Need Advice for a Lav Headgear

G

ggrantly

Veteran
I have a small fleet of lavs, but at present, none have headgear. I might be doing a training video with a presenter in front of a live audience. The talent will be moving around some, and in particular, maybe turning his head between the screen and the audience. When I did something like this some years ago with a clip-on lav, the audio was all over the place for levels and I don't want a repeat performance of that.

Most any of the decent lavs would do fine for audio quality, so this question isn't about what lav has the best sound. Rather, I want advice on who makes the best headgear and or other hardware. I have trended towards Countryman for my lavs, and it would seem they make an extensive line of headgear options. Any guidance on headgear or other advice on this scenario would be appreciated.

TIA
Grant
 
Sennheiser made a headset without the mic (use your own), as I recall it was about $40usd. I do not recall the model number, but I'll look when I get home, Otherwise, your can't go wrong with one of the Countryman headsets. The best bang for the buck would be the OST HM-701, which has dual ear hooks so it stays secure. It uses the TL-40 element as I recall.
If the headset is integrated with a PA system, feedback may be a consideration for capsule choice.
 
I own a couple and regularly use a location's Countryman Earset mics. Typically the E6, which is basically a tiny B6 (or at least B6-style) capsule at he end of a thin boom. IIRC, Countryman were the first to develop (or at least popularize) this style of earset and then headset. I'm happy with them and so haven't really ventured into other options. Still working great. Various options. http://www.countryman.com

So anyway, IME, with a typical speaker, the standard "long" E6 works really well. Even sound (since mouth-to-mic distance is constant, duh) even with people moving and turning all over the place, and speakers...even those wearing glasses...find them comfortable. The headsets with their wrap-around mounting, are good for singers running all over the place (but for that situation in musicals, I use the shorter E6 and tape it down...audience can see it, stays in place, etc).

I guess I'm saying I don't know exactly which model will work for you, but I've been happy with Countryman. Maybe give them a ring or drop them a line and they can suggest which model is most common for your application (and I'd guess it's the standerd E6).

Let us know what you decide and how it works for you!
 
Thanks for the responses. Although I like Countryman stuff, that OST lav is pretty tempting as many good things have been said about them.

So I hadn't got as far as PA for the event and was curious about the best way. It won't be a large room and will be a small audience so conceivably nothing will be needed at all depending on the voice projection of the yet to be determined talent. I would suspect that we would use a portable PA of some sort which would be placed facing towards the audience but in front of the talent. This should avoid feedback I think. Fortunately, I would be in complete control of the whole shebang.

In no particular order I could:

Pickup my audio off the PA speaker much like music recordings for electric instruments.

Split the signal at my mixer, sending a signal to the PA and my recorder simultaneously.

There is a third option possible (haven't explored this yet with anyone) to skip the audience altogether. That would eliminate some issues for sure. They can watch the video.....later. They did want to have some Q&A though. I intended to hand around a RE50 with a plug-on.

Regards,
Grant
 
Aside from splitting the mic and assuming you use a console type mixer, an aux or matrix send could be used. This would give more control over the recorder feed w/o affecting the 'room'.
An RE50 in the audience would be prone to feedback. A 58 would be a better choice in terms of feedback control.
 
Countryman, DPA and Sennheiser makes some excellent headsets (I use them all in theatre) but they are ALL very expensive. In theatre we also use Chinese versions where they are going to get trashed - which is very common. The audio differences in the cheap ones are mainly quite small, and the fact they are flimsier - but at 10% of the price, you could buy one and test it. They're available in Sennheiser 3.5mm jack versions and the other radio mic pack connector types used by Shure, AT and the others. The only downside is that they tend to be smaller and more discrete as they get more expensive in the non-Chinese brands and of course they suffer from user fiddling. They also are available in different colours to match skin type.
 
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