Every year I watch the pro audio trade coverage from events like NAMM or watch product tours/launches of pro audio equipment and every year I continue to see products with pour design choices. As a series I'd like to go through and go over some of the more common pour design choices I continue to see year after year.
This article will cover the first two out of five
1) UHF wireless microphones and IEMs
UHF wireless transition in Australia just doesn't work reliably as digital TV and mobile data hog and clutter the air space that was once reserved for pro audio wireless systems. Unfortunately, wireless microphone and IEM manufacturers haven’t changed their product line up to incorporate this change.
I've seen so many 2.4G and 5G based wireless products get launched but they aren’t a good solution because:
- that air space is already full of conflicting WIFI transmissions
- Mobile phones interfere with transitions so once your venue fills up your wireless systems may or may not continue to function.
- every solution on the market consists of low channel counts systems of 8 – 12 (in perfect non-WIFI interfering conditions).
What is the most frustrating is that there are entry level enterprise Wireless access points that way out preforms anything on the audio market bandwidth, reliability and speed wise but manufacturers continue to roll their own unstandardized 2.4G and 5G solutions.
The only sain solution I've seen is Sennheiser's G3 line that operates on the 1.8GHz band. The main down side to this range is that
1. signals around 1.8GHz don't like going through one or two people bodies. In my case I've had to move the transceivers down on to stage because the transitions couldn't travel 14m reliably.
2. Sennheiser don't currently have a wireless IEM system that uses the 8GHz band
2) Audio Interface Connectivity
I really wish there was a better way of connecting audio interfaces to computers but year after year I see manufacture returning and launching USB and Thunderbolt devices. In general, I don't like USB or thunderbolt interfaces. I find that both connectors are too delicate for any situation that requires large numbers of insertions. The lack of a locking connecter standard on either USB or thunderbolt also frustrates me to no end because I can't leave one end pre-attached equipment without it shifting during transit.
In a perfect world I like to see RJ45 "Ethercon" connectors for ADB, Dante or AES on the back of interfaces or digital mixers. There is nothing like a rugged and locking connector (although ADB or Dante aren’t particularly prefect solutions either – lack of windows drivers and expensive close source drivers respectively).
I like thunderbolt the lest because it a closed standard managed by Intel. Its also only available on moderately new intel processors and support is split between 3 revisions. Each locked to the processor and chipset combination. I've also I've never had a thunderbolt socket last more than a year or two of use. Connectors on both my Mac Book Pro's suffer from loose ports which drop out if you so much as look at them wrong way. The up take on thunderbolt has been insanely slow with manufacturers launching products with firewire or USB2/3 interfaces right up until late 2017.
The USB B socket has been more common to see on the back of audio interfaces and digital mixers. I find that in general that the quality of the USB B sockets varies and can be quite hit or miss. For instance, my X32 for has one that was loose enough that I almost thought the USB card was originally broken but on several hard drive docking stations I've had USB B sockets be rock solid.
The USBC connecter is a much nicer connecter but its not with out its down sides either. The specification for USB C contains variants that may support
Legacy USB 1/1.1/2
USB3
1
Thunderbolt
DisplayPort
Which means that figuring out what is required on both ends can be a mind filed. While the Universal Serial Buss is more "Universal" than ever it can also be quite a challenge to ensure that the equipment on either end; plus, the cable in between, are compatible. Not to mention the USBC standard lacks a cannon quick release style locking connector variant (let alone an uptake on manufacturers implementing the rather noval USBC locking standard).
Zach Radloff lives on the Gold Coast and works as a software engineer for a software development agency.