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[Jason Glass]

Is this true for Sennheiser digital, too? The emission designator for the 6000/9000 transmitters (171KF1W) made me hopeful that they wouldn't produce the same interference problems as the Shure's chosen modulation.

-Russ

Hi Russell,

I haven't had the opportunity to try one with a Sennheiser digi, so I'm not sure about that, and you bring up an excellent point.  Thank you for that.  Senny's F1W designator clearly implies a frequency and angle modulated scheme, which should behave differently from Shure's amplitude and angle modulated scheme if it leaks into the audio path.  Hmm...

For those following along:

ULXD1 https://fccid.io/Emissions-Designator/165KD1E

AD1 https://fccid.io/Emissions-Designator/183KD1E

Senny 6k/9k https://fccid.io/Emissions-Designator/171KF1W

It's interesting to note that although ULXD1 and AD1 have similar designators that only differ by 18 kHz of bandwidth, their schemes are different from each other and many acoustic guitar pickup systems work perfectly fine with ULXD1 but are unusable with AD1 due to audio noise issues that sound very similar to the CM-311-AESH with a ULXD1.

Good RF teching isn't VooDoo but it's convoluted as Hell and it just waits for you to miss a single letter or digit in a spec.  When it catches you goof, it raps you upside the head.  You can almost hear it laughing...

[Jason Glass]

I found the same problem a few years ago. Things seemed to go downhill with the CM311 after AKG bought them. They started falling apart. Had one or 2 break as we were adjusting them for first time use. And then the RF noise issue when we switched to Shure ULXD4's. At least they still sounded great. RF seemed better when you kept the transformer(?) away from the pack but that's impossible with quick changes. We wound up switching to the Shure SM35. Nice mic. A little bright but the performers liked the feel of it better.

I've found that the CM-311 variants don't handle excessively sweaty musicians well at all with repeated long-term use and never have.  In 1993-94 I toured with Mark Chesnutt and used one on our acoustic player / primary BGV and he sweated like Niagara Falls.  Our stage volume was ridonkulous and we needed a high-SPL solution.  This was when the mic was the newest thing and my friend was mixing MON for Garth (who was instrumental in its R&D and testing) and he helped me connect with Crown to get them, although I think they were formally on the market by then.  I blotted the mic with a towel after show each night before casing it and that's as far as I'll ever go with a client's excretions, professional or not, while racing the stagehands' OT deadlines to get out of the venue.  OK, I'll disinfect mics and clean & dewax the star's IEMs but the sidemen are on their own.  Anyway, the capsule's brass OD under the pop filter would turn powdery green after two or three shows and the assembly would literally fall apart in my hands after around a dozen gigs.  Maybe two dozen.  We worked a lot!  I Krazy-glued a few back together to save the day, but that wasn't acceptable as normal and they usually failed soon after.  They warranty replaced a whole bunch before the Crown engineers reached out to ask what was going on.  We all came to the conclusion that nightly drenching in highly concentrated salt water and muso scum was just too much to ask from the design and materials.  I accepted that and kept a few spares in the work box.  Sending them back became routine and they were really awesome about replacements.  FWIW.

On the flip side, when I was mixing Tanya Tucker, our acoustic/BGV guy was the exceptionally clean, cool, dry, and wonderful Jeff Allen.  He had his own CM-311-AESH that was many years old and never once failed in the 4 years or so that I worked the show.  And the mic was beautiful on his particular voice.

[Tim McCulloch]

I found the same problem a few years ago. Things seemed to go downhill with the CM311 after AKG bought them. They started falling apart. Had one or 2 break as we were adjusting them for first time use. And then the RF noise issue when we switched to Shure ULXD4's. At least they still sounded great. RF seemed better when you kept the transformer(?) away from the pack but that's impossible with quick changes. We wound up switching to the Shure SM35. Nice mic. A little bright but the performers liked the feel of it better.

AKG didn't buy Crown's mic lines.  Harman International owned Crown and bought AKG.  Mics didn't fit the Crown brand placement Harman wanted, so Harman moved Crown mics to AKG.

[John L Nobile]

AKG didn't buy Crown's mic lines.  Harman International owned Crown and bought AKG.  Mics didn't fit the Crown brand placement Harman wanted, so Harman moved Crown mics to AKG.

Thanks for setting the record straight for me.

[Tim McCulloch]

Thanks for setting the record straight for me.

It's one of those biblical lineage things... who begat whom, and it gets confusing after a couple of "adoptions".

[John L Nobile]

It's one of those biblical lineage things... who begat whom, and it gets confusing after a couple of "adoptions".

In that case, I wonder who's sitting to the right of Uli?

[ProSoundWeb Community]