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Author Topic: Lectrosonics M2 Duet sound quality!?  (Read 7742 times)

TJ (Tom) Cornish

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Lectrosonics M2 Duet sound quality!?
« on: July 08, 2018, 07:20:59 AM »

I finally received the Lectrosonics M2 Duet IEM system I ordered like 9 weeks ago.  I’ve used Sennheiser IEM G3s and Shure PSM900s for many years; this is my first Lectrosonics product of any kind.

The features are cool, but the sound quality is....significantly worse than I expected.  There are two issues:

- The headphone jack on the transmitter has an unbelievable amount of hiss no matter where the volume control is set

- sound through the receiver has a gated hiss/buzz sound that is really noticeable with a low input level to the transmitter and a high pack volume.  This noise improves with sending the transmitter a very hot signal and turning the receiver down.

Are these characteristic of the M2 system?  I’ll likely never use the on-transmitter headphone jack and if I slam the transmitter with a hot signal and keep the receiver pack volume low it does sound better than the lesser IEM systems I’m familiar with, but it’s not the “24 bit digital audio/digital RF” experience I was expecting for the $$$$.

I’m going to try to contact Lectrosonics support this week, but thought I’d solicit other user experiences.

Thanks
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TJ (Tom) Cornish

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Re: Lectrosonics M2 Duet sound quality!?
« Reply #1 on: July 09, 2018, 04:01:44 PM »

I contacted Lectrosonics support and they confirmed the following:

- yes, the headphone jack in the transmitter is noisy.  I think this is lame on a very expensive piece of premium gear, but it's not in the main signal flow, so whatever, I guess.

- They did confirm the existence of quantization noise which is quite audible with poor gain structure and high pack volume.  My experience using the unit this weekend is that if you hit the transmitter pretty hard and turn the pack volume down (which really is how IEMs should be run so the hearing protection limiters function) it's not hugely objectionable.  I was told that this may improve in a forthcoming firmware update.

- My last gripe is the lack of a NiMh battery profile for the battery meter.  The choices are lithium and alkaline, but a fully-charged set of Eneloops show at about 60% capacity on the pack meter.  Hopefully they will add this in the future, as it's frustrating to have to tell the talent "Yes, I know the battery meter shows just over half capacity; I just put new batteries in them and it's the meter that's wrong".
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Andrew Broughton

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Re: Lectrosonics M2 Duet sound quality!?
« Reply #2 on: July 09, 2018, 04:08:05 PM »

They absolutely need to bring out a lithium-ion/poly battery pack and charging system for the Duet.
If they want to compete with the PSM1000 they will need to include all the best features of the competition.
I can say, though, that when hit with enough signal, and with a strong RF signal at the receiver, these do sound better than the rest. I'm keeping watch to see if they keep making improvements as I think it may still be a little early yet to jump into these.
I've asked for the following improvements:
  • "Smart" Rechargable battery pack and charging system like the PSM1000
  • Indication when in IR range when syncing like the PSM1000
  • Negative Gain values in addition to the positive values available currently in the limiter section
  • Improvement in sound quality when on RF fringes
« Last Edit: July 09, 2018, 04:14:51 PM by Andrew Broughton »
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TJ (Tom) Cornish

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Re: Lectrosonics M2 Duet sound quality!?
« Reply #3 on: July 09, 2018, 04:42:31 PM »

They absolutely need to bring out a lithium-ion/poly battery pack and charging system for the Duet.
If they want to compete with the PSM1000 they will need to include all the best features of the competition.
I can say, though, that when hit with enough signal, and with a strong RF signal at the receiver, these do sound better than the rest. I'm keeping watch to see if they keep making improvements as I think it may still be a little early yet to jump into these.
I've asked for the following improvements:
  • "Smart" Rechargable battery pack and charging system like the PSM1000
  • Indication when in IR range when syncing like the PSM1000
  • Negative Gain values in addition to the positive values available currently in the limiter section
  • Improvement in sound quality when on RF fringes
I agree that the limiter is counter-intuitive. 

I probably should have gotten a demo before jumping in sight-unseen, but based on the Lectrosonics reputation, I took a risk. 

My first reaction is that the M2 is a mashup of really cool plus a bit of pretty lame.  I've no doubt that the RF technology is first class, but the noisy $0.03 headphone amplifier in the transmitter leaves a bad taste, and I believe the battery door of the receiver is poorly designed compared to Shure and Sennheiser.  On those, it takes a very precise oblique hit to open the battery door compartment, and even then, that just opens the door - the batteries are still (probably) intact.  On the Lectrosonics, the battery door pushes down and is part of the electrical contact of the cells.  If you wear it on the left side of your body, a downward arm movement can catch the battery door, causing it to open and the batteries to fall out.  This can also happen when gripping the pack body trying to hook the clip on your pocket or belt.

I'm satisfied enough to keep the thing I think, but this is definitely 3 stars out of 5.  You can do better, Lectrosonics!
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Tim Hite

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Re: Lectrosonics M2 Duet sound quality!?
« Reply #4 on: July 09, 2018, 07:21:41 PM »

If you need a demo of anything from Lectrosonics in the future, give me a shout.

I probably should have gotten a demo before jumping in sight-unseen, but based on the Lectrosonics reputation, I took a risk. 

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Andrew Broughton

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Re: Lectrosonics M2 Duet sound quality!?
« Reply #5 on: July 09, 2018, 07:52:45 PM »

I agree that the limiter is counter-intuitive. 

I probably should have gotten a demo before jumping in sight-unseen, but based on the Lectrosonics reputation, I took a risk. 

My first reaction is that the M2 is a mashup of really cool plus a bit of pretty lame.  I've no doubt that the RF technology is first class, but the noisy $0.03 headphone amplifier in the transmitter leaves a bad taste, and I believe the battery door of the receiver is poorly designed compared to Shure and Sennheiser.  On those, it takes a very precise oblique hit to open the battery door compartment, and even then, that just opens the door - the batteries are still (probably) intact.  On the Lectrosonics, the battery door pushes down and is part of the electrical contact of the cells.  If you wear it on the left side of your body, a downward arm movement can catch the battery door, causing it to open and the batteries to fall out.  This can also happen when gripping the pack body trying to hook the clip on your pocket or belt.

I'm satisfied enough to keep the thing I think, but this is definitely 3 stars out of 5.  You can do better, Lectrosonics!

I didn't find the limiter necessarily counter-intuitive, but because it has a continuous gain control in there, I saw the benefit of being able to set a negative gain so that a user could simply crank the volume on the top up full, and use the limiter gain to set their desired level. Similar idea to the PSM1000 "max volume" setting, but much more useful, since you'd have the full range of control with the volume knob.
I doubt I would ever use the actual limiter function in the pack. I don't think the Shure even has one anymore!?

That's a real problem with the battery compartment, I didn't notice that. Our players have holsters for their packs so it wouldn't be an issue, but certainly for players clipping them to their belt or pocket, that should be rectified.
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Henry Cohen

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Re: Lectrosonics M2 Duet sound quality!?
« Reply #6 on: July 09, 2018, 09:11:40 PM »

. . . I've asked for the following improvements:
    . . .
       
    • Improvement in sound quality when on RF fringes
Anytime a receiver is at the edge of the RF coverage area, any or all of the performance parameters will suffer, whether analog or digital. That's why it's a fringe area. If you need proper receiver performance at a given location, then you need to address your transmitter and antenna deployment.
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TJ (Tom) Cornish

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Re: Lectrosonics M2 Duet sound quality!?
« Reply #7 on: July 10, 2018, 08:51:20 AM »

Anytime a receiver is at the edge of the RF coverage area, any or all of the performance parameters will suffer, whether analog or digital. That's why it's a fringe area. If you need proper receiver performance at a given location, then you need to address your transmitter and antenna deployment.
While agreeing completely with your statement above and not knowing what Andrew is referring to specifically, in the firmware notes for the Duet they have called out better squelch settings as an improvement that happened somewhere along the way, which is a useful feature when the talent walks to the restroom and is saved from ear-splitting static.

Perhaps this was an issue when Andrew used the Duet last.
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Andrew Broughton

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Re: Lectrosonics M2 Duet sound quality!?
« Reply #8 on: July 10, 2018, 10:03:27 AM »

Anytime a receiver is at the edge of the RF coverage area, any or all of the performance parameters will suffer, whether analog or digital. That's why it's a fringe area. If you need proper receiver performance at a given location, then you need to address your transmitter and antenna deployment.
Of course, but when musicians walk off the stage and out of the coverage area, the system needs to mute comfortably, not hit you with loud digital noises. As TJ says, this may have been addressed since when I tested the system. The way the sound goes garbled and digital as you reach the fringes is very unnerving.

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-Andy

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TJ (Tom) Cornish

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Re: Lectrosonics M2 Duet sound quality!?
« Reply #9 on: July 10, 2018, 10:36:27 AM »

There have actually been two fixes related to squelch - December 2017 and then January 2018:

WD Firmware Update v25Jan2018
M2R v1.10 (SUPER)/v1.11 (FPGA)
Added, frequency, numerical volume setting and mix mode indicators to the main display page.
Added SmartTune feature.
Further improvements to squelch operation to prevent loud drop-outs.
Doubled the scanning speed.

WD Firmware Update v13Dec2017
M2R v1.03 (SUPER)/v1.06 (FPGA)
Apply log taper to volume control for finer resolution at low levels.
Improved squelch operation to prevent loud drop-outs.


https://www.lectrosonics.com/Support/M2-Duet-System/m2r-firmware-revision-history.html
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Re: Lectrosonics M2 Duet sound quality!?
« Reply #9 on: July 10, 2018, 10:36:27 AM »


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