Sennheiser AVX Wireless Microphone System Review

in this episode our review of the Sennheiser AVX wireless lavalier system this entire episode has been recorded with the AVX system from Sennheiser with the mk2 lavalier microphone into a zoom f8 field recorder in some of the previous episodes that we did some of the preliminary tests we actually recorded into a Panasonic gh4 and moving to those here in just a second Paul Feig Yanni over at produced new media made an interesting observation when he said just recently if there's a microphone test you probably don't want to do very much processing it all back to as little as possible in that light this episode is not as loud as some of the others you've normally see we've done that intentionally this is only loudness normalized to minus 24 l u FS normally we go to about minus 16 the reason we've done that here is that we want you to be able to hear how the microphones sound pretty much directly out of the recorder first let's have a listen to the sound quality of the mk2 and AVX system relative to the road link wireless system here are some audio samples from both the AV X with the Mk II - lavalier microphone and from the rodelink filmmaker kit which includes the røde lavalier i have both of them mounted just here on my chest pretty much Center here and in both cases were recording into the zoom f8 just wanted to give you a sample of what they each sound like here are some audio samples from both the AV X with the Mk II - lavalier microphone and from the rodelink filmmaker kit which includes the røde lavalier i have both of them mounted just here on my chest pretty much Center here and in both cases were recording into the zoom f8 just wanted to give you a sample of what they each sound like I like the sound of the Mk II - it's a little bit bright but I think overall it sounds more balanced and more natural and more detailed than the røde lavalier it also comes with these little protective caps which not only protect the capsule of the microphone but also sculpt the sound a little bit so if you're hiding the microphone under your shirt for example that can help bring back some of the high frequency sound that's lost as the sound has to travel through the shirt the aiviq system transmits audio at 24-bit 48 kilohertz so it's very high-quality audio and it also encrypts at 256 bit AES encryption so there's no a lot of chances someone could listen in on your recording Sennheiser touts the dynamic range of the AVX system and what that means in practical terms is that it's able to capture much louder sounds without distorting relative to a lot of other systems now here I don't think it's just dynamic range technically they call it that but I think it's actually doing some sort of compression or limiting not entirely sure on that regardless of how it works it works very nicely I highly recommend you go take a look at our previous test where we looked at that specifically works very well and it can save your shoot if suddenly your talent gets very loud you're not going to clip in distort like you typically would on most other systems we also did another test where we took the AVX system along with the road link into a very Wi-Fi heavy environment and test it to see how well both of them stood up we had 10 different Wi-Fi networks at least there probably more and we had our talent walk up to about 50 meters away from the camera and we didn't have any dropouts due to Wi-Fi interference on either system actually but including the AVX Avox actually operates at eighteen eighty to nineteen thirty megahertz so it doesn't actually compete with Wi-Fi it's in a different frequency but we didn't run into any sort of interference of any sort in that same test we had mobile phones with all the radios turned on and did not experience any sort of radio frequency interference from those either same with the road link system can you record with multiple AVX kits at the same time the answer is yes you can use up to eight of them simultaneously in the United States and in Europe you can use up to twelve of them simultaneously not sure why there's a difference the AVX receiver has an XLR output so you can plug it directly into your camera professional level cameras with XLR inputs or into a proper XLR based field recorder it also has an XLR to 3.5 millimeter adapter so you can also record into any camera that has a 3.5 millimeter microphone input with the Sennheiser AVX it has a 3.5 millimeter input on the transmitter with a locking plug typical Sennheiser locking plug that is a 3.5 millimeter TRS inputs which means that you could also use other microphones for example the countryman b6 which we reviewed a little while back you could use that with this system as well however the MK e2 is a rather nice mic it is a little bit on the bright side for my personal preference but it works well for many voices for mine it's a little bit captures a little too much siblings so it's not my number one choice but it's pretty good I really like it it definitely sounds more open and more natural and more detailed than the røde lavalier which comes with the road link system the build quality is top-notch the body of the transmitter and receiver of both metal with some exceptions the batteries are both plastic and the antennae are plastic as well they have to be so that the signal can communicate between the two units is there latency with this system and what I mean by that is there a delay from the time that sound is produced and it's actually recorded to either your camera or field recorder if the answer is yes there is some latency 19 milliseconds is the spec from Sennheiser in practical terms what's happening there is the sound is coming in through the microphone goes to the transmitter the transmitter has to first of all convert it to a digital signal from an analog signal then it has to encrypt it sends it to the receiver the receiver has to decrypt it convert it back to analog and then send it to the camera or recorder that takes some time and that's where you get the 19 millisecond latency however in practical terms when I was recording to my Panasonic gh4 directly I found that it actually synced perfectly so technically 19 milliseconds if you're shooting at 24 P should be about half a frame so it could be up to have a frame off battery life is quite good with the Sennheiser AVX system I did two tests in the first test we got 5 hours and 23 minutes of transmission time before the battery ran out and on the second test 4 hours and 53 minutes so pretty good definitely in line with some of the other wireless systems that I've used the quality wireless systems so definitely I think a usable range there one question that may come up is what about the road link how is this compared to that now I actually own a couple of the road link kits I use them regularly quite like them I think that there are a couple of differentiators here between the Sennheiser AVX and the road link first of all is the price you can buy almost three rodelink filmmaker kits with the lavalier mic for the price of one Sennheiser AVX with the MKT 2 microphone so there's a big difference there obviously the build quality I think is quite a bit better on the Sennheiser AVX that alone would it make it worth all the extra money probably not depending on what you're doing for professionals I think they're really going to appreciate the metal body that can get dropped and thrown around a little bit and still keep on going the Sennheiser AVX transmitter and receiver are both significantly smaller than rodelink so if size is important to you in terms of keeping things very small and compact the ABX is a little bit better than the rodelink actually it's quite a bit smaller in terms of power it's sort of a trade-off in the case of the Sennheiser AVX the batteries are proprietary so they could make them much smaller they're also lithium ion they can make a much smaller and they can make the transmitter and receiver much smaller which is a tremendous benefit for some people depending on what you're doing Road link on the other hand uses double-a batteries and the nice thing about double-a batteries is that you get about the same battery life with the tests that I did and you can pick up double-a batteries almost anywhere the cost of course is that road link transmitter and receivers are quite a bit bigger so if you really are looking for something that's a little bit smaller you may have to do a trade-off there in terms of distance and interference they both did about the same I would say that the AVX was slightly better than the road link once you had the talent go out of line of sight from the receiver on top of the camera or recorder not a ton better they both really pretty much need to be within line of sight to work effectively and reliably but about the same and I think the distance plenty of distance I was easy easily able to get 50 meters on both of them so that's definitely going to work really really well for what I'm trying to do my take on this is that the AVX is really catering to a specific niche and that specific niche is the solo shooter or the shooter that only has one assistant and they don't have a dedicated sound person the AVX looks like it would be a really really good kit for that person if you don't have someone that can actually do live mixing while you're shooting and suddenly your talent gets louder that dynamic range feature should take care of you and save the shoot also the Mk II two microphone sounds I think quite a bit better and more refined and more detailed than the rodelink lavalier so there's a trade-off there as well overall the build quality is a little bit better so again for professional use where you're using it almost day after day after day it'll probably hold up longer than a road would will I buy one I will probably not buy one right now but I may in the future for now if the road link is serving me just fine but it's nice to know what the AVX offers and I think it really offers a compelling package again for solo shooters someone who maybe who's doing a documentary where you won't get second takes if something happens in you do clip so definitely something to keep in mind there one last note Sennheiser is very careful to note that the AV X does not replace their g3 wireless system the g3 is really sort of aimed at professionals that will be doing their own mixing so if you're gonna have a dedicated sound person at g3 may be a better option you know it's up to you of course but they're really sort of aiming the AVX at the solo shooter so someone that doesn't have time to mess with audio or to manage the audio while they're shooting at the same time so there's our review of the Sennheiser AVX system I hope that was helpful for you go and leave any questions you have down below if you haven't subscribed already make sure you do that and we're sure to get you more great videos on how to improve your lighting and sound for video 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Channel: Curtis Judd

Views: 35,246

Keywords: Lavalier, Microphone, Wireless, Sennheiser, AVX, MKE2, Review, Wireless Microphone, Audio

Id: U9RjMXtmVLc

Length: 10min 45sec (645 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 13 2015