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Preference for Zaxcom, preference for Sound Devices, Choice is good


Mirror

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Soundslikejustin, I'm sorry that you seem to have taken umbrage to my comments. When I post on JWSound, I'm posting as Rich Van Dyke, a production sound mixer for 36 years, NOT as a DEALER. I currently do work for Pro-Sound in New Orleans, however I am NOT the voice of Pro-Sound, that would be Rich Topham, Jr.

My opinion, and statements are made from my OWN life experiences, and my statement was based solely on those experiences, nothing more or less. I now stay away from topics like, "what's the best mic, recorder, boom pole, hat, shoes, car....etc." as these topics offer only personal opinions, just because you own the same tools as I, doesn't mean you can go out and put them to use as I would. Tools take knowledge to apply them, just because you own a saw and a hammer, doesn't mean you can build a house like a dedicated carpenter.

My posting in this thread were twofold, I wanted to call out Mirror for attacking someone while hiding behind a cloak, and to show some support for Glenn Sanders, and his products.

Good Luck to you.......

Rich, please check your PM's, if you haven't already. I don't need to repeat what I replied to you there, here. Apologies for using the wrong nomenclature, again, no offence intended.
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I for one have been wanting to start a petition to encourage Zax to continue to develop the Deva/Fusion software.

As a Nomad user, I have come to appreciate what this machine can do and grimace that these features are not available in the Deva. I would almost consider a Nomad 12 instead of a Fusion or Deva if I were purchasing a new recorder for a cart based rig.

I have had some software suggestions for Zax over the years, and they have all been met with opposition. I have to believe this is largely because they don't want to touch the software.

One other thing for example - regarding the fader expander for the Nomad: I approached Glenn with this very idea a few years ago but for the Fusion. Now that it's being developed for the Nomad it is my understanding that it won't work with the Deva/Fusion line. Why the hell not? This actually makes to sense to me at all...

My biggest hope is that when/if Zax is building a new Deva to compete with the PIX 260 that Glenn takes time to listen to us users to hear how the software can be improved.

Just my .02 from a Fusion/Nomad and now Maxx user.

I would think it is a safe bet that there is *at least* a napkin somewhere in the Zaxcom war room with all the things the next Deva (or whatever it's called) will have. The Deva/Fusion software is incredibly stable. Most every software update I ever did on my Fusion was to add features. I haven't checked the user forums lately, but most stuff was feature requests.

The existing Deva line has some legacy hardware in it, and that's just due to how fast the PC world evolves compared to our gear. I think you can look at the Nomad and Maxx and see some things that will be in all Zaxcom machines down the road.

What features are you wishing the Deva had? NeverClip is not a deal breaker on a cart for me when everything goes through my Lectro Venue first. I still prefer the touch screen and Mix12 of the Deva if space is of no concern. I love the Nomad in a bag, but on a cart, no reason to shrink the box if it means a smaller screen. My cart is rack width, so the space is there. I think a LOT of cart mixers still have a Cooper or AD board in front of their recorder, so they may not even take advantage of a lot that the Deva has to offer as is. They either do paper sound reports, or use an iPad, so the internal sound reports are not used.

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I did wish they "Zaxcom" supported some older products. I recently sent in a senny 416t from the 70s for repair and in no time I got it back works great. I currently have a stereoline not even a decade old that I was simply told was not supported and could not be repaired...:( BUT I love the nomad.

Isn't that because the parts just don't exist anymore? The Sennheiser components are probably custom made and they have a warehouse full. Think of how many 416 mics have been sold in the last 30+ years considering they are/were the #1 choice of every news crew in most of the world, even little local markets. Depending one what was wrong with your 416, it's still a manufactured component (the capsule side). It's also a lot less complicated inside.

Like other people said, my Fusion works flawlessly, but my 2 year old iPad feels old and slow. Part of the reason I spent a significant amount of money on the Fusion. I know those CF cards will be available for a long time, and I can reformat them anyway. Compared to the PD-6 my Fusion replaced, the Fusion was a steal. I was so excited not to deal with those annoying $14 2.8GB DVD-Ram discs ever again. There isn't any reason to think my Deva won't work for another decade or more, unless I have new model envy and NEED to upgrade. :)

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Some excellent responses here!

So, the general consensus seems to be: buy the equipment that best suits your needs, get to know it well, and make whatever adaptations you need for your particular working style.

Sure sounds familiar. Hasn't that been the operating model at least since the days of Pilotone?

Then there are the people who approach their equipment choices as a religion and they're prepared to engage in a crusade to prove they've found the only worthwhile option.

They're just tools -- and some mighty cool ones at that. Great suggestions have been offered for how to get more from those tools. It appears that it may not be the notable manufacturer who was originally cited that isn't the one paying attention or listening.

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Automix (I understand this is very new). Better/more advanced Zaxnet integration. Software control of output levels.

I'm not expecting never clip to show up. That's a hardware thing.

I had a small request that when listening to the monitor return that the word "MON" be displayed on the screen as once you start switching back and forth listening to the recorder and a camera return, you might loose track.

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Ok guys. Here what we have. The roles:

 

Joe Pesci - Glenn Sanders

Ray Liotta - Mirror

The guy who came to Joe Pesci and say about bill - Rich Van Dyke (according with the story about Glenn phone)

 

Put the posts here to the script (video) and imagine it.

 

 

It's funny eh? How funny?

 

Hahahaha

 

:D

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Ok guys. Here what we have. The roles:

Joe Pesci - Glenn Sanders

Ray Liotta - Mirror

The guy who came to Joe Pesci and say about bill - Rich Van Dyke (according with the story about Glenn phone)

Put the posts here to the script (video) and imagine it.

It's funny eh? How funny?

Hahahaha

:D

Yea.............

It wasn't funny :-/

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

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" make an app but destroy SDs app. out of the water. "

that sounds rather aggressive, and un-sportsman like

" it's being developed for the Nomad it is my understanding that it won't work with the Deva/Fusion line.  Why the hell not?  "

different platforms

 

" You're last sentence, however, is quite catty. "

I did not think so...

 

" I also hate any device that had meters on the right side, instead of the left where they belong. "

being a lefty, I've gotten used to living in a right handed world.

 

" "this is a BMW vs. Mercedes comparison: it all boils down to personal taste." "

"this is a BMW vs. Mercedes comparison: it all boils down to subjective, individual, personal taste."

 

" whereas I can still send an ages-old CR 187 to Lectro for service... "

err... I don't think so...

Edited by studiomprd
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" whereas I can still send an ages-old CR 187 to Lectro for service... "

err... I don't think so...

They don't get repaired at the factory in Rio Rancho any more but Jerry Cudmore fixes many every year as a warranty repair station in New York. From our website, "...repair services for these items will continue to be available from Jaycee Communications Inc., which is a Lectrosonics Authorized Service Center. Jaycee can undertake any repair, large or small, and you may use their services with the same confidence as our factory service, at comparable prices."

 

Jerry has as much or more knowledge of the 185, 187, 190 and 195 systems as any tech at the factory and in some cases more. One of the reasons we got out of these repairs is that Jerry could do as good or better job. This way we can train our techs on the new gear and not have to also train them on the sometimes arcane alignment of the single frequency systems.

 

I am not trying to be picky here but I don't want people to discard perfectly usable systems because they might think they are no longer supported. If something happened to Jerry, we would support the old gear in some other manner including doing the repairs at the factory.

Best Regards,

Larry Fisher

Lectrosonics

 

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Wow, some hot opinions around here.

 

I used Deva for a long time, and I've used a Sound Devices 744 and 788 for several years at different times. All are great machines, all have quirks and limitations, all have really good points and brilliant/stupid design issues.

 

I think when you manufacture a machine for a very small marketplace, which film & TV sound is, you basically are hand-building machines for a very select group of people. This is not the same thing as, say, Tascam or Fostex when they make a $995 machine for a market of 10,000 users, or Zoom, building a $299 recorder for 50,000 users.

 

My opinion: The Deva 5 series has the problem of being based around a relatively old motherboard, processor, operating system, and drive I/O capability. Glenn was bright enough that even though a lot of the machine was designed almost 10 years ago, it basically works as well today as it did then. As Jeff says above, as long as you replace the drive and take care of the machine, it'll work fine; in fact, you can probably get another ten years out of it.

 

Could a better machine be built today? Sure. But it's always easy to look ten years back and say, "wow, Apple should've done this" or "Microsoft should've done that." The huge failures both companies have had in the last decade show that technology is a very risky business.

 

Glenn has bailed me out of several sticky situations and proved to me that Zaxcom is a stand-up company that does good work. So does Sound Devices, and they've also been quick to give me same-day advice on malfunctions and setup issues. True, the Deva and Nomad are touch-based, which has good and bad points; the Sound Devices depends on numbered menu selections and a scroll wheel, but that can work very, very fast, too. In fact, the things I change the most with the 788 are scene number, routing, and track names, and I can get to those as fast as lightning. It's also easy to do on the Deva. The Deva is cursed with the DB25 connector for outputs (which I hate), but the 788 is cursed with multiple multiple TA3 jacks, which means you're dead if you don't have those particular not-quite-standardized cables. No machine is perfect.

 

I think we're right at the point where everything is about to change again in production sound recorders, with the advent of new technology like Dante. I think all production sound recorders are kind of looking old-fashioned in light of the new interfaces, faster processors, the need for far more tracks, the need for better HUI control (like on an iPad), recording to multiple drives, and making it small and lightweight. Imagine something the size of, say, an Apple TV that just had a power supply, a couple of Dante connections, and a monitor out. Put that on your cart, and you just plug in a monitor, link an iPad to it, connect a mixer, connect a wireless receiver, and you're done. Does this recorder need to cost $10,000? Probably not. 

 

I've seen revolutions happen, where a complete online video conform/finish system used to cost $250,000, and now you can do it for about ten grand. A high-res color-correction system used to cost $750,000; now they're about $50,000. A full-blown Pro Tools HD system cost upwards of $25,000 (plus any analogue gear you wanted to hang off it); now it's maybe a third of that. Visual effects systems used to be proprietary and cost millions of dollars; now they're $10,000 at most and widely available with open architecture. The trend is more power, lower cost, faster speed, greater storage, more off-shelf parts, user serviceability, better reliability. Look at a Deva II and compare it to a Nomad 12 or a 788 and tell me we haven't come a long way in 10 years. And then go back ten years before that and compare it to a Fostex PD4 or a Nagra 4S. Now, that stuff looks like stone knives and bear skins.

 

I bet we'll see some very interesting things at NAB 2014, and I think both Zaxcom and Sound Devices are worthy competitors that will keep the ideas coming. I've said many times, "this is a BMW vs. Mercedes comparison: it all boils down to personal taste." If money were no object, I would have no problem either using a top-of-the-line Deva or a 788 with a top-flight mixer. The recorder might be the thing I worry about the least on the set. I'm worried more about where the mics are, what the set sounds like, and the logistics of the shoot. The recorder, I take for granted. It's just a tool doing a job, a means to an end.

Marc you are king!And it's "good to be the King" (Mel Brooks 'History of the world part 1..)

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Sennheiser is a big company with factories in several countries. Including one just for servicing gear. It's relatively easy for them to have a large supply of spare parts. Just the cost of storage can be crushing for a small company like Zax, so it's a bit unfair to compare these two.

To use the Apple comparison again: They do not support any of their old products, and that includes software where there are no storage cost. And Apple is HUGE!

At some point you have to let it go

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Zoom is Ford.  Sound Devices Audi.  Zaxcom DeLorean.

 

The value of the Ford starts low and drops fast, so at some point, it is simply disposable.

 

The Audi straddles the line between high-end luxury and even super car performance for some models, but ultimately is a daily driver, unlike other exotic marques.

 

The DeLorean is an engineer's marvel, a non-existent long-term maintenance strategy, but some of its tricks, like time travel, are just too enticing to not buy in.

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Zoom is Ford.  Sound Devices Audi.  Zaxcom DeLorean.

 

The value of the Ford starts low and drops fast, so at some point, it is simply disposable.

 

The Audi straddles the line between high-end luxury and even super car performance for some models, but ultimately is a daily driver, unlike other exotic marques.

 

The DeLorean is an engineer's marvel, a non-existent long-term maintenance strategy, but some of its tricks, like time travel, are just too enticing to not buy in.

 

Its funny that when we introduced prerecord it seemed that we did invent a time machine that could go back 10 seconds.

 

I like to think of our products as being more like Porsche. Very performance driven but not too posh.

 

Glenn

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Sennheiser is a big company with factories in several countries. Including one just for servicing gear. It's relatively easy for them to have a large supply of spare parts..........

Yes with a five week turnaround for repairs unless you pay extra.......! Lovely!

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Sennheiser is a big company with factories in several countries. Including one just for servicing gear. It's relatively easy for them to have a large supply of spare parts. Just the cost of storage can be crushing for a small company like Zax, so it's a bit unfair to compare these two.

To use the Apple comparison again: They do not support any of their old products, and that includes software where there are no storage cost. And Apple is HUGE!

At some point you have to let it go

I have had bad experiences with sennheiser service. One of my mics is a paper weight after their warranty repair did not do a good job. Unfortunately by the time I realized it the repair was unsuccessful and the warranty was over..

I tried to reason over the phone but they were firm on not correcting their mistake.

I am not happy about it but will still buy sennheiser gear and will like the company as a whole.

 Never had a bad experience with zaxcom service.

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" whereas I can still send an ages-old CR 187 to Lectro for service... "

err... I don't think so...

Jerry is great. He really does know his stuff. But, for those of you on the west coast, you have a local facility that has a much experience on the older Lectosonics VHF 185/187, and UHF 190/195, as anyone. I have been servicing Lectrosonics equipment for almost 20 years. Most of those through a local dealer here in L.A. Now with my own service facility, D.W. Sound Service.

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Its funny that when we introduced prerecord it seemed that we did invent a time machine that could go back 10 seconds.

 

I like to think of our products as being more like Porsche. Very performance driven but not too posh.

 

Glenn

 

I'll give you the 914-6 or maybe even the 928 right before Tom Cruise does his dance in the undies in Risky Business.

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I would imagine... meaning guessing, that many of the current service issues has to do with the major transition to RoHS compliant components and manufacturing processes.  Many components / devices were discontinued and some designs would have required major revisions to the PCBs in order to accommodate compliant soldering processes.  The Sony DMX-R100 comes to mind as a design that was decommissioned very shortly after its introduction, due to the loosing proposition cost-wise  to transitioning to a RoHS compliant design.  It certainly must have affected smaller companies, and in some cases even took the giants by surprise.

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