Recommend Wireless In-Ears for a Duo

[midwinter]

Hi all.

We're considering getting a set of wireless in-ear monitors for our duo. Can anyone recommend something? Maybe in the ballpark of $5-600?

[pieterh]

I can heartily recommend Shure's IEMs. Great sound quality, easy to setup. The one we have is the PSM300 with transmitter and body pack receiver which is a little out of your price range but check out the packages in your price range, they are going to do the job too!

Make sure you are aware of any licensing requirements or restrictions in the area where you will be using them.

[midwinter]

I assume that the PSM300 will only handle one musician at a time? So we'd need two?

[cotten]

I suggest calling Carvin and explaining your needs. I suspect that as long as both receivers were on the same frequency, you'd only need two belt packs and ear phones, not two transmitters, unless you two wanted to hear different things in your mix. http://carvinaudio.com/products/em90...monitor-system

cotten

Unless you have a lot of choreography in your act, consider a wired system such as a Rolls. The cost is way less and you have fewer batteries to be concerned with. When I was in a rock band, I and the keyboard player and the vocalists each used one of these.

http://www.ineargear.com/hardwired/rollspm351.html

[midwinter]

It's not that we have choreography; it's that the stages we play (where we run our own sound) are sometimes unpredictable (on top of a table at a pizza joint in Tahoe vs a huge patio on a golf course with occasionally a drummer vs a ski tram plaza) and it'd be easier not to have to worry about adding to the already, um, cable-rich environment on the floor (we play 5-7 instruments between us and do a lot of switching around).

Originally Posted by A-Mac

Unless you have a lot of choreography in your act, consider a wired system such as a Rolls. The cost is way less and you have fewer batteries to be concerned with. When I was in a rock band, I and the keyboard player and the vocalists each used one of these.

http://www.ineargear.com/hardwired/rollspm351.html

[slewis]

Originally Posted by midwinter

Hi all.

We're considering getting a set of wireless in-ear monitors for our duo. Can anyone recommend something? Maybe in the ballpark of $5-600?

I just want to commend you on not calling your group of two performers a "duet."

[midwinter]

We're too big to be a duette.

[GibbyPrague]

You'd have to buy this from europe but we use this system and its absolutely perfect. Real lovelly clarity and only 100 euro.

https://www.thomann.de/gb/the_tbone_iem_75.htm

[dberkowitz]

As a wireless coordinator at several theatres in DC, be careful about what you buy right now. The FCC is now auctioning off the 600Mhz band, so that basically leaves only 400-500Mhz range. Wherever you take those transmitters to do a show, you will have to look at a current frequency chart for what is open in that location, and you'll have to set the frequencies so they don't have what is called intermodulation interference, which means that the frequencies play nice with each other. There's a great product, RF Explorer, it's a $150 frequency spectrum analyzer whose data can be imported into Shure's Wireless Workbench. From there you can pick appropriate frequencies. Every show, be it musical or a commercial conference has to do this at each and every venue so they can get clean RF.

Several companies are selling RF packages in the 2.4Ghz band, and this will get ever more jammed as shows can't use the frequencies they already have. They are generally not as reliable. Several companies are now making professional grade systems in this band, but I haven't heard one yet. I'm sure they are ok, but will come with their own idiosyncratic issues.

In a conversation I had with the Vice President of Masque Sound, a purveyor of gear for Broadway and touring companies, about the current state of wireless, it was so dire I asked whether it was even prudent for theatres to purchase RF gear because the spectrum keeps changing. His answer was an emphatic no. Understand that the gear we use at the theatres -- generally Sennheiser 3732-II receivers and 5212 packs, cost about $12,000 for a two channel receiver and two belt packs, not including the microphones. It's not worth the investment if you spend $50,000 on an 8 channel rack, only to have the FCC sell the frequencies out from under you. Both Shure with their Axient, and Sennheiser with their Digital 9000 systems are compacting more within the available frequencies, but their systems are almost twice the cost per channel, and the Sennheiser even more.

The only IEM package we use at the Kennedy Center and Wolf Trap is the Shure PSM1000, because it is the only true-diversity system for IEMS made by Shure. The 2-channel base station is $3105, plus another $875 for the receivers, not including the actual IEMS. We had a PSM900, one model down from the 1000 on a production last fall, and it's non-diversity system caused problems for our musicians because they frequently would have drop-outs.

My point with this is that stable, interference free wireless isn't cheap, and it takes an investment in time, and gear on top of the systems to be sure it's going to work wherever you go. Currently, Europeans still have the 700 band available, but not so in the US. The 600 band auction began the end of last month. It's not being used yet, but it will be and gear in that range will be obsolete.

Whatever system you choose, whenever you go to another town, you're likely going to have to change frequencies. It's a necessary part of the gig.

[midwinter]

Thanks for the thoughtful response!

Our needs, in the end, are really modest, so I don't think we need some kind of elaborate system. But I'd like to get something that isn't junk.

[Schau_ins_Regal]

If you do´nt need to walk around put your money into the earphones and use a wired system. A simple headphone amplifier or a good mixer will work.

I personally do not like the Shure earphones. They do not fit into the ear very well, are squeezing and fall out easily.

You can spend a fortune only for the earphones. But I have these now and think they offer very good value for the money. Perfect fit for most ears and superb sound quality:

https://shop.musicteck.com/products/...standard-small

[Schau_ins_Regal]

Originally Posted by midwinter

Thanks for the thoughtful response!

Our needs, in the end, are really modest, so I don't think we need some kind of elaborate system. But I'd like to get something that isn't junk.

what do you want? A simple plug-and-play product or a solution that fits exactly to your needs but needs to be assembled to a rack?

[midwinter]

We'd be fine with rackmount.

Originally Posted by Schau_ins_Regal

what do you want? A simple plug-and-play product or a solution that fits exactly to your needs but needs to be assembled to a rack?