Sennheiser Freeport

[paulears]

I've just been looking at the rather 'cuddly' review in the Live Sound freebie given away with Sound on Sound.

 

The thing is a Trantec - if not, then Sennheiser have cloned it. The mic, complete with twist lock, and slide battery access - the receivers with sticky up aerials - looks identical to the Trantecs.

 

The main change seems to be a rotary frequency selector switch.

Anybody else noticed this?

[northernaudioman]

The Sennheiser Freeport IS made by Trantec / Toa to Sennheiser's spec.

 

Regards

 

Oliver.

[Shez]

That explains it - I thought it looked somewhat Trantec-esque too...

[tekhieboy]

These microphones are rubish! Bought a handheld and a tieclip just before Christmas (lured by the Senn name on a reasonably cheap product) but when I tested them both they made huge "CLICK" "BANG" noises when turned on and off.

I phoned Wembley PA Centre (where I bought them from) and they said I mustbe doing something wrong, I told em I know how to turn a radio mic on, so in the end they phoned their Senn Rep who said it was a known problem with the first generation of the units. So I paid to send them to Senn and a few weeks later I received the newer ("red dot" as they're called).

Guess what?! It's not, quite, as loud but the problem still hasn't gone away. I've spoken to a service guy at Senn and he told me that they are still faulty. So now I've got to re-send them back again and get my money back, how much do I love wasting money sending someone else's busted equipment round the country, not very!

 

Don't buy any. I'm gonna try to get my hands on some JTS units instead.

[Bobbsy]

Yes, it's shoddy design. However, best practice is never to turn on a piece of equipment while that channel is live into the system. Even good stuff can cause pops and bangs at times.

 

Bob

[Alec]

May be best practise, and with radio gear best to lock it on before the show and power it off afterwards, running it entirely from the desk.

 

But loads of less pro setups end up with the talent powering the mic up and down.

 

A decent radio mic should handle this with the power up and power down actions running through a mute cycle.

[SeanT]

They might be gash, but that makes them perfect for dry hire, saves loosing your evos!!

[paulears]

Well - I have 16 UHF Trantecs and 8 Senn G1's. The Trantec handhelds are a bit plasticky - the Audio technica condenser capsule beats the cheap 835/845 dynamics for clarity and definition - but the chunky senn H/Hs are really tough.

 

Unless you have a pc programmer, Trantec is a bit of a pain as although you can have loads of channels in the memory - you can't add or change them. With a programmer, you can store favourite sets and swap them quickly, making a whole batch the same much quicker than manually prodding up/down on the senns.

 

The Trantec tx packs are pretty good - faults generally relate to the over-strong lemo connector. A really heavy fall can rip the connector out of the plastic pack - the senns counter this with a slightly unreliable jack socket - so a draw, I think. Trantec do have a bit of a problem with the mic socket coming loose - it isn't too difficult to fix this one. One really annoying thing is that they don't like getting damp - the display goes wonky - lcd elements vanish making it very difficult to see what channel you are on. Audio wise - differences are actually quite small. I can't really fault either, considering the use they get. As I mentioned in another post, Trantec receiver and senn tx work well - not the other way around. So let's keep the slagging off to sensible levels. I think we'd all agree that cheap kit very often has a drawback somewhere. price reductions means something gets lost - with Trantec I feel it is construction where the main economy has been made - not performance. If my customers break one, they pay for a replacement - they find that a bit annoying, but most take care. They get cheaper rates for the cheaper gear - so it's their call really. At the moment I need to either buy some replacement packs - I can't decide which ones it will be - I'll make my mind up soon I hope.