Sennheiser EW100G3 Audio LTD EN2MX or Lectrosonic 100?
- Thread starter lealain
- Start date
Richard Crowley
Veteran
Generally speaking, Lectrosonic products are in a higher class than the Sennheiser G-series. And I suspect the Audio Limited may also be a superior product. But then the Lecrosonic (and the Audio Ltd?) cost more, also, so one would expect better performance.
?!
Do you have some evidence of this? I'm honestly curious, as I have not seen this assessment, nor have I experienced it myself. Lectrosonics is vastly superior to Sennheiser in build quality, sound quality, and durability.
Side note: if I'm not mistaken, Audio Ltd. is considered the standard in the UK just as Lectrosonics is here in the US.
John Willett
Veteran
The Sennheiser G3 is very good and the 2000 series is even better.
In the UK Lectro is very rarely used.
The standard used to me Micron and then that baton passed to Audio Limited. There is also the new boy on the block - Audio Wireless. This is run by Aldo who used to be *the* man at Micron and I gather that his stuff is being very well received.
In a range test a couple of years back, the Sennheiser G3 actually came out top, beating more expensive Sennheiser units as well as Lectro, Audio Limited, Zaxcom and others. This surprised everyone at the presentation. The test was done at Pinewood studios with a sound recordist getting on his bike and riding away from the sound cart - he then went in and out of offices and stores to test how well they all coped.
In the UK Lectro is very rarely used.
The standard used to me Micron and then that baton passed to Audio Limited. There is also the new boy on the block - Audio Wireless. This is run by Aldo who used to be *the* man at Micron and I gather that his stuff is being very well received.
In a range test a couple of years back, the Sennheiser G3 actually came out top, beating more expensive Sennheiser units as well as Lectro, Audio Limited, Zaxcom and others. This surprised everyone at the presentation. The test was done at Pinewood studios with a sound recordist getting on his bike and riding away from the sound cart - he then went in and out of offices and stores to test how well they all coped.
Just curious, is there any special reason for why Lectrosonics is rarely used in UK, and Audio ltd is the standard? (and vice versa in US)
Rick R
Veteran
"Just curious, is there any special reason for why Lectrosonics is rarely used in UK"
- Probably a cost factor.. coming from the USA.
"Sometimes, at conferences, I have the feeling that most people use Sennheiser, so its easier to pick up a similar frequency of, e.g. the speaker on stage."
- I wouldn't think that has much to do with it.
(What's with the black text again)
- Probably a cost factor.. coming from the USA.
"Sometimes, at conferences, I have the feeling that most people use Sennheiser, so its easier to pick up a similar frequency of, e.g. the speaker on stage."
- I wouldn't think that has much to do with it.
(What's with the black text again)
John Willett
Veteran
Lectro is made in the USA and Audio Limited is made in the UK - prices get expensive crossing the Atlantic making Audio more expensive in the US and Lectro more expensve in the UK.
Also, for many years Lectro were illegal to use in Europe.
Firstly - because the US has a very loose spec. for radiomics that makes a transmitter made to the US specs illegal everywhere else in the world.
Secondly - because of RoHS specifications in Europe that ban certain toxic materials including lead. Lectro did not initially make products that passed RoHS regulations and were therefore illegal to sell anywhere in Europe (I think they do make to RoHS now, though, as a friend is a Lectro dealer in the UK).
In the conference and stage markets Sennheiser is the market leader by a long way due to the high quality and reliability and relative low price of the G3 (and formerly G1 and G2) systems, coupled with an excellent service and back-up (EG: at the major Glastonbury music festival Sennheiser have a crew of engineers on site through the whole festival to sort out radio problems - no other manufacturer does this).
No argument from me on that point. However, with a fully established dealer network in the UK and elswhere in the EU, Lectrosonics product is now no longer significantly more expensive there than it is here.
As far as I know, they were never illegal to USE in Europe - i.e. the units that were sold there legally previous to the RoHS regulations could still be used, as long as they were on legal frequencies for that country.
I suppose it is semantics but I don't care for your characterization. The US specs for wireless are just as "tight" as elsewhere, but they are different specs. More power RF power is allowed in the US than in many countries, but not all. The deviation spec is again higher in the US, but is not "illegal everywhere else in the world." We make our products in several different special versions, each for different countries or groups of countries. Japan probably has the most restrictive regulations, by the way - much more so than Europe. And we have products there in their New National Theater, and in musical productions such as Rent and Miss Saigon, to name a few.
Again, not sure I like the characterization. It's not that we made products that did not pass the regulations... Lectrosonics withdrew from the EU market when RoHS regulations came along, so that we could concentrate A) on the domestic market (remember the 700 MHz "Digital Dividend" started here...) and B) so we could re-tool and properly engineer our export products for the new EU regulations.
So, for several years now (3 or 4 at least) we have exported a wide range of wireless mic products into Europe and been quite successful at it, particularly with the SR series receivers and SM Series transmitters. The Venue receiver is also popular in Europe. We are in theaters in Finland and Austria, we extensively covered the news in the UK including the Olympics and the Royal Wedding, for instance.
For an example of a very interesting project done in the UK, check out the details of Simon Hayes use of Lectrosonics for the production of Les Miserables. It was a landmark film in many ways, but probably most importantly for the treatment of sound including live singing on the set: http://jwsoundgroup.net/index.php?/topic/13657-les-miserables-live-singing/
John Willett
Veteran
Sorry, I did not mean to be ingenuous.
By "illegal" I was referring to the fact that units made to US specs were illegal in Europe and that non RoHS compliant units could not be sold, sorry I was not clear enough.
I do know this has all been sorted and that Lectro has been fully complient and available for a few years now.
But crossing the Atlantic does cost money and kit that is often sold at, say, $1,000 in the US tends to sell for £1,000 in the UK, which is a large premium.
So, if you have managed to get that down to about £666 (assuming 1.5 $ to £) then that's a good thing.
By "illegal" I was referring to the fact that units made to US specs were illegal in Europe and that non RoHS compliant units could not be sold, sorry I was not clear enough.
I do know this has all been sorted and that Lectro has been fully complient and available for a few years now.
But crossing the Atlantic does cost money and kit that is often sold at, say, $1,000 in the US tends to sell for £1,000 in the UK, which is a large premium.
So, if you have managed to get that down to about £666 (assuming 1.5 $ to £) then that's a good thing.
I appreciate that, John.
BTW I did check the price on our most popular transmitter, known as the SMQV in the US and a few other countries, and the SMDb in the UK and EU. It sells for about $1400 street in the US, and for just under £1100 in the UK (not including VAT) so I'd say that's pretty close to par. But yes, VAT has an impact...
John Willett
Veteran
That puts the street price in the UK at about £1,320 including VAT.
Does the $1,400 US price include sales tax? - IE: the price the user pays?
John Willett
Veteran
Thanks - So, at the current exchange rate it costs almost $2,000 in the UK ($1,993.66 to be exact) including VAT, as opposed to $1,400 to $1,512 in the US (latter figure assumes the highest 8% rate of sales tax).
So that's approx. 25% more in the UK.
Though European gear going the other way does get a similar price hike I think.