In Ear Monitors - help needed...

[Dood]

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1464078945' post='3056288']
I'm which case, if you want true stereo, you need the ACS live system - or maybe check out Klang.com
[/quote]

Now THAT is very cool. I've been checking out the intro' video on the Klang website!

[EBS_freak]

I don't know of any artist that is actually using it though. Good in theory although I don't know how successful it is in practice!

[EBS_freak]

http://basschat.co.uk/topic/286683-good-quality-wireless-iem-inc-earphones-for-l1k/

Just thought I'd share it here. With 1964 quads actually being pretty expensive nowadays, here's a way of getting a decent quad at under 500 quid.

Basically a set of UE900s with a reshell.

[mr zed]

I've lost touch with some of the pricing since I bought my 1964 ears quads a couple of years go. I paid £500 including having the impression done and now they're £820. Blimey! On the other hand the Sennheiser EW300 iem G3 can now be had for £619 - these were just short of a grand when I was in the market. Good shout about the UE900's - £159 is a steal. A reshell at £200 and you've got a cracking set of in-ears for less than £400 inc impressions (unless the price of having these done has also rocketed ). Our drummer is looking into in-ears at the moment. I've sent him a link to this thread (he can have a read when he has a spare 2 minutes ). He is looking at going wired. Any recommendations for the beltpack? The Behringer P1 looks great for £40 (and being an XR18 owner, I'm no longer worried about the Behringer name). The other option is the LD HPA 1. Rolls were always on the radar when I was looking but they don't seem that readily available these days for a single unit.

[EBS_freak]

[quote name='mr zed' timestamp='1465922360' post='3072150']
On the other hand the Sennheiser EW300 iem G3 can now be had for £619 - these were just short of a grand when I was in the market.
[/quote]
Where is this from? Most of the cheaper vendors are around £690. That's a great price.

I guess the PSM300 has had a significant impact on the Sennheiser then... Sennheiser were pitching them against the PSM900 and not having anything to counteract the PSM300, I've guess they have been forced to drop their price to stay in the game, despite the EW300 being more feature rich than the PSM300.

...unless they are making way for G4 (which to be fair is probably about due).

Edited June 14, 2016 by EBS_freak

[EBS_freak]

[quote name='mr zed' timestamp='1465922360' post='3072150']
He is looking at going wired. Any recommendations for the beltpack? The Behringer P1 looks great for £40 (and being an XR18 owner, I'm no longer worried about the Behringer name). The other option is the LD HPA 1. Rolls were always on the radar when I was looking but they don't seem that readily available these days for a single unit.
[/quote]

There's a few been mentioned in the thread - you can't really go wrong, they all do the same sort of thing. This one looks quite interesting too - http://www.whirlwinduk.com/blog/introducing-the-pw1/ but with the P1 at £40, its hard to justify the cost of anything else. Even the Millennium one at £35 is hard to pitch against the P1... who wouldn't pay the extra fiver for the portability?

[mr zed]

My mistake - they are £689 (which is still a great price). Google linked me to a lapel mic system & I wasn't paying attention.

[EBS_freak]

In the interests of keeping this thread full of helpful information, here's some useful info from the MyMix guys - [url="http://www.mymixaudio.com/webinars-about-personal-monitor-mixers"]http://www.mymixaudi...-monitor-mixers[/url] - there's a bit of MyMix specific stuff in there - but the concepts are still applicable regardless of how you are getting that final ears mix into your skull.

Edited July 13, 2016 by EBS_freak

[FuNkShUi]

I thought id ask this in here, but happy to start a thread if you want me to.
I'm trying to convince our band to go the "in ear monitoring" route.
I remember people talking about the Gear4Music setup as being a good budget set up. I cant find them though?
Have they stopped selling their own brands version?
After reading a bit of this thread i'm aware the important bit is the earphones, so they are plugged into the receiver pack you clip on your belt i'm guessing?
Sorry, i'm new to this type of monitoring so really have no clue.
Happy to start a separate thread too

Edit to say we are using a Behringer X-Air 18, so with the 6 channel aux output, this set up would be ideal

Edited July 18, 2016 by FuNkShUi

[EBS_freak]

Gear4Music IEMs are no more - although they were just generic rebranded Chinese efforts. You can find those - but finding them for channel 70 may be a bit difficult. I can have a look for you.

For wireless- yes, you are correct - earphones into receiver pack, usually clipped onto you.

X-Air18 - well, thats a good starting point!

[EBS_freak]

This is them - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Takstar-WPM-100-In-Ear-Wireless-Monitor-System-Transmitter-3pcs-Receiver-UK-/252417586719 - but the operating frequency range is illegal for the UK. A bit naughty to market them as "UK" in the title.

[FuNkShUi]

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1468854153' post='3093788']
Gear4Music IEMs are no more - although they were just generic rebranded Chinese efforts. You can find those - but finding them for channel 70 may be a bit difficult. I can have a look for you.

For wireless- yes, you are correct - earphones into receiver pack, usually clipped onto you.

X-Air18 - well, thats a good starting point!
[/quote]#

Yeh i absolutely love the X-Air 18. Very pleased we went digital!!
Thanks for that link.
Illegal operating frequency?!? How is this policed? Is it likely to cause problems if we went for that unit for example?

[EBS_freak]

[quote name='FuNkShUi' timestamp='1468910773' post='3094169']
#

Yeh i absolutely love the X-Air 18. Very pleased we went digital!!
Thanks for that link.
Illegal operating frequency?!? How is this policed? Is it likely to cause problems if we went for that unit for example?
[/quote]
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/enforcement/spectrum-enforcement/law

You'd be transmitting in a TV broadcast area of the spectrum... I wouldn't like to say if you would have any problems or not...

[obbm]

[quote name='FuNkShUi' timestamp='1468910773' post='3094169']
Illegal operating frequency?!? How is this policed? Is it likely to cause problems if we went for that unit for example?
[/quote]

Some one used to sell this illegal brand through Amazon last year and I reported them to Offcom. Apparently Offcom regularly check the likes of Ebay etc for illegal wireless equipment offered for sale in the UK and get the adverts stopped and products confiscated. I would steer very clear of cheap illegal wireless kit.

Edited July 19, 2016 by obbm

[FuNkShUi]

[quote name='obbm' timestamp='1468925719' post='3094316']
Some one used to sell this illegal brand through Amazon last year and I reported them to Offcom. Apparently Offcom regularly check the likes of Ebay etc for illegal wireless equipment offered for sale in the UK and get the adverts stopped and products confiscated. I would steer very clear of cheap illegal wireless kit.
[/quote]

Fair enough. Thanks for the advice
Are there any entry level kits you would recommend?

[EBS_freak]

[quote name='obbm' timestamp='1468925719' post='3094316']
Some one used to sell this illegal brand through Amazon last year and I reported them to Offcom. Apparently Offcom regularly check the likes of Ebay etc for illegal wireless equipment offered for sale in the UK and get the adverts stopped and products confiscated. I would steer very clear of cheap illegal wireless kit.
[/quote]

Couldn't agree more. Go for OBBMs wired solution if you are on a budget! (You do do the instrument and iem combo cable don't you?)

[FuNkShUi]

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1468926824' post='3094333']
Couldn't agree more. Go for OBBMs wired solution if you are on a budget! (You do do the instrument and iem combo cable don't you?)
[/quote]

How does the wired solution work?
Still plug a unit into an aux channel? then you are wired from the unit to your ears rather than from a receiver?

[obbm]

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1468926824' post='3094333']
Couldn't agree more. Go for OBBMs wired solution if you are on a budget! (You do do the instrument and iem combo cable don't you?)
[/quote]

I have made a few in the past using stereo mic cable but this is a bit of a compromise for the tone purists as it's not proper instrument cable. Saying that no-one has complained of poor frequency response so I guess they are all happy with them. I did find a cable that had an instrument core and a stereo monitor core but it is quite expensive to get 100m and since the Referendum the pound has dropped and now it's very expensive, so it's back to genuine stereo mic cable.

[EBS_freak]

[quote name='obbm' timestamp='1468927288' post='3094343']
I have made a few in the past using stereo mic cable but this is a bit of a compromise for the tone purists as it's not proper instrument cable. Saying that no-one has complained of poor frequency response so I guess they are all happy with them. I did find a cable that had an instrument core and a stereo monitor core but it is quite expensive to get 100m and since the Referendum the pound has dropped and now it's very expensive, so it's back to genuine stereo mic cable.
[/quote]

For everything else, there are cable ties.

[EBS_freak]

[quote name='FuNkShUi' timestamp='1468927113' post='3094339']
How does the wired solution work?
Still plug a unit into an aux channel? then you are wired from the unit to your ears rather than from a receiver?
[/quote]

Pretty much - but you'd typically go AUX -> HEADPHONE AMP -> CABLE EXTENSION -> IN EARS

[FuNkShUi]

[quote name='EBS_freak' timestamp='1468927434' post='3094347']
Pretty much - but you'd typically go AUX -> HEADPHONE AMP -> CABLE EXTENSION -> IN EARS
[/quote]

Ok, a whole new world of things to delve into.
Wired solution will be fine for me, so if this makes for a better sound too, it's more than likely ill go down this route.
Now, to search out some headphone amps!!

[EBS_freak]

Read this thread. There's lots of mentions of headphone amps.

[FuNkShUi]

Lot of pages on this thread too
I'll make my way through it.
Thanks gents

[FuNkShUi]

Just made my way through this thread.
Just over 2 hours later....
A lot of good information on here though. Thanks everyone who has chimed in.
So i'm going to go down the wired route initially, with some comparatively cheap in ears, although it seems i am merely delaying the inevitable!!
Couple more questions if i may.....
What is the difference between the Behringer P1 and the HA400 & MA400? Do they all pretty much do the same job?
I'm more tempted by the Millenium HPA that has been recommended, but cant see how the aux from the X-18 would connect to it, other than taking two channels? and effectively running 2 separate mixes in stereo? Might well be getting confused here.
But there's 6 of us, so we will possibly need the 6 channels. I cant go taking two
Secondly, I've looked at the Shure 215s and 315s. Is there a noticeable quality difference between the two? 315s being double the price ....

Edited July 19, 2016 by FuNkShUi

[EBS_freak]

Behringer P1 is a belt worn headphone amplifier. The advantage is that the volume control is readily available at your belt.

Behringer HA400 is a 4 channel headphone amplifier - you can run one mix to four sets of headphones. Probably not what you want.

Behringer MA400 is a single channel headphone amplifier with inbuilt blend for one mic (or something else input). For example, you could plug your bass into it and blend it with another mix that is coming from the desk's aux and you could independently add or subtract the bass to the mix via the control knob on the device. Probably not what you want either.

With a lot of the Stereo headphone amps, such as the HPA, you can sum the input to mono - e.g. if you plug one aux out to say, just the left input of the HPA and engage the mono button - it will replicate the same signal to the right ear. So by running one aux out into it, you could get a mono mix into both ears from just one aux.

215s vs 315s - the latter develops much more bass... but I'd be saving for the UE900s mentioned above... and if you get serious about IEMs, you've got a decent set of donor quads that you can put into moulds if you wanted to.

The difference between single driver armatures and a set of quad armatures in an earpiece is more than night and day. I believe that you will think that IEMs are crap if you don't invest enough in the ear pieces - I firmly believe you need the headroom of a dual low in a quad setup. I did a gig at the weekend on my ACS (mix from an X32) and I was craving my JH Audios as the lows just weren't there - and if you tried to push it, they went into distortion.

My advice would be go wired with the HPA (with cable extension) or Behringer P1 and invest in the UE900s from the link above. Then concentrate on getting the best out of the XR18 monitor mixes - this will take you some time and will improve with each gig (think tweaks in the eq, compression and fx). This will give you an awesome setup for probably less that 250 quid - less than the cost of a decent wedge - but imho, infinitely more portable and better sounding.

For an idea of how crazy you can get - I digitally split guitars and bass into two channels so that I can eq those instruments independently for inears and front of house. You'll find that what you want in your ears and front of house are completely different and the global EQ which is on the aux send is not always enough to get the mixes in your ears sounding as good as they could be. With inears, you don't have to compromise on your mix. You can put as much importance on your inears mix as your front of house mix.