Is my new Sony microphone dead?

[yueonyrl]

Although this question is not strictly Rockbox-related, but I think the answer may be beneficial to many of our recording amateurs inspired by the extreme nicety of Rockbox.

I bought a new Sony ECM-817 microphone. Unfortunately, I dropped it hard from a height of about 1.5m before I ever had a chance to experimenting it with my iriver H140 and Rockbox. Now I don't know whether the mic is dead or not. The problem is the signal recorded is extremely low when compared to those using the iriver-bundled external microphone or build-in microphone (under the same gain setting).  In general I must set the gain to the maximum extreme of 48db to have a weak signal.

And I understood later there is a precaution in the Sony manual that says "never be dropped or subjected to extreme shock since it is very sensitive." So, is the mic dead?

[iPodFoo]

Cant you try it on a pc's soundcard on the mic input? The mic may not have enough power unless you use a pre-amp.