Best (affordable) wireless lav for the Zoom H4

J

jordy2324

Well-known member
Go ahead and kick me now -- I'm a sound newbie. Right now, I'm rocking a super cheap shotgun on my 7D (and hoping to do the AGC kill trick soon).

I'm about to buy the H4. I'm just wondering if I need a certain kind of wireless lav that plugs into the XLR plugin on the H4. And do I need anything else? Or do you just plug in the XLR of the wireless receiver straight into the H4?

And please send some H4-friendly (and hopefully sub $200) wireless lav recommendations my way!

Thanks!
 
More often than not in this business you get what you pay for. I realize you're on a budget like the rest of us, but $200 is not quite enough for a decent wireless lav kit.

Having said that, I've gotten some good results with the lower end Samson stuff.
 
I tend to avoid anything that says "Samson." Or "Azden."

Look around the audio forum here for some great information. The accepted lowest-end wireless system you can find is going to be in the neighborhood of $500-600.

The Sony UWP-V1 and Audio Technica 1800-series systems have some users, but I've heard bad reviews of the AT and have had bad experiences with the Sony.

The Sennheiser G3 is a solid performer. You do get what you pay for, and a $200 wireless system is not going to cut it.
 
I'd save up the cash for the Sennheiser G3. It's worth the extra money.

And if I only had the money to go with a lower-end unit, I'd always rather rent something good than buy something cheap.
 
This isn't going to be an end-all audio solution. This would be something I would use for maybe a year or so until I can afford something in the $500-$600 range.
 
jordy2324 said:
This isn't going to be an end-all audio solution. This would be something I would use for maybe a year or so until I can afford something in the $500-$600 range.
Click to expand...

This is where I'd definitely rent when you need it. You'll be able to get what you need without the commitment of a purchase, and equipment rental costs go into production budgets anyway... so that cost is covered by the client.

There's no sense spending $200 on something now that is going to work fine the day you take it out of the box and the fail every day after. A year of headache isn't worth it, much less the trouble/time/expense of dealing with bad audio in post.

Then, if you do purchase something better for $600 in a year, you've spent $800 to get there. And that doesn't count anything that bad audio might have cost you in the "interim" year.

Never cheap out on your sound. There's a huge difference between cheap and inexpensive, but there's also a line below which you are simply wasting money.
 
Depending on where you're located;
I work at EVS(www.evsonline.com) out in Glendale, we have a couple sets of wireless kits, and of course the best of the crop are the G3's, but we also have an Audio Technica kit for sale for around $200, the main downfall though; it only has two VHF frequencies you can choose from.
If you live in LA, and decide you do want to rent a kit, we rent out the G2/G3 wireless lav kits for around $35 a day (and 1 day rates for full weekends)
 
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