Sorry if this is a bit wordy, and with the danger that you know most of this anyhow....
Looking at the official info as linked to above, this model has:
"Unbalanced ¼" I/Os"
and runs at line level.
Unless stated, microphones are low output devices which send a balanced signal down cables with XLR connectors at each end. The "balanced" system suppresses the introduction of electrical noise into the microphone signal. Almost all professional microphones all use this system.
Connecting such a microphone to an unbalanced line level jack input is usually a bad idea because the microphone signal is low and will need a lot of boosting to get to line level, and you also lose the noise suppreasion benefit of a balanced connection which will be exaggerated by the boosting required - that's a double whammy of bad news.
If your cable is short, and the unit you connect to is low noise with good quality internal amplification (such as this unit), you might get away with it.
It is preferable to use either a microphone transformer or a small mixer to boost your low level balanced microphone signal up to line level as required.
Hope this makes some sense!
After I posted this, I noticed that in the diagrams in the included data sheet, none of them showed a mic or guitar going into this device. The only diagram I saw which I, personally, could achieve would be to have this chain... guitar/mic > mixer > Sonic Maximizer > Fishman Soloamp. (Other choices would be going into a pre-amp or other device instead of a mixer.) So, this complicates my setup even further, something I was hoping to avoid. By using this device, I am adding not one, but two things -- a mixer and this device.
Thus, looks like you're right. I note that there are more expensive Sonic Maximizer models which DO have XLR inputs, and I wonder if one could plug guitar/mic directly into the Sonic Maximizer.
Thanks.
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