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My 'Poor Man's' wireless mic system.

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Debbie Dunkley:
So I took a chance and bought something.

I saw the Sennheiser plug in TX/RX XLR system for microphones a few years ago and was always intrigued by how well it worked. My only  hesitation - certainly in recent years - has been the fact that it works on 2.4gHz and we all know how congested that has become.
Over the years others have competed but again using 2.4gHz.
More recently I started to notice some adopting 5.8gHz and it sparked my interest again. So...... I picked one up - The JOYO brand based on some good reviews. Risky? yeah but I had to quench this intrigue.

The singer used it this past weekend and ........OMG - it was fantastic!....It didn't seem to change the sound quality at all and even the gain was about the same level. It looked OK on the end of the mic - not too silly.
It lasted the whole show - we were careful to turn it off during breaks because it only boasts around 4 hours battery life and of course that would probably be under the most optimum circumstances.

Like I said, it looks decent on the end of the mic and allows the user to use any mic he or she wants to so not having to settle on a cheaper mic capsule which is the way most end up going due to the cost of the system.
Now, our singer didn't go running all over the club so I can't comment on how well it would handle that but we got ZERO drop out with her moving from side to side of the stage. 
I have to say I was pretty impressed with my 'Poor Man's' Wireless Mic system. $95 well spent!

Daniel Levi:
Some of the cheaper systems aren't horrendous in terms of audio quality, I know I had a soundlab VHF system that was surprisingly good for the price of ~£50, transmission reliability wasn't that great, however.

One thing I don't get the is the crap battery life for some modern wireless systems, especially if they have built in batteries and as such you can't just change the batteries when they go flat, I thought we'd got away from the battery live of the old 9V systems.
To that point I have an old TOA wireless system from the 80's (an 83 date code on the rectifier on the reciever) where the 4 hours quoted by the JOYO is less than the life left when the battery low light illuminates!, quoted 30Hrs batter from 3xAAA!

Pete Erskine:

--- Quote from: Debbie Dunkley on April 13, 2021, 02:27:56 PM --- My only  hesitation - certainly in recent years - has been the fact that it works on 2.4gHz and we all know how congested that has become.

--- End quote ---

Heavily used wifi band does not interfere at all with wireless mics and Freespeak designed for the same band...they co exist well and, if anything, the wireless and freespeak interfere with wifi...not the other way around.

Debbie Dunkley:

--- Quote from: Pete Erskine on April 13, 2021, 03:31:32 PM ---Heavily used wifi band does not interfere at all with wireless mics and Freespeak designed for the same band...they co exist well and, if anything, the wireless and freespeak interfere with wifi...not the other way around.

--- End quote ---

Good to know Pete,
I had 3 wireless iems, 1 other wireless mic,  wireless guitar system, router, Ubiquiti mesh and the JOYO all working together nicely.

Russell Ault:
5.8 GHz offers some interesting potential, with some interesting drawbacks:

* As with the 2.4 GHz, the signal bandwidth regulations are such that you can transmit an uncompressed digital audio stream at high bitrates, which means that wireless microphones using those frequencies can be both much easier to design and manufacture while also exhibiting better sound quality than even the most expensive VHF/UHF microphones
* The available spectrum in the 5.8 GHz band is significantly greater than in the 2.4 GHz band, so for now the chances of congestion are less (although some devices, 802.11AC Wi-Fi in particular, have started to leverage that additional bandwidth to achieve additional throughput, which may eventually negate this advantage somewhat)
* As with 2.4 GHz, the 5.8 GHz band allows for a diverse range of license-exempt activities, so the chances of having your microphone interfered with are higher than with UHF/VHF, while the chances of identifying (and solving) the source of that interference are commensurately lower
* The higher the frequency, the more important direct line-of-sight becomes; at 5.8 GHz the margin for error in maintaining line-of-sight starts to get really small, which may be just fine for a plug-on transmitter but may not work for other wireless microphone applications
-Russ

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