Headset mic recommendations welcomed

[gafftaper]

Hey Gafftaper!
Glad you got a kick out of the soda demonstration at USITT! If you can provide us with your contact info we would love to set you up with a demo so that you can try out our mics first-hand!

I'll gladly take you up on that. See your private conversations in the upper right corner of the screen.

 

[Big Nick]

The DPA d:fine sets the standard for ease of use and sound quality, but the price is obscene. The Countryman E6 is good for sound quality, but a lot harder to fit to people. On the single ear model, shaping the wire to fit someone's ear is an exercise in frustration for me. I haven't gotten my hands on a dual, but assume it would be easier to fit for stability.

I recently recorded an event where the house sound guy brought Mic Madness duals. They sounded good and needed just a touch of EQ to add presence. For the price, I would happily buy them and toss the whole thing when the cord inevitably breaks. I regret that I didn't have time to play with fitting them on someone, but it didn't take the house guy long to put them on the talent.

YMMV.

Hi FMEng

My venue has been using DPA D.Fine for a while now, and I've got to say that these are not all the hype, sound quality is good after notching down 12.5, 16Khz. They are not water/humidity resistant enough, I've had mics soaked with sweat after the first performance of the day, and more recently the contacts linking the mic boom to the cable for the D.Fine 4088 gave out a loud pop and died mid show. Last but not least very fragile, I've had a scenario where a D.Fine 88 transducer broke away from the boom.

As of now I'm currently on the look out for other headset mics that blend in well similar to the countryman's or DPA's, that sounds good, has a small footprint, yet flexible and durable enough to withstand the hot, humid and tropical climate of Singapore

Thanks
Big Nick

 

[Techie23]

Hi FMEng

My venue has been using DPA D.Fine for a while now, and I've got to say that these are not all the hype, sound quality is good after notching down 12.5, 16Khz. They are not water/humidity resistant enough, I've had mics soaked with sweat after the first performance of the day, and more recently the contacts linking the mic boom to the cable for the D.Fine 4088 gave out a loud pop and died mid show. Last but not least very fragile, I've had a scenario where a D.Fine 88 transducer broke away from the boom.

As of now I'm currently on the look out for other headset mics that blend in well similar to the countryman's or DPA's, that sounds good, has a small footprint, yet flexible and durable enough to withstand the hot, humid and tropical climate of Singapore

Thanks
Big Nick

Hey there Big Nick -

Humidity is no problem! A waterproof mic can handle water, sweat, makeup, and 110 drenches for Singin' in the Rain. Check out the video http://www.point-sourceaudio.com/customer_reviews/microphones/ The Paris theatre is using the CO-8WD headset mic but all of the SERIES8 OMNIDIRECTIONAL mics are waterproof.

 

[Big Nick]

Hey there Big Nick -

Humidity is no problem! A waterproof mic can handle water, sweat, makeup, and 110 drenches for Singin' in the Rain. Check out the video http://www.point-sourceaudio.com/customer_reviews/microphones/ The Paris theatre is using the CO-8WD headset mic but all of the SERIES8 OMNIDIRECTIONAL mics are waterproof.

Thanks Techie23 for that speedy reply

Yes we're currently in touch with our local distributor to send us a couple demo sets of the various headsets, products from point source audio in our venue. Hopefully soon.

 

[BCAP]

Recently I got the chance to use a number of J-K MIC-J 071s headset microphones. I can't unfortunately give much information to the positive or negative as I don't have enough experience with them yet and haven't done an A/B test. However, they are available for a reasonable price online and visually they look fairly good. One of the ones I was using had a bad connection. Might be cheap enough to throw a broken one away and buy a new one.

I would like to +1 on Timothy A Samuelson's SE50 recommend. I have a number of those and over the last shows they have been performing quite well. Though, you might need a piece of NexCare tape on the cheek to hold the boom (depending on how active the actor is). There is one issue I see and that is the adapter on the transmitter pack side. It's lengthy. And a potential opportunity for a connection failure.