Submitted by: Jeremy Heywood – Vancouver Aquarium
If you have an older EMA, with long leads connecting to the mic, here is a hack to reduce the stress on the wires and reduce the chance of the wires breaking. This works for Interspiro (“AGA”) and OTS EMAs and masks.
Note: this certainly voids your warranty.
- Remove mic from leads. Save attachment screws. (Pic 1 shows a mic attached to leads as it comes from Interspiro/OTS.)
- Snip off gold-colored attachments blocks as close to the block as possible and strip of plastic cover (if present) on remaining wire.
- Bend the remaining wire to a tight curve with needle-nose pliers. (Pic 7 shows snipped, curved wires.)
- Re-attach the Hot Mic using the same attachment screws but adding a tiny washer and lock washer to hold in place. (Pics 5 and 6 show all pieces with snipped wires and close up of screws plus the added washer and lock washer that you have to source.) Alternatively you can add a tiny, tiny drop of Loctite thread locker to threads, but this makes the mics very difficult to subsequently remove.
- Yes, the mic is reinstalled backward (Pics 2 and 3), but I found it a) doesn’t make any meaningful difference to audio quality and b) may actually reduce vocal pops and hisses as mic diaphragm is now pointed away from the diver.
The EMA with the remounted Hot Mic on short wires now fits into the mask with relative ease, and the diver can’t mess with the positioning or put excess stress on the wires.
I have not had to replace or fix one since implementation of this hack, but your mileage may vary.
Definitely not a factory-recommended procedure, but it looks like OTS has redesigned the mic mount to solve this problem, so if you have a new mask, you will not need this hack.
