WOT: Dirt cheap wireless mic

TLF wrote on 12/23/2009, 9:05 AM
Bought a dirt cheap (£7.49 inc postage) wireless mic off ebay recently and it was delivered today.

It's labelled WR-601 - from what I can tell, it's made by a company named either Bolun or Lane. For the money, I thought it would be a piece of cr@p. But much to my surprise, it works a treat. No crackles, good clean sound, built in volume control. Needs one 9v battery for the transmitter, and just a single AAA for the receiver.

It's only FM, is not frequency switchable, and has a range of only 20M (line of sight). Frequency response is only 60-12.5k, but that's good enough for the speech I hope to record.

Here's the ebay link: http://tinyurl.com/wr601

The negatives: feels cheap, not weighty like the Senheiser mics. Pathetically thin wire serves as the antenna, and the mic plug on the receiver is 1/4 inch, not 3.5mm.

For the price, I'm blown away! And I'm going to test it with other mics - it could be useful to have a wireless shotgun system...

Comments

LReavis wrote on 12/23/2009, 10:41 AM
601? That rings a bell, and the transmitter photo looks suspiciously like a VHF wireless mic that I used a long time ago - say, 15 years? I was OK for the outdoor shoots that I was doing then in noisy locations, but had a rather poor signal-to-noise ratio for studio work.

However, I'm currently using an Azden VHF with a S/N ratio that's not so good when the mic is clipped onto the collar of a shirt, but is adequate when the cord is taped to eyeglasses so that the mic dangles near the mouth (about 55 db S/N ratio). Fortunately, that mic is tiny and rather unobtrusive. By helping the cord extend away from the cheek a bit, it's not so easily seen in many shots, especially when a green screen is keyed to black, for the black wire & mic blend into the black surrounding the face.

Nevertheless, I bid on one on ebay just now, so we'll see if its better. Thanks for the heads up.
TLF wrote on 12/23/2009, 11:08 AM
Although mine has no branding - it just says "Super Wireless Microphone" on the transmitter - they are variously branded as Bosun WR-601 or Lane LWM-300 II. There is also a 603 that comes with a mic/headset.

The blurb says it's for conferences.

I tested indoors, and it did work around corners, so I could be recording in one room, with the talent in another. Why i would do this, I don't know, but it worked.

I don't know how to work out the SNR, but the recordings I made sounded surprisingly clean. I'll check again later through good headphones.

But for £7.49, I'm not going to complain about a poor SNR!

I'll try to post some samples if I have the chance.
musicvid10 wrote on 12/23/2009, 11:36 AM
Why don't you upload a short WAV clip somewhere and let us take a look at it.
TLF wrote on 12/23/2009, 1:37 PM
I will do, as soon as I have time/access to the main PC.

I did manage to have a quick look at the noise spectrum - I think it was in Goldwave - and the noise seems to hover at around -60 to -70dB. Through my very expensive headphones it is clearly audible, but it cleans up well in audacity if reduced by 12-15dB, any greater and I end up with that weird 'hollow' sound typical of aggressive digital NR.

It's noisier than I would ideally like, but the noise cleans up nicely, I'm still happy.
LReavis wrote on 1/21/2010, 4:20 PM
After a month, I finally received my cheap wireless mic from China http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270505229735&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT ($16 - I've seen the same mic for a cheaper price on ebay since then). It's microphone has so-so audio quality, but when I plugged in my Azden mic it sounded like my Azden wireless system, with about the same S/N ratio. Looking at the VU meter in Vegas, it appears that noise is about 44 db down when plugged into my Sony HC-1, and about 40 db down with my Sanyo. These are levels that can be processed with the noise gate audio FX in Vegas so that no noise is heard for voice recordings - without the gate action becoming noticeable. (I had the mic near my adam's apple so that I could keep the audio gain control on the transmitter low - and to minimize pickup of background noise.)

In order to get it working, I had to adjust the receiver frequency with a small screwdriver. Even then, I occasionally could hear a very faint tweet, like beats in the 3-4 kHz range, perhaps, from two nearby carrier frequencies, whenever I got close to my monitor & cameras. On rare occasions I also heard the rushing noise that one gets from reflected signals (I'm recording inside a building with aluminum siding).

I asked the seller if it was transmitting in the (now illegal) 700 mHz band, but he didn't know. However, I'm pretty sure it's a VHF model, transmitting at a much lower frequency (based on the reflections I'm getting, etc).

Conclusion: Pretty good deal if you have a better dynamic mic that you can plug into it (1/8th" plug).
craftech wrote on 1/21/2010, 4:40 PM
Bought a dirt cheap (£7.49 inc postage) wireless mic off ebay recently and it was delivered today.

It does? I have had one in a box for years and never tried it because I too "thought it would be a piece of cr@p."

Maybe I should blow the dust off of it and give it a try?

John
Former user wrote on 1/21/2010, 6:28 PM
I bought one of these a couple of years ago and was very happy with the quality. I think I paid $6 for it. Another friend of mine bought two, but the problem was, they are both on the same frequency. He is happy with it as well. The biggest problem is the little tab that holds the batter in is very flimsy. Handle with care.

Dave T2