Wireless Mics for Weddings

NaperRick wrote on 10/11/2004, 5:47 PM

Lori,
When I attended Spot's Vegas seminar I believe he said he really liked the AudioTechnica Pro88 series of wireless. He said they sounded good and were very ruggedly built.
I have never used them myself, but that is my recollection of what he said.
Hopefully he will correct me if I misstated his comments.

Rick

farss wrote on 10/11/2004, 6:13 PM

We have six Sennheiser kits, expensive but very reliable and more channels to choose from than NASA needs. Short of shutting the lid of our flight cases on the mic they're pretty well indestructable.

Bob.

musicvid10 wrote on 10/11/2004, 8:43 PM

I agree with farss, Sennheiser is my choice. There is a dealer on eBay, rp_audio
who has some good prices on them. You might check out the Sennheiser EW112P G2.

Grazie wrote on 10/11/2004, 9:25 PM

I've got the Senni EW 100 series. I bought them just on the cusp of the "newer" 112s coming out . .. wish I'd known. The EW100s rip through PP9 batteries. I'm lucky to get 1 or 1½ hours . . .honest! I understand the EW112s use the pencil batteries and last longer.

. .. hmmmm... Yah win some Yah loose some . .. .

Grazie

farss wrote on 10/12/2004, 1:15 AM

Grazie,
that's pretty odd. We get about 4 hours out of hours. The receiver goes first. We do use Duracell industrial alkaline batteries, maybe they've got a bit more life in them?

Ah, hang on, ours are the Evolution 500 series, maybe that's the key.
Also for the reciever you can use a gizmo from Senni that lets you power it from the camera or some other source.

Bob.

randy-stewart wrote on 10/12/2004, 1:27 AM

Lori,
Check out this site: http://www.ggvideo.com/wireless.htm. They have some great prices on wireless mics and have some pretty good advice too. I've been researching to purchase a lavalier for use at weddings and have pretty much decided on the Sony or Audio Technica (U100 series). We had a bad experience with Sennhieser's 2 weeks ago. Turned out to be a mechanical problem with on of the antenna leads. I've also used the AKG wireless lavalier mic's and they worked very well. There's a lot out there. Hope this helps.
Randy

ushere wrote on 10/12/2004, 3:07 AM

use e100 - batteries last 3>4 hours (duracell off supermarket shelf). no problems and well made.

wondering if anyone uses the rechargable 9v batteries?

leslie

farss wrote on 10/12/2004, 3:29 AM

I'd avoid the rechargeables for this kind of thing for two reasons:

The voltage is never quite the same, not saying you'll cook anything but might not get the same perfromance

And secondly they don't hold as much power as a primary cell normally.

Bob.

eejackson wrote on 10/12/2004, 7:55 AM

Hey All:
Thanks so much for the input. I greatly appreciate all of your comments and suggetions.

Lori J.

Spot|DSE wrote on 10/12/2004, 9:03 AM

You can't use rechargables and expect performance.
For short distances, the AT Pro88W can't be beat for quality of sound. However, they are VHF, and only 2 channel selectable. They are used by the boatload in Hollywood.
The AT100 is a channel-selectable system that is rock solid. great sound, distance of up to about half a mile with safety. farther if you're reckless. Built like a tank.
I've had NOTHING but bad experiences with the new Sennheiser G2 series. Talked to the guys at the LVCC, they tell me that they purchased 2 for evaluation and are now dumping them. Sony and Audio Technica are the only mid-level companies doing wireless right at this point, IMO. Of course, start getting into Comtek orLectrosonics, it's a whole different game.

Grazie wrote on 10/12/2004, 9:39 AM

So, Spot, does this ring any harmonies for you . . from Senni . . ?

" Pushing the limits: with its evolution wireless G2 series, Sennheiser has once again extended the boundaries of feasibility. "

. . er . . try this . . http://www.sennheiser.co.uk/evolution.html

Grazie . . ..

farss wrote on 10/12/2004, 4:14 PM

SPOT,
I cannot speak for the G2 series, we only have the 500 series kit. We had a Sony unit and got rid of it, way too poor a quality. I have zero faith in anything Sony and audio. The PD150 has more audio problems than I care to think about. We've recently found one I've never heard of before.
At high SPL the audio circuits latch up for several seconds, when I say latch up I mean the camera records NOTHING! This isn't a fault, it's a design flaw from what we can see. We've had it happen on more than one camera with someone shooting boxing, same thing may also happen with PD250. When I say high SPL, probably over 100 dBA with lots of bass.

That said, the problems we've had with th 500 series wireless mics come in two areas:
1) Connection. Senni don't make a cable that'll take you from the receiver to balanced inputs. They make one that looks like it will but it's wrong. We've rolled our own with some difficulty, ended up buying a Sony lead, chopping the mic off and wiring an XLR connector onto it. The minipin to XLR lead that Senni sells is for line input to the transmitter.

To see how to connect to these things correctly you need to look at the manual, on the Tx unit one pin is for mic level in, the other for line level in. On the Rx unit the two pins form a balanced ouput. Very confusing if you don't RTFM!

2) Signal level going into the transmitter. The Senni gear uses compression / expansion. Common practice on FM transmitters however you have to have a good level going into the Tx unit for this to work right. Input levels are set in the menu on the Tx unit and can be monitored on the Rx unit. When they're set right all is well. When they're way off the result is horrid. Also the level out of the Rx unit needs to be matched into the camera or whatever, another common cause of problems.
These devices are NOT an 'invisible' link like a piece of wire!

Bob.

John_Cline wrote on 10/12/2004, 4:36 PM

Like Spot, I have had extremely good luck with wireless systems from Audio Technica. I have used the U100 system and was suitably impressed. Primarily, I use the AT 3000 series wireless system with an AT899 omnidirectional lavalier microphone and it sounds excellent. The 3000 series has an AC powered dual-diversity receiver, so it won't work in situations where you need to have the receiver mounted on the camera.

Regardless of the system you choose, it is my opinion that a dual diversity receiver is an absolute must. (Dual diversity is a single receiver with two antennas and two tuners that can instantly switch between the two to eliminate multipath caused dropouts. I would think this would be critical in wedding event videography where there are no "second takes.")

Regarding rechargable batteries, the AT 3000 series transmitter uses two AA batteries. I use 2300 mAh NiMh batteries and I can power the transmitter for well over 6 hours on a charge and obtain excellent distance performance. 9 volt NiMh rechargables have considerably less capacity and I probably wouldn't trust them over a good old alkaline.

Which brings up another point, if you choose a wireless system that runs on 9 volt batteries, the batteries will end up costing you a small fortune over time.

Just a few thoughts...

John

(farss, I've never encountered the high-SPL lockup issue with the PD150. I just got back from doing a NASCAR race and the SPL was WAY, WAY over 100db and mostly explosive bottom end (forty-three 800+ horsepower engines with no mufflers.) I had no problems at all with my PD150.)

Grazie wrote on 10/12/2004, 8:10 PM

Update here: Just used my Sennis [ 100 series ] on shoot yesterday. Echo-y room - subject spoke clearly but too "hot" [ most likely me-bad!] and the respondee picked-up nicely on my direction K66. Got back to base and put the "hot" stuff through Sound Forge, clear as a Bleedin' Bell! I love my set up and with SF and Vegas - it all just WORKS! . . Don't get any better than that!

Grazie

Spot|DSE wrote on 10/12/2004, 8:29 PM

The G2 has caused me nightmares in Washington DC and Singapore....I know people rave about them, and on paper they look great. They're tough as hell, and they don't work well.

Grazie wrote on 10/12/2004, 8:55 PM

Ah SPOT! Were you using the Senni "Washington DC and Singapore" compliant set-up? There is a small flick switch that allows them to be used JUST in these two places . . . I think this is very thoughful - yeah, me too!

Gotta Larf!

Grazie

FuTz wrote on 10/13/2004, 2:43 AM

Used U100s last november (along with Lectrosonics 200 series) and they worked very well. The phone-jacks on the receivers were very usefull for translation purposes. And I was positively surprised by the range!
For the price (I just checked and, again, was positively surprised!), it's a reallly good bet.

Coursedesign wrote on 10/13/2004, 10:07 AM

What did you think of the sound quality of the U100s compared to the Lectro 200 series?

I know the U100 is good, is it also very good?

baysidebas wrote on 10/13/2004, 10:25 AM

John, you wrote: "Regardless of the system you choose, it is my opinion that a dual diversity receiver is an absolute must. (Dual diversity is a single receiver with two antennas and two tuners that can instantly switch between the two to eliminate multipath caused dropouts. " A "Diversity" receiver is what you accurately describe. A "dual diversity" setup would imply the use of two individual diversity receivers, and I don't think you meant that ;)

John_Cline wrote on 10/13/2004, 10:37 AM

You're right, I didn't mean that. But with four receivers, the chance of a dropout would be absolutely non-existant! :)

John

rs170a wrote on 10/13/2004, 10:46 AM

My personal opinion is anything from Lectrosonics. I've used a number of different models inthe past 15 years and they're hard to beat. Construction is rock-solid and their service is fantastic.

Mike

John_Cline wrote on 10/13/2004, 11:14 AM

Mike,

I agree with you about Lectrosonics. The company is here in Albuquerque and the owner is a long-time friend of mine. Their stuff is expensive and worth every penny. I can't really justify buying a Lectro wireless system (and Larry won't give me one) but I do rent them whenever ultimate audio quality is important.

John

rs170a wrote on 10/13/2004, 11:49 AM

Their stuff is expensive...

Still cheaper than the comparable Sennheisers :-)
Tell Larry (your boss?) that, in the long run, it's far cheaper to buy quality once than junk 10 times.

Mike

baysidebas wrote on 10/13/2004, 11:50 AM

Not exactly, but it would give you discrete 2 channel audio (each channel on its own freq. of course).