Which is the best wireless system for IEM?

MKeditor

MKeditor

Experienced
My church is on the verge of switching to IEMs. I am gathering info for this project and would appreciate hearing from those who are using IEMs. There are a few threads about the buds but I have seen anything on the wireless systems. The most popular seem to be Shure and Sennheiser. Which do you prefer and why?
 
I prefer the Mipro 808 T/R to either the Sennheiser EW 300 IEM G3 or the Shure PSM 600/700 systems.

mi808.jpg


The Mipro 808 has equivalent if not better audio quality to the other units, plus it enjoys a slight price advantage, and the Mipro 808R body-pak houses a true-diversity receiver which practically eliminates RF drop-outs from moving around (ahem) 'vigorously' on stage. :D

Mike V at InEarGear fixed me up with mine.


Ob. Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with either Mipro or In Ear Gear - I'm just a customer.
 
Xrist, we need to meet up sometime. I'd love to see how you're doing IEM. Maybe I could bring along my Shures and & see how well, I could hear & all that! ;)

This last weekend of gigs has really got me thinking about IEM again. Everyone said they couldn't hear me on Friday.

What kinda range are you getting on your Mipros?
 
I keep the IEM transmitter (MIPRO 808T) and a Shure P4M line mixer in my stage rack, along with the Axe-Fx. Because the rack is either onstage with me (or just backstage), I'm rarely more than 50 feet away. I never have dropouts on the ears.

I run OUTPUT2 (L and R) into the first two inputs of the P4M, plus I run a Moog Little Phatty into input 3 of the P4M. I get a send from the monitor board (XLR or 1/4" balanced) and that goes into P4M input 4. The mix output of the P4M goes to the wireless transmitter, and the split-outs (XLR) on the back of the P4M go to the FOH snake.

Apologies in advance for the size of this crude pic:

[attachment=0:k3r18ypn]Axe- Fx RACK DESIGN.png[/attachment:k3r18ypn]
 
the carvin em900 is hard to beat for the money, for any money for that matter.. have had really good luck so far. i have custom triple driver buds from Fidelity custom as well. it's not diversity, but a lot arent, and i havent had any dropouts.
 
Man, I'm dizzy looking at that image trying to figure it all out! ;) The part I'm kinda lost is on the P4M 1/2 going to your custom panel. I get the Axe Out -> P4M In -> P4M Out -> Mipro In & I get the Mix In -> P4M In (rest of the band) & you tweak to taste.

Is any one else using IEM with you? How big of a rack are you running? Are you going direct?
 
The custom panel is just a way to bring the split-outs from the P4M to the "front" of the back of the rack. (does that make sense? heh) The P4M is a fairly shallow unit, so its XLRs for split-outs are pretty deep inside the rack, and hard to get yer hand in there, to be plugging cables in and out for every gig.

As mentioned before I go from the P4M split-outs to the FOH snake, and having three XLRs easily accessible on the custom rear-rack panel makes it easy to get Axe L, Axe R and the Moog into the stage and house mixes.

BTW all this is crammed into a Gator 4-space shallow rack (GR-4S). I'm the only one in the band using IEMs so far, but the others (especially the voxes) are looking on with envy. It's pretty much a money issue. I think they are saving their pennies. And, yes - I am taking the Axe-Fx direct to FOH. :mrgreen:
 
Ahh, yea, I totally get the panel now because I'm dealing with that with my PL-8. I have everything I need to plugged in so all I have to do is plug in the PL-8s main power cord, but if I want to plug in something else, fuggetaboutit. The gap between the top of the SLA-2 to the case is too small for my hands.

I've contemplated a rear rack panel for that exact reason. Hmmmm. I've got so many ideas, so little time . . .
 
Got the P4m and a PSM400 and just ordered my Westone/Variphone E3x.
My bandmates have used the Shure PSM200 without any problems so far.

@ xrist04
So it seems I'll have a rack similar to yours ;-)
I was also thinking about a patch panel.
Do you use a 7-pin midi? If so what brand? I can't seem to find one.
This wouldn't be such a problem since I use a shallow rack and the back of the Axe-fx is almost flush with the back of the rack.
But I was thinking about moving the patch panel to the front so I can keep the back closed.

If you use a 4U rack, it's full. Sow how do you run the cables from the Axe-fx to the front of the P4M?

I go from output 2 to Aux in on the P4M.
This way I can use the 4 inputs on the P4M if I wanted and I control the Axe-fx volume with the output 2 knob.
 
I found 7-pin MIDI connectors at Mouser Electronics. http://www.mouser.com

The cable-end male connector (pins) was easy to find - Neutrik NYS323

The panel-mount female connector (sockets) was a b1atch to find - Switchcraft 62GB7FX


For cable routing from the rear of the Axe-Fx to the front of the P4M - I mounted the P4M line mixer and the MIPRO 808T wireless transmitter in a 1U rack shelf. With both of these units shifted to the right as far as they will go, there was a little room between the P4M and the edge of the Gator GR-4S rack to route two George L .225" cables. These bring the signal from the Axe-Fx OUTPUT2 to the P4M inputs 1 and 2. See the schematic diagram (above) for wiring.

Aux In on the P4M doesn't have a Level control. But you could manage by adjusting the level of OUTPUT2 on Axe-Fx.
 
Hi Xrist, I'm thinking about your solution to have a clear sound in my ears: where did you put the external antenna?
 
Diego said:
Hi Xrist, I'm thinking about your solution to have a clear sound in my ears: where did you put the external antenna?
Click to expand...

Drilled a hole in the right rear side of the Gator 4U rack case (GR-4S) and mounted a BNC-style (push & turn) connector there. Attached to the MIPRO 808T transmitter with a very short (~10 cm) length of RG-58/U coaxial cable. This lets me attach the external antenna after all the other connections are made to the rack.
 
I'm using a Carvin EM900. I've been very happy with it. Great signal quality, no dropouts. I run the Axe-FX into one channel of the EM900 and my monitor mix from FOH into the other channel. I can control the balance of the Axe-FX vs. the monitor mix via a mix control on the wireless beltpack.

I also created a front-panel interface for plugging everything in without having to root around behind the rack. I wanted to try to incorporate it into a 4 space rack, so I drilled holes in the Carvin's rack mounting ears, and installed all my jacks in those. It's pretty space-efficient.

From right to left:

-The two XLR jacks are my main left and right outputs from the Axe-FX (output 1).
-The two 1/4 jacks are the left and right unbalanced outputs from the Axe-FX (also output 1)
-The Neutrik locking 1/4 jack is my guitar input. This is routed to the Axe-FX front panel input, simply because I wanted a locking input jack. I've inadvertently unplugged myself a few times.
-The MIDI jacks (immediately to the left of the EM900) are the Axe's MIDI in and out. The in is a 7 pin with phantom power.
-The Neutrik combo jack is my monitor input for channel 1 of the EM900. I installed a combo jack so I can accept either XLR or 1/4" monitor feeds.
-The BNC connector is for the wireless antenna.

P1020772.jpg
 
Wow, that looks pretty space-efficient. Nicely done. How do you mix in the rest of the band? That monitor input?

I know Shure makes a unit that has two sets of input and lets you mix them in stereo, essentially having the mixer built in. Javajunkie uses a system with ambience mics on the headset that lets him mix in stage sound to hear the comments bandcolleagues scream at him. I think it's also Shure. Search the amps &cabs for IEM written by Javajunkie. You can really go nuts with this.

How about this thing:
http://www.mymixaudio.com/

Awesome stuff and getting affordable too.
 
Dutch said:
Wow, that looks pretty space-efficient. Nicely done. How do you mix in the rest of the band? That monitor input?

I know Shure makes a unit that has two sets of input and lets you mix them in stereo, essentially having the mixer built in. .
Click to expand...

That's exactly right. I run the monitor mix into the rack via the Neutrik combo jack on the left, which feeds one input of the Carvin wireless. The Carvin is set up exactly like the Shure you mentioned, with two mixable sets of inputs. I have the monitor feed in one input and the Axe-FX in the other.

I do not have a good solution for ambient sound at the moment. Mixing in ambient stage mics doesn't seem to help - I still feel pretty disconnected from things if I'm using full isolating IEM's. I'd like to find a set of high-quality IEM's that allow some ambient sound through.
 
Quality IEM's with the ambient feature are available here (+$50 for the ambient feature)...

http://www.ultimateears.com/_ultimateears/

Nice rack packaging "bkd_guitarist", I'll be looking to do the same.

bkd_guitarist said:
Dutch said:
Wow, that looks pretty space-efficient. Nicely done. How do you mix in the rest of the band? That monitor input?

I know Shure makes a unit that has two sets of input and lets you mix them in stereo, essentially having the mixer built in. .
Click to expand...

That's exactly right. I run the monitor mix into the rack via the Neutrik combo jack on the left, which feeds one input of the Carvin wireless. The Carvin is set up exactly like the Shure you mentioned, with two mixable sets of inputs. I have the monitor feed in one input and the Axe-FX in the other.

I do not have a good solution for ambient sound at the moment. Mixing in ambient stage mics doesn't seem to help - I still feel pretty disconnected from things if I'm using full isolating IEM's. I'd like to find a set of high-quality IEM's that allow some ambient sound through.
Click to expand...
 
Well, I need some help to choose my IEM. The options are:
- Sennheiser EW300 IEM E 300G3 (977€)
- AKG IVM4 (777€)
- MIPRO 808T (739€)
- Audio Technica M3 (734,57)
Any help is welcome......
 
Diego said:
Well, I need some help to choose my IEM. The options are:
- Sennheiser EW300 IEM E 300G3 (977€)
- AKG IVM4 (777€)
- MIPRO 808T (739€)
- Audio Technica M3 (734,57)
Any help is welcome......
Click to expand...

give the carvin a shot if they'll ship to you... it's half the price of most systems, and has really proven to be gig worthy.
 
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