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I forget how the mic in line on the sled works. Is it just a bare mono line, or a single phono?


It's a 3.5mm mono jack - it looks like the microphone is "bare", ie you'd have to solder on a wire (and the wire to a 3.5 mm mono plug at the other end)

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In other words, will it require me to learn how to solder and then tear up my install to use the cool newness of V3a8?


Solder: either you or someone else to do it for you. It's just 4 solder points in all.
Tear up: depends on where your mic input jack is currently stashed, if you can get your fingers on it or not, and if you can feed the wire from the mic from somewhere to the rear/top of the sled and connect jack and plug together w/o having to remove the sled.
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/Michael