Simon Lewis Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 Glanced at the daily e-mail from one of the trade publications today... Monacor tackles digital switchover with new microphone systems Looks OK - a low cost system that might solve some problems. Blurb states "Designed to tackle any potential issues to arise from the digital switchover... operates on the licence free 863-865MHz frequency and comes with 80 selectable channels..." There's a reassuring comment, "the wireless microphone sector has become a very complicated issue, with many customers not knowing what they can & cannot use. These licence free models take this burden away & lets the user get on with what they brought them for". Now of course, there is nothing wrong with these statements as such. However, anyone who has followed the recent radio mic saga will know that 863-865 is likely to get busy with disgruntled refugees from channel 69; that in reality it's 863.1 to 864.9MHz (unless you want to upset your local firemen); and that "80 selectable channels" holds out to the uninitiated the possibility of numerous units happily coexisting. There does not appear to be any information on the manufacturer's website about the total number of units that can be run simultaneously. We could hazard an answer of somewhere between 3 or 4, but who knows? Perhaps I'm being a little cruel - this isn't trying to be a broadcast quality product, but in fact that's the problem... it's aimed at the lower end of the market where users aren't experts and schools, dance clubs and bands might well buy six units and only then discover it probably won't work. I think leaving out the necessary detail is at best unhelpful, and at worse lacking in truth... http://www.audioprointernational.com/assets/images/email/1.gif Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mervaka Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 Definitely with you in regards to "lacking in truth" and "unhelpful". Budget manufacturers often leave gaping holes in the specifications and pack out their features list both to mask shortcomings in their product, and as a marketing tool to make features appear immeasurably better than they actually are. In this case, I'm assuming the specifications have gaping holes so don't back up the claims made by the list of "too good to be true" features? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbsy Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 Yeah. How many non-specialists are going to read "80 selectable channels" as "you can use 80 channels at once". Most of them I bet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart91 Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 Glanced at the daily e-mail from one of the trade publications today... Monacor tackles digital switchover with new microphone systems And, of course, Monacor have issued this sales fluff to the trade press, presumably thinking that they can pull the wool over professional eyes as well. The trade rags, of course, appear to have copied and pasted the press release verbatim. Doesn't say much for the aptitude or integrity of the people putting these publications together... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HH Electronics Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 Indeed..... it's interesting that they chose to use the word 'Channels' rather than 'Frequencies' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 what on earth made you think that the people who put trade mags together understand what they write about. So much nowadays is simply knowing how to use the software to create nice looking pages - the only journalistic element is spell check. Photos and copy are frequently simply copy and paste - perhaps with a 'wrapper' making it sound more personal, but using the sentences from the original. I suspect old style journalism only existed because type writers couldn't copy and paste. If they could, then they'd have done the same thing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramdram Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 Plus, seeing as the mags want the advertising revenue, and having a great big splashy ad, with plenty of publicity shots of happy smiling cognoscenti, say, equates to more income then would you really correct their copy or object. There are rules for ads but possibly not against hyperbole? If nothing is materially incorrect, as in a demonstrable lie, then it's a case of buyer beware...do your homework...read between the lines etc etc. and disregard the "feel the width, never mind the quality" blurb. Until the advertisers twig the mags they use don't sell that much, possibly, the mag publishers have got their cash upfront before they go to press sort of thing. (Another issue could be that very clever copywriters are employed to plant these ad snippets in their columns as a spoiler for other rival products. If anyone reads online computers mags then you will know that MS, allegedly, ** laughs out loud **, have their "own" journos who jump on any other claims for an OS such as Linux...works the other way too of course.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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