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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Is the DSMC2 REVOLT Expander worth the money for sound?

A client I work with has constant drop outs with the redvolt expander. useless for audio. That's on two different weapon heliums with two different redvolt expanders. this is with Firmware 7 and above.

I get good enough audio for corporate interviews with the WC A-box and a battery powered ME66.
 
OK, not for everyone and no phantom but the Zoom F1 is a great solution for me. Using the 'line in' I get 2 channels of audio recorded separately from my dual receiver radio mic with an analogue level control. Usng the head phone out and into the RED I can send high enough level not to use internal pre-amps. And when not using radios I get great atmos sound.
 

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Giles Harvey said:
OK, not for everyone and no phantom but the Zoom F1 is a great solution for me. Using the 'line in' I get 2 channels of audio recorded separately from my dual receiver radio mic with an analogue level control. Usng the head phone out and into the RED I can send high enough level not to use internal pre-amps. And when not using radios I get great atmos sound.
Click to expand...

Oh and it is £163 + Tax
 
adam brennan said:
How are you liking it so far? Worth the money?
Click to expand...

Was scheduled to shoot with it over the weekend and got canceled last minute. I recorded some tests this morning that I'll post up this afternoon and send a link. First impressions - recorded audio sounds great. Audio monitoring via headphones is unusable - terrible distortion even at low levels.
 
Shot a quick video today with the OMOD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R127hR12CNk&feature=youtu.be

Really happy with the ease of use and the sound quality. The jury is still out on monitoring with the headphones. I was having headphone issues with my base i/o so I'm starting to wonder if there's something going on with my camera body.

UPDATE: I have confirmed it was an issue with the set of Sony MDR-7506 headphones I was using for the test. I've now tested it with 3x pairs of newer Senal headphones, an old set of Sennheisers and a few pairs of earbuds and the distortion is only in the Sonys. They work completely fine plugged into my computer and my phone but are incompatible with the OMOD. Absolutely no idea why that set causes an issue but it's been relegated to the edit suite. With that cleared up I would recommend the OMOD XLR2.
 
Thank you for your innsight David! Really helpful! Wish i knew if every Omod has this distortion or if this is a fault on the camera.
But anyway thanks a lot! :)
 
Today I wanted to do some more troubleshooting to figure out this headphone distortion and see if I could record what the headphone distortion and send it to Offhollywood to get their insight. The audio gear I used for yesterday's test (Schoeps MiniCMIT + Sennheiser headphones) are out on a shoot so I plugged in my Sennheiser MKH 60 and grabbed a different set of cans.

No distortion at all now. Not in live monitoring. Not in playback of clips. Audio is pristine.

I'm still running the mic into Channel 1 on the OMOD, using phantom power and using the same XLR cables as yesterday. All of the OMOD and camera settings are identical. Tested the channel gain at 50%, 75%, and 100%. All was clear. Tested headphone volume at those levels too and could not recreate the distortion.

Yesterday I tested the headphones on my computer thinking that was the obvious weak link and everything sounded fine. After camera reboots and default resets didn't fix it yesterday, I'm at a bit of a loss why it's working today.

Once all the gear from the original test comes back I'll see if I can pinpoint exactly what the issue was, but as of now with the setup listed at the beginning of the post, all is well and sounds crystal clear. If yesterday was just a fluke and the module performs regularly like it is today, I would recommend it 100%.

I'll follow up in the next few days if I can get anymore clarity.
 
I ran into a similar problem with distortion on the headphone monitoring when I was using my B&O headphones (because my Audio Technicas had finally busted after around five years of use), connected to the extra output channels on my Sound Devices 633. If I had the channel 5/6 output routed as normal the B&O headphones distorted, but if I routed the headphone signal to that same output, they didn't.

Not sure if that's helpful, but just in case!
 
David Anderson said:
Shot a quick video today with the OMOD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R127hR12CNk&feature=youtu.be

Really happy with the ease of use and the sound quality. The jury is still out on monitoring with the headphones. I was having headphone issues with my base i/o so I'm starting to wonder if there's something going on with my camera body.
Click to expand...

Thank you David for taking the time to do this! Do you like this over the DSMC2 RedVolt Expander? The Schoeps MiniCMIT mic sounds great! I wonder how it does compared to the Sennheiser 416?
 
adam brennan said:
Thank you David for taking the time to do this! Do you like this over the DSMC2 RedVolt Expander?
Click to expand...

I don't have experience with the RedVolt Expander so I can't speak directly to it's pros and cons or the quality of the sound.

Looking at the specs, you give up some connectivity with the OMOD but gain additional audio features. Compared to the RedVolt Expander the OMOD does not have USB Power output, Genlock input, or gigabit ethernet and the AUX power is a 3-pin Fischer, not a 2-pin lemo. For the way I shoot I don't miss any of those connections and the ability to have physical knobs for adjusting channel and headphone gain, physical buttons to engage phantom power, physical buttons to switch between line and mic levels and a button for the built-in high pass filter is much more valuable to me. The OMOD is smaller in size and about $1200 cheaper so for all those reason I choose the XLR2 over the RedVolt Expander.

adam brennan said:
The Schoeps MiniCMIT mic sounds great! I wonder how it does compared to the Sennheiser 416?
Click to expand...

Again I don't have experience with the 416 or access to one to do a side-by-side. When I was looking at purchasing my first professional shotgun mic I opted for the MKH 60. That was 10 years ago so the exact reasons for choosing it over the 416 escape me but I've been extremely pleased with it's performance over the years and wasn't looking to replace it. A friend of mine bought the Schoeps CMIT 5U and we tested it on one of our interview-heavy projects. The quality difference was striking. We've since used it as an on-camera mic (something I typically hate) and have been very impressed with it's performance. I already had access to the larger Schoeps so I bought the mini specifically to use on-camera. Until the OMOD I was forced to mount it and a separate phantom 48v box on camera to power it. Not ideal but it was necessary to get the quality of sound I wanted.

10 times out of 10 I would opt for a sound recordist with a boom but when that's not an option, the Schoeps is what will always be on my camera. It lacks the filters of the larger version but is otherwise the same mic and has identical sound. After using the standard Schoeps it was shocking to see how small the mini is - the same length of my iphone 8 plus - while maintaining the quality of sound.
 
UPDATE: I have confirmed it was an issue with the set of Sony MDR-7506 headphones I was using for the test. I've now tested it with 3x pairs of newer Senal headphones, an old set of Sennheisers and a few pairs of earbuds and the distortion is only in the Sonys. They work completely fine plugged into my computer and my phone but are incompatible with the OMOD. Absolutely no idea why that set causes an issue but it's been relegated to the edit suite. With that cleared up I would recommend the OMOD XLR2.
 
David Anderson said:
UPDATE: I have confirmed it was an issue with the set of Sony MDR-7506 headphones I was using for the test. I've now tested it with 3x pairs of newer Senal headphones, an old set of Sennheisers and a few pairs of earbuds and the distortion is only in the Sonys. They work completely fine plugged into my computer and my phone but are incompatible with the OMOD. Absolutely no idea why that set causes an issue but it's been relegated to the edit suite. With that cleared up I would recommend the OMOD XLR2.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the follow through!! I think I will order one now.
 
I am selling my redvolt expander if you're interested. It's been great, is in perfect condition and all. I have too many shoots coming up where I need the smaller form factor so switched to just the base expander.
The XLR connectors are awesome and also have Phantom Power. If I had the budget I would keep both. Also throwing in a redvolt w. charger which allows for hot-swapping batteries on the back end.
If anyone is interested email me peterwigand@gmail.om
 
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