Lectrosonics or Sennheiser?

Well update guys. I just received my lectro 210D today. Its builit like a tank. Thats good and bad. The G2 is so compact and user friendly.

I use mke2 on both to compare. It is alot less noisy than the G2 for sure. You pick it up on the quieter moments. The dynamic range is much greater with the lectro. I get distortion from the G2 when I shout but not from the lectro ( I'm careful to match the levels on the dvx for normal talking). Voice wise I cant really tell that much of a difference really. Its not like wow I can get nuances from the lectro that the G2 misses.

I will test some more tomorrow but for now I think the G2 is more than adequate for run and gun stuff. Using good quality lavs with it makes a huge differnce.
 
Translumination... almost any lav will work with almost any wireless. The only concern is the connection type. Some lavs are more sensitive then others also... the "red dot" or "red band" lavs are reduced sensitivity (most companies just SAY "reduced sensitivity" but some say "for theatrical production")... any of those lavs will have a more closed, studio sound then the wide-open sensitive lavs such as a Tram. I also had mixed feelings about the At899. I compared it directly to a Tram and the Tram sounded more open, but not necessarily better... it just depended on the frequencies recorded... voice was a mixed bag. I also have an MKE2 and that mic is more isolating then the Tram and more flattering to voice then either the Tram or the At899. I'd love to see a big lav shootout... there's as much difference in lavs as there is in shotguns.

Speaking of shotguns, you asked why I sold my 416? (sorry I missed your question) Well I'm what you would call a mic NUT. I buy more mics then you can imagine a guy of my means would. If I can only afford groceries for a month or scrape together enough to try out another mic... I'll lose 10 pounds that month. I have gone through thousands of dollars in mics... like many thousands! And being a guy of modest income, I don't have the luxury of keeping them all... it's just a constantly rotating stock. For medium shotguns there's not a whole lot of value in having more then one per camera (unless it's a matching pair) and I had both a 416 and an AKG uls ck69 at the same time. I HAD intended on keeping both of them! Well one day a friend of mine (who already said he'd buy the 416 from me at the drop of a hat) and I were shooting something for his portfolio. I gave him the 416 and I used the AKG. In this venue there was a procession of Japanese drums a long way away, but the bass was penetrating everything. I switched the bass out and added the extension tube to the ck69 and I was satisfied with the sound I was getting even though we were too far from the action. My friend gestured to me about the drums way behind us and I plugged my 7506's into his DVX (which had the 416 on it) and obviously there was no comparison... because of the intruding bass and the slightly wider pickup there was no doubt which audio we'd be using. Later that same day we shot some stuff indoors and I popped off the ck69 gun cap and put on the ck63 hyper cap... I've never been a fan of the modularity of the ME line of Sennheisers because every cap sounds like a medium-grade mic and therefor the modularity didn't impress me... but I always liked the IDEA of a modular system for the cash savings (since every cap uses the same PS) and convenience of having several good options in a kit.

It was shortly after that day I decided to let him have the 416. This AKG system is almost totally overlooked in the US and I don't get it. A friend of mine got me to check it out almost on accident (he decided NOT to buy one) and I was just captivated by everything good about this package. To be fair, there are MANY times I still wish I had the 416 'cause it does certain things better then any other mic I've had... but unless you have limited funds you gotta' draw the line and be happy with something sooner or later!

I'm sure there are people with a CS3e, 416, Neumann 81, and maybe something else in their bag... I doubt I'll ever be one of those people. In my opinion... after being a fanatic about all this stuff for so long... you can drive yourself nuts splitting hairs in the high-end.
 
Well I kinda fell into this audio thing by chance really. A mate of mine uses my equipment more than I do. My kit consists of 2 mke2, sennheiser G2, Lectro 210D and senn 416 with ktek mount and softie(as per your advice and others). It is rather intoxicating when you shoot events and get good audible audio. In fact without the audio all you've got is some boring pictures.

Now I'm deciding whether to get a mixer to monitor wireless booming, a compact flash recorder to have a backup, and a hypercardiod of some sort . Yeah I'm not really making much money from this stuff buts its fun to learn. I'm even thinking of selling the camera to my friend so that I just have audio and lighting gear. I figure this stuff will outlast any camera I ever own.

I just recorded more stuff between the G2 and the lectro and to my untrained ears there isnt much of a difference in the voice quality which really makes the G2 more impressive for the price. I'm sure things like range and dropout rate will be hugely in the lectro's favour which is as important as the sound quality.
 
Hey have you got the G2 plug-on which supplies phantom? I'm wondering if it's worth it to get that for wireless boom... Basically I want to know if a 416 still sounds like a 416 when it's running through a G2 butt-plug.

I was happy with how an AKG D230 (stickmic) sounds through a G2 NON-phantom plug... so I'm wondering if the phantom one works that good with shotguns?
 
No I dont have the wireless plug with phantom but here's my take. If you want to do wireless booming you might as well get yourself a mixer. It will provide you with phantom and you have all the nice options with the mixer like big dials to adjust levels and headphone output for the person doing the booming. You then feed a line signal from the mixer to the transmitter. If i had to purchase the wireless with phantom plug in transmitter for either the G2 or the lectro it would cost as much as a mixer and the poor boomer cant hear what he's booming and cant adjust the levels. Thats what I would do.
 
mm1 from sd can give phantom and headphone out , for the mike or return feed from the mixer
 
Translumination and Oleg... thanks for giving the obvious answer that I needed. I can't believe I couldn't figure that out on my own.
 
An update on my lectro 210d and sennheiser G2.

When I shoot events I find that plugging the wireless into the sound board will give an infinitely better sound than mounting a shotgun on the camera. Even though the sound is put out over loudspeakers the audio from the shotgun is terrible because of contamination by crowd noise, camera noise and most importantly because the levels are still too low from the shotgun. I mix the crowd noise recorded by the onboard mic with the wireless stuff.

Now at this concert the sound from the G2 and the lectro are actually very similar. I intercut between the two and would be straining to hear the difference. The lectro has a limiter I think because if I havent adjusted the line level from the sound board correctly the G2 would just sizzle whereas the lectro still copes well.

Overall I'm happy with both. The G2 is compact and the lectro is more dependable and sounds abit better.
 
The Lectro will show it's superior bloodline when the going gets tough... I had a Lectro 100 and G2 at the same time and the Lectro always came out on top... If the situation wasn't too challenging then you'd be hardpressed to hear the difference, but increase the range or obstacles and the Lectro wins.

The one thing I will say is that since my last post in this thread I got another G2 set with a plug-on and I also got the MM-1 as Oleg suggested... well unfortunately the MM-1 can't force the G2 to send delicate audio. Any condenser I run through the G2 sounds flat and harsh (compared to it's REAL sound)... and that's been very dissappointing to me. The wireless set CRUSHES the soul of any good mic I plug into it. (not counting lavs on bodypacks... this is regarding the PLUG-ON and condensers only)

Fortunately I'm working on an alternative solution to wireless booming... but unless you want to go to some serious trouble or much higher expense I would consider the plug-on to be for a stick mic only. Where I asked earlier in this thread if a 416 would still sound like a 416 after going through a G2... I ended up getting the answer for myself and unfortunately the answer is a very definite "NO!"
 
Well to get wireless boom to work one needs the 400 lectro or the zaxcom. I think I read on RAMPS somewhere that it works. Too bad it cost so much.
 
i just posted under Audible Noise on G2 receiver. Maybe you like to do a small test with this? I think it is easier to borrow a G2 to test out this.
But i do not have a 190Lectro to try out.
I would not say it is very loud but.......if you are a Mr Perfect, maybe you should try this.
 
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