Wireless In-ear monitors - Recommendations?

    My band has decided to take the plunge and switch to in ear monitors (wireless).


    Looking for some advice from people that have experience with IEM's.
    Any particular brand recommended? Any you'd avoid?


    We are looking at the Sennheiser ew300 series but they are not cheap by any means at USD$1000 a pop per transmitter/receiver. We're looking at having the front line players go wireless (Vocalist, Guitar player, Bass player) with the drummer using wired in-ears. We have already ordered a digital mixer (Allen & Heath QU-PAC) to handle the IEM mixing duties.


    From my reading I understand we could get away with less than 3 individual units if we get crafty by sharing share some mixes (guitarist and bass get fed same mix for example). We could go one step further and split the L/R mix between the 3 of us, e.g. one stereo transmitter sending a mono mix of the stereo L to guitarist & bass plr, Stereo R is singers personal mix. This would require only one stereo transmitter, but we'd need to buy 2 additional body pack receivers (@ USD$500 each), Been doing a fair amount of research, but have found myself going in circles. :)


    Any advice much appreciated! :thumbup:

    I tried both 1964 and JHAudio when I brought mine. JH were good but a lot more expensive than 1964. I have the V6 so 6 drivers in each ear. To me these sound great and handle all the frequencies very well


    my band uses the QU-16 and I use the sennheiser ew300 gen 2 as they are quite cheap on ebay. To get the from IEM's defo hook them up in stereo it makes a massive difference

    I'm a Sennheiser EW300 G3 user as well.
    This was an upgrade from an LD Systems MEI system and the difference is night and day.
    I tried other solutions but defo go for the Sennheiser.


    In the band we use a Behringer X32 rack mixer which let us configure 6 stereo monitor mixes so everyone is happy.
    I'm using UltimateEars as molded plugs.

    Ok. Good to know the Sennheiser stuff is reliable. I'm going go with the EW300 gear then. I'm currently bidding on a couple of used G3 units, but if they climb too high I'll take a stab at some G2 sets.


    From my reading it appears the quality of the earphones your using is just as important as the quality of the transmitter/receiver (which makes sense i guess). I currently use custom molded earplugs and they are so comfortable it's amazing, so I'll probably be going for custom mold earphones as well. I'll check out the 1964 and UltimateEars range for sure.


    I see 1964 has 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 (!!?!?) driver models. I'm guessing the UE models are similar (their site is down right now though :( ) Any advice on if the step up in drivers substantially improves the experience?

    Cool. We just ordered 2 ew300 G3 transmitters and 3 body packs. I'm planning on sharing a stereo mix with the bass player for now (will see how that goes :whistling: ), with our singer having her own dedicated stereo mix. Going to use entry level headphones until will get some experience with the whole system, but will be pursuing UE, Westones or 1964's in the near future.


    Thanks for the input Ingolf & Raoul :thumbup:

    We received all the IEM gear and have had a couple of practice sessions as a full band using them. The verdict so far?......
    Awesome! We love them!


    Our singer in particular is over the moon. She's not feeling the need to strain/push her voice out of it's comfort zone as she sometimes did with a monitor wedge, and her pitch confidence has become much more focused. I'm not sure she's ever going to want to use anything else now.


    I see what people mean when they say they can be "performance isolating". We found ourselves not moving around anywhere near as much as we normally do (which is usually a lot). There seems to be a very different feel/energy in the room when the sound is only existing in our heads lol. We've made a note of it and will make sure our stage show doesn't suffer, but the IEM's had a much bigger effect in that regard than I was expecting. I guess it's similar to the unease many people initially have when they remove the guitar cab they have always had behind them, flapping their pants when they are really going hard, and switch up to going direct to a PA/monitor with the Kemper. This is the same kinda feeling we experienced, but on a whole band scale. I'm sure we'll get used to it quickly though.


    The recordings we made infront of a test FOH speaker are much better. Basically no mic bleed into the 3 front line vocal mics and everything comes across much clearer and punchier because of it.


    Getting everyone happy with their personal mixes is a work in progress, but we're almost there. The digital desk is a life saver as the entire bands mix settings can be very easily saved/recalled, and us using the Kemper means my input levels never change from day to day. Bass player is using a DI Sansamp with the output dial locked. It's basically plug and play for all of us now. Being able to adjust our individual IEM mixes on the fly, wirelessly, though the Allen and Heath phone app has been super handy too and works flawlessly.


    I'm currently using some consumer grade Shure earbud headphones I already had, but will upgrade to one of the better quality suggestions above in the near future. For now though it appears the initial expense of the IEM adventure has been a worthwhile investment. (whew!) :thumbup:

    Friend of mine has just ordered the ew 300, too, after checking out many options. Usually he knows his stuff ;) (That winky smiley looks drunk)

    Gear: Strats & KPA. Plug Ins: Cubase, NI, iZotope, Slate, XLN, Spectrasonics.
    Music: Song from my former band: vimeo.com/10419626[/media][/media][/media] Something new on the way...

    A way to get back that isolated feeling is to hook up a mic that captures the room. Then bring a little bit of that into you iem mix. Can be a cheap mic, but a condenser mic is the type you want. Having a stereo iem mix helps as well. If each musician has their own mix, you can do a stereo mix that matches the position of yourself compares to band.

    I was able to check this out http://www.klang.com/en/home with the help of the kind people of KLANG. We spent some time together @Euroblast Festival Cologne 2015 and i got the opportunity to install a Demo unit in our bands vault for a couple of rehearsals. It is awesome. Check the demo app and hear what it can do.

    Quote from HELL-G

    I was able to check this out http://www.klang.com/en/home with the help of the kind people of KLANG. We spent some time together @Euroblast Festival Cologne 2015 and i got the opportunity to install a Demo unit in our bands vault for a couple of rehearsals. It is awesome. Check the demo app and hear what it can do.

    this sounds and looks awesome. How much is one of these can't find a price any where??


    nevermind I've found one for sale on thomanns £3400, that's a lot of money to spend for a 3D listening experience I wonder if they do a smaller cheaper unit

    Quote from Raoul23

    this sounds and looks awesome. How much is one of these can't find a price any where??


    nevermind I've found one for sale on thomanns £3400, that's a lot of money to spend for a 3D listening experience I wonder if they do a smaller cheaper unit


    That's amazing!!!!!
    @Raoul23: There's the KLANG:technologies KLANG:vier which offers only 4 instead of 8 3-D mixes. Still pricey, but if we gigged more a no- brainer for me.+
    http://www.thomann.de/de/klangtechnologies_klangvier.htm


    Thanks @tylerhb for the heads up.

    Wow. Yeah, that Klang unit is pretty damn slick from the video demos. Keen to download the app and run around the loungeroom testing the real time demo they have for the iPad tonight. My wife already thinks I've lost my mind with all this audio stuff anyways :)

    Ok, I remembered tonight to snap some pics of the in progress IEM rack I've been building withthe help of this thread. Managed to cram it all into a 6u shallow rack case. Had to make some pretty short XLR cables to make it happen, but it all seems to work like a charm so far. One power cable to plug in and everything powers up. Ipad is used for mixing as it's just faster.


    This will be dedicated as our IEM mixer for most shows, but its setup so it can do simultaneous duty as both IEM and FOH mixer for small DIY gigs. The In/Out strip in the top of the rack (rear pic) is the splitter patch bay to split our signals (one into our mixer, one back out to house mixer).


    I have the same style rack for my Kemper Powerrack, so they stack perfectly on top of eachother. Ran into a snag where the wifi router for the mixer was causing interference with my guitar wireless receiver (Shure GLX-D that lives in the Kemper rack) when the two racks were stacked. Found they both run on 2.4ghz wifi bands, so I have a 5ghz wifi router on it's way and that should allow me to mount the router inside the case and resolve any interference headaches. For the time being I just have the 2.4ghz router sitting on top and it seems to resolve most of the issues.


    Only thing to add is a PoE adaptor so I can run a longer ethernet cable out to the remote, as the stock one is a bit short now with the racks living at the back of the stage next to the drummer.


    Overall, it's doing the job at rehearsal. First show with it is in a week and a half. Fingers crossed it doesn't have issues!





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