Anybody using In Ear System Wireless?
Would like to hear from you what your experience is.
I am interested in Shure PSM900
I wanted to know how it sounds, not it is written like 
1 Like
I use a PSM300 with SE 535 earphones. Best monitoring decision I ever made!
We use Sennheiser ew300 and they are pretty good; sound quality of any wireless IEM pack I have used (mainly Sennheiser but some older Shure as well) have been good and perfectly OK for monitoring and getting in the zone (i.e. they don’t offer a distractingly bad sound), but any wired pack I have used is significantly better.
If you definitely need to move round the stage lots then the PSM900 or equivalent will do a great job, but if you are mostly standing in one place then save yourself some cash and improve the quality by getting a powered, wired, IEM pack - we use Fischer (powered, not the little passive ones which I would avoid) packs which are ace and LD systems which aren’t quite as good (but pretty close) but cheaper.
Playing amongst others in a low budget orchestra, I put 200 € in a T.bone IEM 75 + Shure SE215 and it is enough for me to play psycho country punk music. 
I switched from Sennheiser to an MiPro 909 (https://www.mipro.com.tw/p1_en.html?C1=8) about 4 years ago and the different was mind blowing. Completely digital, no noise when you move around, great distance reach, etc.
A bit more expensive than some but really awesome.
I use PSM 300 Shure with KZ earphones. Sound was much improved when I got aftermarket ear cushions.
I upgraded from a low end Audio 2000 system that was not quite loud enough in some situations. But it was the clarity That made it a big upgrade. It sounded clear on the old system but the upgrade made it clearer, lower distortion that I did not know was an issue.
Noise is so low on the p3ra receiver, I once replaced the earphones thinking the cord was bad but it was the transmitter off.
Biggest issue now is sometimes the signal going into the transmitter is too hot and limits the headroom. I just need to turn down the signal from the mixer and increase the volume on the receiver.
What about the latency of mipro
Another Shure PSM 300 user. I use the Shure SE215 earbuds, which sound a little bass heavy and a bit muddy to me relative to all my over the ear headphones. They’re the only IEMs I have, though, so I don’t know if it’s a function of my ear or the IEMs.
I just remembered that the rental IEM I used for a couple shows in late 2018 was a PSM1000. It was really great! And apparently really similar to the 900 series 
So here’s the thing — I suppose one can go off and measure the latency and figure out whether it will work or not. I don’t know. It seems everyone is nuts around latency.
But here’s how it works in my world. We use an X32 with 32 channels. All instruments (including drums and vocals) are inputs. Each of the performers has a 16-channel personal mixer which they use to control the volume of either individual instruments or, in the case of drums, it might be a stereo mix of all the drums or just hihat/bass drum. I have no idea what the latency is by the time that audio hits the input of my wireless system.
Meanwhile, on my system, Gig Performer is configured at 44.1kHz with a sample buffer size of 256. The audio outputs (generally 8 outputs) go to the X32 and are sent back to me via the personal mixer.
I have absolutely no idea how long it takes for the outputs of my interface to be processed by the X32 and sent back.
All I can tell you is that I turn on my in-ear system and I’m able to perform with no noticeable delays. Nobody else has ever suggested that my playing was “late”, for example.
So, from my perspective (and I see this on all sorts of forums), some people argue all the time about how much or little latency there will be. Meanwhile other people (like me, for example) just play and it all works just fine!
1 Like
For keyboards and guitar I’m with you.
For playing e-drums I find it gets very distracting when total round trip latency (from physical hit to sound in your ear) gets near 10ms. At that point, when you do something like a flam you’re actually making the second hit before you even hear the first one played back. And unless you’ve got your IEMs or headphones up really loud, you still hear the physical hit followed by the VST some milliseconds later.
If you want to compare the difference, drop a single hit digital delay between your VST and your output. Play something at 90bpm, use a delay of 1/64th, and use a 50/50 wet/dry mix. That’s right around a 10ms delay.
With a keyboard or guitar it generally sounds fine. Maybe not great, but rarely does it sound horrible.
Now run a drum track through that. It sounds horrible. And if you’re trying to play like that, hearing the thwack of the stick hitting a rubber hi-hat followed by a very noticeable delay before the echo, it’s not only difficult to stay on point, it’s just downright unpleasant.
Dial it down to about 5ms and it’s a lot more tolerable. And if you have decently isolating headphones or well sealed IEMs it becomes barely noticeable.
I don’t think I’m particularly sensitive to this kind of thing. I think it’s just the nature of the instruments and typical play styles.
If one is shooting for say 5ms or less, every ms matters a lot.
2 Likes
In my opinion, the most important component is the IEM. If you ever switch to custom fit IEMs, you’ll never go back. But the most critical factor is the fit. I highly recommend 64 Audio. They use 3D printing to get an incredibly accurate fit. With a good seal, you get excellent isolation from stage sound, allowing a much lower dB mix. I’m stationary, so I’m not using a wireless pack, but most of the band and singers use the Shure PSM900. I’ve considered the Sennheiser, but the MiPro looks interesting.
I can’t speak to drums but in one of the bands with which I play, the drummer uses V-Drums and he’s using Gig Performer so as to have access to multiple drum plugins simultaneously. He’s never complained or even mentioned a delay.
I don’t know if it’s more important – I found that a digital system that got rid of the noise was critical as well, but yeah, if you can afford it, a decent molded in-ear system with multiple drivers is awesome.
You get to play at “living room” levels so you don’t get blasted by other loud instruments.
I use GP for v-drums as well. I certainly wasn’t suggesting that GP was going to slow things down relative to a DAW or any other VST-based drumming solution.
My point was simply that I find latency much more of a problem with drums than other instruments. It’s especially problematic if you’re doing something like using your v-drum onboard sounds for some items (say hi-hats, which Roland v-drums tend to handle better internally than Superior Drummer) and VST sounds for other stuff. If there’s a 15ms delta between your hi-hats and your snare it’s really extremely unpleasant (at least to me). In contrast, on keyboard it’s not really a big deal (to me) if I’m playing Rhodes bass with my left hand and a B3 with my right and there’s a 15ms gap between them.
Your mileage may vary. I’m curious, though. Maybe ask your drummer if he finds it pleasant to play VST drums if he sets his interface sample buffer to something like 512 samples. At some point, with any instrument, latency makes it unpleasant and impractical to play. It’s probably different for all of us.
You misunderstood – the mention of GP was just to point out that he was using plugins on top of everything else going on. Reviewing my comment, I realized I left out that he’s using an in-ear system with the same personal mixer and so like me, he has to wait for the audio to return from the X32.
Hey - I can’t play keyboards at 512 - way noticeable. I suspect he’s probably at 128 or 64.
From everything I’ve read on the X32 the round trip latency is on par with most other audio interfaces. At 128 samples you’re likely looking at round trip latency of 5-6 ms. If he’s running an analog hardwired IEM there’s essentially zero incremental latency. If he’s running analog RF (like the Shure PSM300 or 900) then it adds less than 1ms incremental latency. If he goes to a digital wireless he’s probably adding about 4ms and would end up in that 10ms range that I said becomes unpleasant (to me) with v-drums.
We got down this path because I was responding to the question of whether an incremental 4ms latency in one wireless vs. another matters. I think we can agree that the answer is “depends on the situation”. Easy enough for anyone to test out if it matters to them by just slapping a digital delay between their VST chain and the audio output block, or increase the sample buffer.
Right — I’ve watched a ton of people (mostly guitarists - think) debating whether they need 4, 8 or 16 sample buffer size. Meanwhile the pros that I know who play guitar are up at 128 or even 244 and basically just laugh at such debates.
Just play — then maybe tweak a bit!