at will in a matter of seconds without having to purchase anything (or sell yours on eBay because it was a regret). Just unplug the cable off the mic, slide it out and reverse process with your next mic. Easy peasy.

the only place I have found these are at the DX Engineering site, at least in the US that is. I do think I remember seeing a place in the U.K. that has them, for my friends over the big pond. Google would be your friend here.
 

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http://vibroplex.com/contents/en-us/d9155.html
Own the 629 and stand, bought it right after they were released at Dayton HAMVENTION last year.
Direct from Vibroplex (company owner) I also own they're Contest Headset (like it also)
Used on my Yaesu FT-920.
I am happy with it. Have both cables so can use on ICOM's or Yaesu's
I added a chrome extension nipple to the stand neck to make it about 3 inches taller.

http://vibroplex.com/contents/en-us/d9164.html
 
Since I posted the review, I had to make a few corrective settings. At least this applies to the 7300.
Regardless of what the ALC meter shows, the 7300 does NOT like a mic gain of over 27 percent.
The ICOM manual will have you going ahhhhhhh and bringing the mic gain up to level off the ALC. My advice, don't do it. But if you insist, and people say you sound muddy,,,,,, back the gain way down :p
This was indeed verified by muah along with others who run a 7300.
Once I brought this down to a reasonable level, it really came to life
 
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