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Digital Radio Mics


fincaman

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Is there somemajor reason why the industry seems so slow to move over to digital radio mics or is it just the fact that the manufacturers don't want to upset their customer base who have invested £1000s on their present equipment
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What's the business case to do so?

 

One possible advantage is better spectrum management, the Shure ULX-D can fit 40 channels in 6MHz of spectrum in high density mode. The major disadvantage beside cost is latency.

 

Mac

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What sort of latency values are we talking about here? The recording side of the business seem happy with up to around 10ms not causing grief with monitoring - are we saying these radio systems are much worse than that? Can't say I've noticed any issues with my line 6?
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Sennheiser quote 3.2ms for their digital 9000 range. That is less of a delay than 2 people talking live to each other across a pub bar ... It will still be too much for some but they would be mighty picky.

 

To answer the OP's question unless analogue radio mics can't do a job why would you replace them? We are discussing the use of sound equipment for a business not a hobby and every business has to get as much life and return from their current inventory and only change for good business reasons, not because they would like to.

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Sennheiser quote 3.2ms for their digital 9000 range. That is less of a delay than 2 people talking live to each other across a pub bar ... It will still be too much for some but they would be mighty picky.

 

To answer the OP's question unless analogue radio mics can't do a job why would you replace them? We are discussing the use of sound equipment for a business not a hobby and every business has to get as much life and return from their current inventory and only change for good business reasons, not because they would like to.

 

Two people talking across a bar are not wearing IEMs, nor are they trying to keep in time with others in the conversation. The same is true of wedge monitors vs IEM, the 4-10ms away from a wedge you are is not distracting, but even 3 or 4 ms between the internal conduction of a singer's head and what they hear out of their IEM can be an issue. Running the IEM very loud usually helps, but part of the point of IEM is to work at lower SPLs, where the internal vs external paths become an issue.

 

While your analog mics may work fine, it is advantageous to be able to provide more mics in the same amount of spectrum, which is being done with today's digital mics.

 

Mac

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To answer the OP's question unless analogue radio mics can't do a job why would you replace them? We are discussing the use of sound equipment for a business not a hobby and every business has to get as much life and return from their current inventory and only change for good business reasons, not because they would like to.

 

The major reason is that spectrum is (usually) expensive and analogue radio mics use spectrum spectacularly inefficiently. You can do far far better with the same audio quality and low latency and better resilience to interference with a spread spectrum system with all kinds of extra stuff like dynamic allocation of bandwidth to channels and funky power management.

 

To my knowledge at least one such system has been developed however it was not brought to market because the developers could not get either Sennheiser or Shure to brand it and without one of those names on it they did not believe it would sell.

 

In effect because government has made a social decision, partially based on lobbying from the PMSE sector, to preserve spectrum at very low cost for lower power PMSE users rather than sell it to the highest bidder this has meant that there is no market pressure for Sennheiser or Shure to change.

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The current crop of digital radio systems don't offer any significant advantage over UHF systems . As has mentioned before, they do add latency.

 

In any audio system, you have to consider the latency of the entire system. So if you take radio mic, mixer and an IEM system as the shortest possible path, it's no difficult for that be to be 8ms. For vocal IEMs, 5-6 ms for most is bordering on annoying if not unacceptable.

 

The figures for the 9000 series mentioned above would give a starting point of 6.4 ms for mic and IEM before any other part of the system is included.

 

At FOH, add speaker processing and a few plug ins and your easily over 10ms which is fine in an arena but for theatre, you have just lost your image.

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The current crop of digital radio systems don't offer any significant advantage over UHF systems . As has mentioned before, they do add latency.

 

38-40 systems in 6MHz of spectrum is a significant advantage over current analog systems, and is available today, and for the past couple of years.

 

In any audio system, you have to consider the latency of the entire system. So if you take radio mic, mixer and an IEM system as the shortest possible path, it's no difficult for that be to be 8ms. For vocal IEMs, 5-6 ms for most is bordering on annoying if not unacceptable.

 

Yes, all digital processes add latency. The same is true for any DSP speaker processor, digital console, or any other AD/DA conversions in the system. With IEM, where the latency really matters at least you don't have the speaker processor.

 

At FOH, add speaker processing and a few plug ins and your easily over 10ms which is fine in an arena but for theatre, you have just lost your image.

 

In my experience almost every speaker in the theater has some delay added to its signal to time it back to an acoustic source on stage, you use less if your system has inherent latency. every design choice is a comprimise of some sort. The compromise of whether you can use 30 systems in 6MHz or 10 vs and additional 2.6ms of latency is up to you.

 

Mac

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Hello again, I feel the big advantage is that you can have far more mics in the bandwidth, small theatres or theatrical groups who are managingwith cheaper equipmenton the free bandcan only have 4 mics. The other advantage is no compression and apparently digital systems are cheaper to make and will probably be a fraction of the cost in a few years
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I was looking at replacing a twin handheld system for our school hall (so budget kit) and considered a couple of budget 2.4Ghz systems - both would be a massive fail!!

Pulse mic from CPC The power button is also the pair button. Yup, that's going to spend 99.999% of it's life in pairing mode.....

IMG Stageline from CPC Press and hold for a few seconds to power off. Yup, new batteries every single time it's used. Plus - and this is the real joke - it switches off after 5 minutes if 'no-one speaks in to it'. So doesn't actually have a real-life use!!!

 

Both were so promising for my application... would have been perfect if they hadn't been designed by plebs who have never actually used a sound system in real life with real people!!

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I was looking at replacing a twin handheld system for our school hall (so budget kit) and considered a couple of budget 2.4Ghz systems - both would be a massive fail!!

Pulse mic from CPC The power button is also the pair button. Yup, that's going to spend 99.999% of it's life in pairing mode.....

IMG Stageline from CPC Press and hold for a few seconds to power off. Yup, new batteries every single time it's used. Plus - and this is the real joke - it switches off after 5 minutes if 'no-one speaks in to it'. So doesn't actually have a real-life use!!!

 

Both were so promising for my application... would have been perfect if they hadn't been designed by plebs who have never actually used a sound system in real life with real people!!

 

Have a look at the AKG twin system I have one not digital but works well

 

 

 

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