Anyone using...

[Dave Largent]

From what I gather on other forums this unit is
only for those who absolutely can't afford any
better and are willing to put up with a lot
of dropouts. Twenty feet seems to be the
limit and even at that I've heard that if someone
gets in between the Tx and Rx you could get dropouts.
As a happy owner of the Samson Airline system,
I would recommend this as being far superior for
only $100 more.
You can get it with a plug-in Tx, which gives the same
distance (~80 feet) as the bodypack Tx.
And, it is UHF and much smaller than this AT system.

[Brian Huey]

The microphone it came with is the ATR35 I don't know if there are any reviews of it out there but Googling would be worthwhile.

For the dialogue as he's working out the birds it has sounded good to me, but we are just watching it on a cheap small TV/VCR combo. But I don't have anything else to compare it to other then the on camera microphone. And let it be know that the audio portion of videography is my weak point!

We have experienced some interference noise and dropouts while close (around 20ft) but on our project we can replace audio with a voiceover if need be or redo shots so this isn't a huge deal for us. If you are capturing something live or where you need it to not screw up then I'd advise going to a better wireless system.

Cheers,
Brian

[Mike Rehmus]

<<<-- Originally posted by Brian Huey :



Usually he's about 20 feet away and the sound has been good, out in the fields though while hunting the birds the sound started to break up when he was 40-50ft away and was totally cut out at around 80ft (I'm guestimating here).

Brian -->>>

For what it is worth, I've been able to receive clean sound on my Sennheiser UW100 when the Bride and Groom were so far down in a valley amongst the grape vines that they were very small in the viewfinder. Probably a quarter mile at least. I was above them on a balcony overlooking the valley so I was in the best possible position.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

While the Samson is quite good, it also has a compander. That was the bigger point of my initial post. The Samson can indeed go farther, and there are many models of any brand that can go farther. But they are all companded, which has a detrimental effect on audio. For me, that's the bigger thing. If there is another unit out there without companding, I'm interested, but unaware of it.

[Mike Rehmus]

What about the new digital units?

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

I surely dunno....Haven't tried any of the new digital ones yet.

[Dave Largent]

What is a compander? What effect does it have on
the audio?
I recently noticed a whishhhhing sound with the
Samson Airline. Maybe was always there
but never noticed it before. Anyways, this
sound follows each word, on the tail end.
Anyone ever heard of this? Is this from the
compander?

[Alessandro Machi]

I've heard that sound every once in a great while (meaning once a year or so) on the HI-FI tracks when I shoot in S-VHS. Fortunately the Linear tracks serve as a very capable back-up.

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

Dave, from the Yamaha Pro Audio Glossary:

Compander A compander is a compressor/expander - a combination of signal compression and expansion. The compander attenuates the input signal above the threshold as well as the level below the width. For very dynamic material, this program allows you to retain the dynamic range without having to be concerned with excessive output signal levels and clipping. See Dynamics Processor.

Analog audio signal compression in this sense is not the same as digital signal data compression (as in, the MP3 codec is a compression scheme that makes audio files smaller). Rather, compression squeezes the dynamic range of a signal into a specified amplitude range, ensuring sounds are neither too loud nor too soft. All music you hear over FM radio has gone through compression at the radio station prior to broadcast, which explains in part why songs may sound so much different over the airwaves than they are piped from CDs.