ProSoundWeb Community

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Pages: [1] 2 3   Go Down

Author Topic: Wireless Intercom recommendation anyone?  (Read 16920 times)

Diogo Nunes Pereira

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 210
  • Barcelona, sometimes...
Wireless Intercom recommendation anyone?
« on: August 31, 2015, 05:26:00 PM »

Hi there.

One of my clients wants to buy a new wireless comms system. We mostly do corporate gigs in hotels and convention centers, and have been somewhat happy with the HME Pro850 he owns. I wouldn't recommend him a second one though... (To tricky to program from the front panel, etc...)

We rented the Telex BTR-800 a few times and I was happy with it. Both this systems have excellent range, being in the UHF range, and that's important: Someone can leave the room and still listen to the show caller...

What would you guys buy nowadays? Any good suggestions on new (or old) systems that work fine and can be used in conjunction with regular 2-wire systems?

Any help from this panel of experts is fully appreciatted. Thank you in advance.

Cheers,

Diogo

(EDIT 1)

Sorry... should have searched the forum first. Some old post illuminated my doubts. Cheers
« Last Edit: August 31, 2015, 09:36:23 PM by Diogo Nunes Pereira »
Logged
Diogo Nunes Pereira
[email protected]
--------------------------
"I envy not those who own charriots, horses or land. I envy only those who drink water from every fountain." - Popular Song from Portugal

Scott Helmke

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2253
Re: Wireless Intercom recommendation anyone?
« Reply #1 on: September 01, 2015, 08:27:42 AM »

BTR is still popular, but has limited tuning range by today's standards. Pick your frequency blocks carefully before buying!

On the way more expensive end there is RAD's UV-1G system. Functionally very similar to BTR, but the base station can transmit over the whole UHF television range while the beltpacks transmit down in VHF. Also the RF works a bit differently, making it possible to tune the beltpack transmit frequencies much closer together.
Logged

Pete Erskine

  • Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Online Online
  • Posts: 1456
    • Best Audio
Re: Wireless Intercom recommendation anyone?
« Reply #2 on: September 01, 2015, 09:29:56 AM »

BTR is still popular, but has limited tuning range by today's standards. Pick your frequency blocks carefully before buying!

BTR is discontinued as well as HME  850.  Clear-Com still has some BTR in stock I think if you still want it.
Logged
Pete Erskine
917-750-1134
www.bestaudio.com
[email protected]

Keith Broughton

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3667
  • Toronto
Re: Wireless Intercom recommendation anyone?
« Reply #3 on: September 01, 2015, 09:37:36 AM »

BTR is discontinued as well as HME  850.  Clear-Com still has some BTR in stock I think if you still want it.
We had a chance to use BTR800, BTR80N, and Tempest 2.4 and 900 systems on the same gig and I will have to admit that the best sound quality is still the BTR800.
The range on the Tempest was by far the best and the remote progamming was handy.
HME850 is a pain to program.
Logged
I don't care enough to be apathetic

Chris Johnson [UK]

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 446
Re: Wireless Intercom recommendation anyone?
« Reply #4 on: September 01, 2015, 11:10:11 AM »

FreeSpeak II is the current winner IMO.

Sounds very nearly as good as BTR, all the clever programming features of Tempest and then some. Up to 20 beltpacks and 10 antennae per base station, much more capacity if you use matrix cards.

The downside is, its expensive
Logged
Riedel Communications

Diogo Nunes Pereira

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 210
  • Barcelona, sometimes...
Re: Wireless Intercom recommendation anyone?
« Reply #5 on: September 01, 2015, 11:15:22 AM »

BTR is still popular, but has limited tuning range by today's standards. Pick your frequency blocks carefully before buying!

First off, thank you for your replies... I did found searching old posts yesterday that the BTR-800 is still favored by many. I used it a bunch of times over the years with good results and last year we built a system with 12 full-duplex beltpacks (3 base stations) for a Cirque du Soleil show in Andorra with Shure splitters/combiners/fins and it worked just fine for 2 months. We rented the same setup for this year.

BTR is discontinued as well as HME  850.  Clear-Com still has some BTR in stock I think if you still want it.

I guess you mean Telex still has some in stock, right? To bad it is being discontinued... Is the Clear-Com WBS-680 the same as a Telex BTR; they do look a lot like one another?

Quote
On the way more expensive end there is RAD's UV-1G system.

Us being based in Barcelona, Spain, I think we can't buy this for now...

I did found some love/hate regarding the DX210... but it seemed that most of the problems people experienced were when other FHSS systems were around. And the Jands article illuminated me a bit on options when out-of-the plenary coverage is needed. Thanks for pointing it all out in previous posts, Pete.

The range on the Tempest was by far the best and the remote progamming was handy.
HME850 is a pain to program.

The Tempest seems to have disappeared from the Clear-Com webpage... The Pro850 is still there though. It's a pain to program, but I do like the 850. But the boss experience is that I'm the only one, though... not complaining about it when returning from a gig.

But I do exercise care in coordinating the 850 frequencies with other RF systems we have for the show,  I reprogram all the belt packs, I run the HME software online on my laptop to compensate and monitor levels between the wired-PL and the 850, etc... And I find the coverage quite good; I can go for a bio-break during a session in most Barcelona venues and still listen to program or the show-caller.

This particular company's director is fine with spending money when value is due, he just wants something that works, with little setup time and no special expertise. The BTR has that.

He's considering the Free-Speak II (which may not be precisely plug-and-play) because it's new (and he likes new stuff - don't we all?) but I don't know much about it...

How is DECT coverage compared to older analog systems. Should we go for the 1900MHz or the 2.4GHz version?

Thank you.

Logged
Diogo Nunes Pereira
[email protected]
--------------------------
"I envy not those who own charriots, horses or land. I envy only those who drink water from every fountain." - Popular Song from Portugal

Diogo Nunes Pereira

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 210
  • Barcelona, sometimes...
Re: Wireless Intercom recommendation anyone?
« Reply #6 on: September 01, 2015, 11:28:27 AM »

FreeSpeak II is the current winner IMO.

Sounds very nearly as good as BTR, all the clever programming features of Tempest and then some. Up to 20 beltpacks and 10 antennae per base station, much more capacity if you use matrix cards.

The downside is, its expensive

Thank you Chris...

I was writing as you posted!

Cheers,

D
Logged
Diogo Nunes Pereira
[email protected]
--------------------------
"I envy not those who own charriots, horses or land. I envy only those who drink water from every fountain." - Popular Song from Portugal

Cameron Stuckey

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 133
  • New York City
Re: Wireless Intercom recommendation anyone?
« Reply #7 on: September 05, 2015, 01:50:10 PM »

BTR is discontinued as well as HME  850.  Clear-Com still has some BTR in stock I think if you still want it.

Pete, where did you hear the BTR has been discontinued? I know Tempest was discontinued earlier this August but haven't heard anything about BTRs.
Logged

Henry Cohen

  • Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1220
  • Westchester Co., NY, USA
Re: Wireless Intercom recommendation anyone?
« Reply #8 on: September 05, 2015, 08:14:38 PM »

Pete, where did you hear the BTR has been discontinued? I know Tempest was discontinued earlier this August but haven't heard anything about BTRs.

Tempest is not being discontinued: Clear-com is simply not distributing it any longer. Coach Com is still manufacturing and selling it. 
Logged
Henry Cohen

CP Communications    www.cpcomms.com
Radio Active Designs   www.radioactiverf.com

Cameron Stuckey

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 133
  • New York City
Re: Wireless Intercom recommendation anyone?
« Reply #9 on: September 05, 2015, 08:58:11 PM »

Tempest is not being discontinued: Clear-com is simply not distributing it any longer. Coach Com is still manufacturing and selling it.
Thanks Henry, that's more information than I got from the Clear-Com announcement. I read "Clear-Com is discontinuing sales and marketing of the Tempest product line." and took it to mean EOL.

Still curious about the BTR.
« Last Edit: September 06, 2015, 12:19:38 PM by Cameron Stuckey »
Logged

ProSoundWeb Community

Re: Wireless Intercom recommendation anyone?
« Reply #9 on: September 05, 2015, 08:58:11 PM »


Pages: [1] 2 3   Go Up
 



Site Hosted By Ashdown Technologies, Inc.

Page created in 0.026 seconds with 25 queries.