Zoom H4n problem with wireless lavs

B

blando3

Well-known member
I was just traveling and did an interview shoot with my GH2 and Zoom H4n. The zoom had two wireless receivers plugged in via XLR. The two subjects were wired with corresponding transmitters. The Zoom worked fine until I plugged the XLR receivers into it. Then the power dropped to zero bars, and my audio file came out corrupted. I had to resort to placing the zoom next to the subjects in order to get clean sound. That worked okay, but I need to figure this out.

Has anyone had this issue? I don't think I've used the Zoom with wireless lavs before but I've used it many times with an XLR hard-wired lav and that has always worked well. I was using old rechargeable AA batteries, fyi. Is there a setting I need to be aware of?

Some advice would be much appreciated.
Thanks!
Andrew
 
Phantom power turned on?
You have effectively shorted the power of the H4n.... Radio mic RX units don't like like phantom being fed into them..
 
In some unbalanced input situations, having Phantom Power engaged can kill a devices battery in a matter of minutes. Been there done that with my 302 and a G2 plugged in. I got the 302's low battery warning after about 5 minutes on fresh batteries. Took a few minutes of head scratching to figure it out some years ago. In my case, there was no permanent damage to either device.. others have not been so lucky when applying PP to unbalanced gear.
 
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