Jay Ashworth
Well-Known Member
Apologies; I thought I had mentioned this earlier in a thread, but can't find it.
One of the most popular ongoing threads on CB seems to be "why do I have to pay almost 200 bucks for a damn PL headset, when Panasonic KX-TCA60's are $6.95?"... or something closely akin to that.
The answer, of course, aside from how they're built, is that cell phone and PC headsets have a) electret condenser mics and b) weird wiring -- specifically, they generally don't have independent grounds, which makes PL boxes feel maladjusted. While newer beltpacks and panels reportedly have the first problem solved, that doesn't help you if you have an existing system to deal with, and it may not cope with the second problem, anyway.
There is one category, though, of inexpensive headsets, which don't have those disadvantages: they have dynamic mics, and 4-wire cables. They're made to plug into desktop telephones which have 4p4c modular jacks*, like the Polycom SoundPoint series phones, which are popular enough to drive a segment of the accessory market. One such example is here:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/271749032814
Mine arrived the other day.
It's comfortable enough to wear for 3 hours without a) having your head become narrower or b) making you sweat even more than going up and down the ladder already did, and has a reversible mic boom (with a real honest to ghod gooseneck), so I can put it on the side where it *doesn't* block me hearing my sound guy. Sometimes we have a spare box and headset for him, but sometimes not so much.
The requisite Neutrik A4F connector is also here, and I'm just waiting for the modular connectors to arrive, at which point I will attempt to figure out how best to physically jam the two together into an adapter.
If this all works out, y'all will be the second or third to know.
---
This idea has been being done by Some Guy In Cali, who sells adapted Speco headsets with the A4F permanently installed on eBay for about $70; I have one of his that worked out very nicely for me in the community access TV studio for about 6 years, but when I recently re-located it, I found that the mic capsule had come unglued. Hence my next project.
* Regardless of what you may have been told, 4p4c modular connectors are not now, nor have they ever been, properly referred to as RJ-9, RJ-10, or RJ-22 connectors: the "RJ-" prefix is a reference to FCC Part 68, which covers interconnection between consumer equipment and the PSTN: it's a name for a *wiring pattern in a telco provided jack*, which does not describe the handset jack on any telephone. Those particular RJ numbers aren't even in that section, I don't believe. 8p8c modular jacks, commonly called RJ-45's, aren't really that either, unless they have a (now very) uncommon data-set wiring pattern on them. But the names are easy to say, and hence persist.
One of the most popular ongoing threads on CB seems to be "why do I have to pay almost 200 bucks for a damn PL headset, when Panasonic KX-TCA60's are $6.95?"... or something closely akin to that.
The answer, of course, aside from how they're built, is that cell phone and PC headsets have a) electret condenser mics and b) weird wiring -- specifically, they generally don't have independent grounds, which makes PL boxes feel maladjusted. While newer beltpacks and panels reportedly have the first problem solved, that doesn't help you if you have an existing system to deal with, and it may not cope with the second problem, anyway.
There is one category, though, of inexpensive headsets, which don't have those disadvantages: they have dynamic mics, and 4-wire cables. They're made to plug into desktop telephones which have 4p4c modular jacks*, like the Polycom SoundPoint series phones, which are popular enough to drive a segment of the accessory market. One such example is here:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/271749032814
Mine arrived the other day.
It's comfortable enough to wear for 3 hours without a) having your head become narrower or b) making you sweat even more than going up and down the ladder already did, and has a reversible mic boom (with a real honest to ghod gooseneck), so I can put it on the side where it *doesn't* block me hearing my sound guy. Sometimes we have a spare box and headset for him, but sometimes not so much.
The requisite Neutrik A4F connector is also here, and I'm just waiting for the modular connectors to arrive, at which point I will attempt to figure out how best to physically jam the two together into an adapter.
If this all works out, y'all will be the second or third to know.
---
This idea has been being done by Some Guy In Cali, who sells adapted Speco headsets with the A4F permanently installed on eBay for about $70; I have one of his that worked out very nicely for me in the community access TV studio for about 6 years, but when I recently re-located it, I found that the mic capsule had come unglued. Hence my next project.
* Regardless of what you may have been told, 4p4c modular connectors are not now, nor have they ever been, properly referred to as RJ-9, RJ-10, or RJ-22 connectors: the "RJ-" prefix is a reference to FCC Part 68, which covers interconnection between consumer equipment and the PSTN: it's a name for a *wiring pattern in a telco provided jack*, which does not describe the handset jack on any telephone. Those particular RJ numbers aren't even in that section, I don't believe. 8p8c modular jacks, commonly called RJ-45's, aren't really that either, unless they have a (now very) uncommon data-set wiring pattern on them. But the names are easy to say, and hence persist.
