Sennheiser AVX on sale today at B&H

Seems some take my defense of the ME2 mic as some sort of argument against better quality mics.

-This is a thread about a good deal specifically including the ME2, no other option

-Obviously if you can afford a better mic, you get the better mic, i never suggested otherwise

-If you have simple needs and are on a budget, the ME2 can yield totally fine results.

It was a good deal, several folks bought it, some will use the ME2, some will upgrade to whatever mic they like. Insinuating that the ME2 should be avoided like the plague is a plain slice of silly.

hugs and kisses
 
davefisk said:
"Is the delay a deal breaker?"

As is the case with many audio questions:

It depends.
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One key is if you are using the AVX and a wired (or other wireless) mic. Then the lag will be an issue that you need to fix in post either with something like PluralEyes or with a DAW (very few NLE's are easy to use at the subframe level).

But as a historical example the DVX100 (that this site is named after) had a lag in the audio going out the firewire port of about a frame and a half (in the neighborhood of 50ms). Very few picture editors ever noticed and hardly anyone ever corrected the error in post. As long as the shift is consistent and everything shifts the same amount the audiences brain will compensate very quickly and after a second or two of it seeming a "bit off" they will adjust and not notice. This is why you don't have an issue watching a movie in a big theatre where there can be as much as a three frame difference between sound and image from the front row to the back row.

So you do want to correct the delay if at all possible and certainly if you do audio post (since SFX will be added in true sync and that will make the dialog seem off), but if you are running and gunning and all of your audio is from the AVX the odds are good nobody will notice a 20ms offset.

On set it's an issue since you are getting the live sound so the lag is very obvious.
 
It was a good deal, several folks bought it, some will use the ME2, some will upgrade to whatever mic they like. Insinuating that the ME2 should be avoided like the plague is a plain slice of silly.
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Mostly I would agree with a "it depends". If you are a shooter sure, if you are a sound person then...

The general quality of even low end mics these days is way better than they used to be so in a big picture sense the ME2 is a lot better than some of the mics people who weren't doing full budget features were using not that long ago. And doing a bad job with mic placement etc. can nullify even a great mic. So for a less experienced user there is probably limited advantage to upgrading. And judging by the audio quality I see in a lot of "finished" low budget films a ME2 is not going to be the weakest link... I have judged festivals and the audio tracks have been at times shockingly bad. Heck I saw a documentary on Netflix the other day and they hadn't even centered mono tracks that had only been recorded on one channel (as opposed to dual mono) so some interviews flew off to one side or the other.

But if you do location sound for a living and the quality of your recordings impacts directly your ability to work, then I would strongly suggest the ME2 go in the backup bag.

It gets tricky on this list because we have everyone from working professional sound people to amateur shooters and the occasional high school student.
 
Noiz2 said:
On set it's an issue since you are getting the live sound so the lag is very obvious.
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Latency during production is torture for a sound mixer.

For those who are fairly new to the industry: back in the days of tape (remember tape?), broadcast camcorders had monitor switches: PB or EE. PB (playback) monitored the audio from the recorded signal, so there was a nasty delay that, coupled with acoustic sound on set/location, made it impossible to tolerate. E to E monitored audio directly out of the camera, but just before the record heads, which eliminated latency.
 
Having tested this unit out, the latency is certainly noticeable when monitoring. It's irritating, but i think it will come down to personal preference as to whether it's a concerning irritant. I'm more surprised that such a latency could be prevalent in a modern bit of kit. I expect this of my consumer tiny bluetooth wireless, but not this. i also have the AT system 10, which has less than 4ms of latency, which is the non-noticeable range. i'm on the fence. it has a form factor which is far more desirable than the system 10, so i think i'll be keeping it. The AGC does appear to work very well, but even the low AF out is a bit hot with the GH3 dialed all the way down. on the C100 it's a non issue, can dial much lower.
 
Sound Devices 6 series (not 664) & Mix Pre series can compensate for the latency. You just need to know the delay and dial in the setting in the menu. All digital wireless have latency. Audio Ltd. 1010 (now a10) tout an industry leading 2ms delay for their digital wireless.
 
"Sound Devices 6 series (not 664) & Mix Pre series can compensate for the latency"
- Yes, input delay. Many recorders offer that to some extent. However, that would not help with the acoustical bleed issue in this case.
A 19ms latency (just over a half-a-frame), usually not noticeable with lip-sync, (about the same as someone speaking 20 feet away).. but torture when monitoring in close proximity to the sound source.
 
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All digital wireless have latency.
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As does anything that does any processing including analog wireless.

But the WiFi wireless seem to have noticeably longer lags than everything else. Digital wireless that use traditional Rx/Tx systems don't generally have noticeable lags.

All recorders that offer a "confidence" monitoring mode have a lag that can be a huge PITA. We would maybe hop to it as a check and then hop back, but not often. Even for FX work the lag throws your sense of where you are off and you end up tripping over things etc. Some of the digital recorders have much longer delays than the old analog tape decks. With analog tape your delay was the fraction of an inch between the record and playback heads. DAT was much longer and a PITA, and flash recorders are huge. Maybe HD recorders are not so bad? But my flash recorder is maybe a second behind the sound, totally useless.

Since we are here. A lot of things have lag. Video monitors have a lag, plasma displays can have really big lags, all plugins and hardware boxes add some delay. Mostly inside your DAW or NLE the lags will be compensated for and not be a problem but things like a big plasma display can throw you a frame or more out of sync. I don't think pict. editors worry much about it but it's a big issue for sound post. There is/was a system that you could get that would give you a readout of your systems relative lag (pict VS sound).
 
Noiz2 said:
But the WiFi wireless seem to have noticeably longer lags than everything else. Digital wireless that use traditional Rx/Tx systems don't generally have noticeable lags.
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To be fair, the Sennheiser AVX isn't on WiFi (or WiFi bands, it's on 1.9GHz) and has significantly longer lag than the ones that are actually on the WiFi bands (none of them use actual WiFi that I'm aware of).
 
I'm thankful this unit went on sale. Not only did some of us get one at a good price, it sparked a very helpful thread, which will be useful for others in the future when they are considering buying this. This single thread is now more helpful than most of the other info I found when researching combined. Thank you all.
The AVX will arrive tomorrow so hopefully it will be a beneficial addition to my gear.
 
Noiz2 said:
It gets tricky on this list because we have everyone from working professional sound people to amateur shooters and the occasional high school student.
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Yeah, I now and then try to qualify my statements with the point I'm making this for the aspiring sound recordist.
Thus what I recommend can sometimes fall a little short of what a veteran pro sound recordist might expect, while also being way overkill for your typical amateur filmmaker.
 
Learned this the other day: was wondering why the ME2 that came with the AVX felt unfamiliar, so apparently there are two versions of the ME2, and this is the newer version which seems a tad more muted to me. I borrowed a countryman B3 from work and will do a side by side test of all three and post back here
 
This may be a dead thread, but more than the latency, I'm wondering if people have issues with the auto gain?
Wouldn't there be a change in the amount of background sound before and when the subject starts speaking?
Thanks for the mic check, Darren... would be curious to hear an MkE2 test, too.
 
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