Cheap wireless audio & lav mic?

[Roger Gunkel]

Hi Nigel,

Thought I would briefly drop in to say that I am still using my Boyas after several months and still having no problems at all.

The Boya supplied lav mics have a tip and 3 ring plug rather than the usual two, but it is very easy to make up an adapter lead. I use a wide variety of mics with mine, including Shure SM58 and SM57 for hand held, plus various lavs and omni directional mics. The Boya lavs are actually pretty good and I use them at weddings. The talkback facility is useful if you are using talent and the headphone out is great if you are filming with a dslr with no headphone socket There is also an output level control on the receiver to match the input to the camera.

I restrict the range to about 40ft which is fine for most situations and avoids dropout. You will also find the system surprisingly lacking in noise for such a cheap setup. Not sure of battery life, but I would normally use for ceremony and speeches and change them for each wedding, although there is a low battery warning light if you are pushing it.

Roger

[Dave Farrants]

I'm impressed and keeping mine. Sennheiser's they're not, but for £50 (£57 as I bought the Rode Mini Jack to male XLR with them) they are worth it.

Mine were 'clean' with no noise, they didn't break up, they just totally dropped out if the distance was too great, they worked 3 rooms away upstairs but not 2 rooms away downstairs but that could be down to the 3 Wifi routers I have scattered around.

Sound in on my JVC HM700 via mini jack / XLR was clean with enough gain. The earbuds are about as useful as a chocolate teapot for me, too large and uncomfortable so I used a pair of Senny earbuds but I can't really see a need for me to use them as such when I'm monitoring with either the ear cup on the JVC or using pro headphones.

After reading the reviews I did wonder if these at £50 were return/repairs but they looked new and 'factory fresh', I'm guessing some units are either Monday morning / Friday night units which is why some people have called them useless and sent them back, but for me £50? - a good buy.

[Roger Gunkel]

Hi Dave,

I thought the same as you when I bought the first set, worth a punt but probably unreliable. The first one was so good for the price that I immediately ordered a second which has been equally as good. I don't use them through walls as that can lead to dropout, but line of sight has never been a problem.

Roger

[Darren Levine]

I've been growing to love my sony aw4 set. they're not billed as anything professional, but in my bit of time using them for my blog videos, i've really come to love the size and simplicity. perfect? certainly not. but for some uses it's brilliant. last i checked it goes for around $160, i picked up an open box for 120ish.

[Matt Thomas]

I have one set of the Boya, and while I thought they are good for the price, I prefer the sound of a lav straight into a Zoom.

Not sure if it is because of a different mic, but I couldn't get any other mics to work on the Boya. Roger, when you said you made an adapter for mics, how did you do it?

I would get another set though. I need a budget & decent handheld microphone system now.

[Nigel Barker]

I too am very impressed. They are a bit 'plasticky' but there is no arguing that the sound quality is excellent. I found no interference at all when I was testing in a room full of computer equipment including several 2.4GHz WiFi devices. It would be interesting to do an A/B comparison with Sennheiser which I always found had a a lovely rich quality possibly due to the decent mic.

The tip and 3 ring plug looks the same as that used with a smartphone & would explain the crap YouTube review where the guy complained that it didn't work with a Sennheiser mic as he clearly didn't notice the different plug. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ultradisk-4...ultradisk+4016

I really have only ever used wireless mics line of sight so if the range is less than the Sennheiser that's no big deal. The shorter range will however mean that you miss out on those recordings where the groom still has the mic on while visiting the toilet or the memorable story posted on this forum a while ago when the videographer was following the bride & groom to the reception after the ceremony & they consummated their marriage in the back of the car.

[Roger Gunkel]

Matt- As the mic supplied works very well it was clearly just a wiring difference. I simply bought a cheap tip and 3 ring lead from eBay, stripped one end off and then worked out which wires gave the correct signal from a standard mic lead by touching the bare wires, to the plug on the mic. Soon as I got the audio signal, which took a few seconds, I then soldered up the lead to a standard mic socket. I can now plug any of my mics in.

Nigel- I'm pleased that your findings are identical to mine, so although the cases are a bit plasticky as you say, at that price I will put up with a bit of plastic. At least it is not a financial disaster if you leave a transmitter somewhere.

Roger