Radio Microphone Question

The Sennheiser G2 series of radio microphones is pretty popular, and I'm practically signing a check for one for a video capture system.

I'm staring at the spec sheet for G2-100 and G2-300 and the only difference I can see is the $380 difference in price. What am I buying for the extra $380?

Is the difference between four frequency presets and eight worth 380 US Dollars?

Koz

i think the 300 series is an in ear monitoring system. or maybe its fixed euro freq - dunno. there isnt consistent info anywhere...

what youre looking for is the 100 or 500
and what seperates them seems to be autoscanning and multiple input types on the 500.

i say get the 100. i use them, they are fine.

where are you buying from? they should be able to clear it up...

how are u planning to use them?

<<<there isnt consistent info anywhere... >>>

That's what happened to me.

<<<how are u planning to use them?>>>

Pretty tame. Auditorium, Theater lectures. If I picked the one with the lavalier, I was going to buy the headset extra, or vice versa.

Another consideration is frequencies. 518-554 MHz turns out to be television channels 22-27, 626-662 MHz is channels 40-45, and 740-776 MHz is channels 59-64.

Why are people turning in their "old" 700 MHz equipment for one of the "newer" lower frequencies? Multipath errors and damage are much less at higher frequencies.


Koz

Why are people turning in their "old" 700 MHz equipment for one of the "newer" lower frequencies?

Once TV goes completely digital (now in June) the 700MHz frequencies will be opened up for other use and will evenutually be subject to interference. How long until that becomes a real issue is a good question but it is not advised to buy equipment in this range. The major manufacturers will offer retooling on some models.

We are embarking on a series of lunch lectures here and the first of them was done with a wired lavalier microphone.

The sound was OK and we recorded it for further editing. He was a Subject Matter Expert, but he was also nervous, so he paced constantly and gesticulated and shuffled notes without cease. He got tied up in the microphone cable in nothing flat.

That's the official excuse, although people have been asking for one of these forever. Do you ever see the TED lectures? They had some severe audio growing pains, but the last bunch seem to work OK. I left them a note to see what equipment they ended up using. Whatever it is has a little thin transparent tube between the ear area and the corner of the mouth.

Koz

<<<Once TV goes completely digital >>>

Oh, right. I forgot about that. The upper UHF is going away. It will turn into the digital version of the CB Band.

Thanx,

Koz

have you looked into lectrosonic koz?

Not yet. That did come up in a listing of possible manufacturers. What do we generically know about them? Personal experience?

Koz

as far as sound quality, ive never A/B tested them against anything else, and im happy as a clam with my sennheisers. so im not trying to talk you out of them - but you'll see lectrosonic in way more pro audio bags than sennheiser.

what i like about lectrosonic is:
1. made in america. and thats RARE these days.
2. WAY more purchase options than sennheiser

what i dont like about lectrosonic:
1. PRICE

[www.lectrosonics.com]

Koz:

Not only will the 698 to 806 MHz band be subject to more interference s soon as the stations throw the switch, but any wireless in that band will become illegal. Granted, there will be no actual policing by the understaffed FCC, but if you were constantly stepping on another operator in the bandwidth, they could legitimately lodge a complaint against you and win.

Lectrosonics is the industry standard in the U.S., they are mil-spec outstandingly tough little bricks of steel and aluminum. Absolutely best in class. 90% of everything you hear in television and film that is wireless are Lectros.

Zaxcom is good but seems more popular in the film world than the TV world.

Sennheisers are popular in the low end (G2s are the standard low budget wireless) and their high end installed systems are very good, but they have never come close in the broadcast wireless arena to Lectro. I am on sets for a living, shooting BTS/EPK and I always get a feed from the sound mixer. It has been many years since I have encountered anything BUT Lectro with the sound mixers.

Dan

Yes, well. As I understand it, anybody who doesn't get a license has a problem no matter where in the band they are.

And as far as somebody complaining about you encroaching on their channel, who would know? All the new services are digital with their own error correction and masking. I bet I could start an electrical fire on their frequency and they would never catch on.

Ever try to put a WiFi access point on line in a crowded apartment complex? There's only like 7 channels and you can't use all of them. Yet everybody seems to co-exist. The last Switch I put on line has special settings for areas with high crowding.

I'm in single-family detached housing and three of the seven channels are gone already. Across the street, one block over on the corner and me. Four before the Mac people next door moved to Redondo Beach.

Sorry to see them go. He made great brownies.

Koz

<<<Sennheisers are popular ... but they have never come close in the broadcast wireless arena to Lectro.>>>

But they don't necessarily work any better. They have physical robustness and they have one other attribute: Fred on the next movie has one. Doesn't matter who Fred actually is. Once a machine overcomes a threshold, "Everybody Knows" you need to have one.

I'll see if I can find a supplier who knows the differences and probably get a nice G2-100, diversity base station system with a choice of microphones. Wayne Newton doesn't appear in our screening room very often.

Koz