John Willett

Oh dear - I was the one who knew all about digital mics. when I worked as Technical Manager at Sennheiser UK, but I left there about 6 years ago. I have written a couple of AES papers on AES42 digital mics and do have a DMI-2 and two DMI-2p myself, as well as both Neumann and Sennheiser digital mics (and an AETA 4MinX which will also accept AES42) - I also plan on giving the Gefell one a test when I can. I have attached my two AES papers should anyone be interested and I also have PDFs of a few magazine articles on AES42 microphones on file. I'm happy to help with AES42 questions if I can. AES 130 - Digital Microphones - What's it all about - John WIllett.pdf AES - Digital Microphones - AES42 and all that.pdf

I use Neutrik EMC connectors all the time now - excellent. I'm not sure what the Zaxcom is like for spurious emissions. Is it the USA version of the Zaxcom you are using, or the international version? The US version had a very wide window compared to the international version (though it was a few years ago when I saw these radiation graphs).

Yes they have and they do. The high capacity pack costs £330 to refurb and replace the battery pack in the UK.

PM sent with Martin Gathard's phone number. Martin is *the* Neumann expert inthe UK, having worked for FWO Bauch when they were the Neumann distributor and then moved to Sennheiser UK when Neumann was sold to them. Since about 1990 he has been working on Sennheiser mics as well as Neumann, so knows these inside-out as well. There is no-one outside Sennheiser I would trust my mics to other than Martin.

Just noticed that Audio Limited have announced their new digital radio system on their website HERE. 20 channels in one TV channel end-to-end latency of just 2ms transmitter works from 2 x AA batteries Available from September this year. Looks like the best latency (AD / DA) of any system I have seen to date

A similar thing happened in the UK 5-years ago at the last General Election. The then Prime Minister had neglected to return his radiomic. to the broadcaster and was still wearing it as his car drove away. He was heard saying disparaging remarks about a potential voter he had just spoken to. All this was broadcast and was extremely embarrassing - and he gave a public apology. Rule of thumb - if you are wearing a radiomic. always assume it's on and you are being overheard.

To use channel 38 (which can ONLY be used in the UK) you have to buy a licence. But this professional channel is the safest. The 863.1 to 864.9 MHz band is licence-free and can be used all over Europe.. You CAN use other frequencies in the UK, but these are site-specific and you will have to buy a licence for every site. Penalties for use without a licence and/or use of illegal frequencies can be high in the UK.

What I was describing was more how the manufacturer or distributor ships to the retailer - though sometimes, if an urgent order, the retailer will ask for shipment direct to the end user.

Interesting, but the graphs are in different scales which makes comparison difficult. On the Microphone Data site, all the graphs have been re-drawn to the same scale to make comparison easier.

This is normal - Sennheiser have a central warehouse in Germany and deliveries are made direct to the customer anywhere in Europe direct from this warehouse. Gefell and quite a few other companies do it this way as well, as it means that the distributors in each country do not need to keep large stocks

There was a story about sound recordist in Scotland several years ago that was having trouble getting payment from BBC Scotland - in the end he got a court order and froze all of the BBC bank accounts in Scotland so they could do nothing at all - they biked the money to him within hours.

The only problems I have with a south-paw car is hitting my hand on the door every time I go to change gear and looking left, instead of right, for the rear-view mirror. Driving on the wrong side of the road was pretty easy to get used to - though you have to take extra care at roundabouts the first few times and pulling out of a side road you need to look extra carefully as you always look the wrong way first. Otherwise - no real problem - I drive several thousand miles in mainland Europe each year and it was fine after just a few miles the first time I did it - but you do need to watch the above specially.