13Apr MXL FR-500WK Portable UHF Wireless Audio System
MXL (owned my Marshall) has been releasing relatively decent low price condenser microphones for the last 7 or 8 years. Their product line has mostly been known for it’s low price and acceptable sound quality. MXL’s condensers are often the units I choose for overhead drum mics, because they’re only a 100 or so dollars to replace if they end up making contact with a drum stick.
It appears that MXL is now trying to branch out into the UHF wireless transmitter market with the soon to be released MXL FR-500WK. These units are what I would call no frills. You have 64 channels to choose from and these are selected by a combination of a 0-F hex count thumbwheel on the front of the unit and a 4 position selector switch on the back of the unit.
The MXL FR-500WK receiver has a headphone jack as well as a lineout jack that can be fed directly into your camera. Oddly they’ve also included a built in microphone and speaker on the transmitter and receiver. I was able talk one of the reps into helping me test out the audio quality of the included lav microphone. The lav does a decent job of picking up the talent but it also did a very good job of picking up everything else and the show floor noise at NAB came through loud and clear.
I wasn’t blown away by the headphone output on the MXL FR-500WK, audio quality had a lot of noise with the volume above the halfway mark. On the other hand the little bit of testing I was able to do with the line out directly into my camera was about the same quality as the Airline micro I tested last year, although in MXL’s defence, it’s hard to get a good feel for audio quality in such a crowded space.
At a list price of $399 the MXL FR-500WK is somewhere in the middle of the price range for UHF wireless systems. Unlike the lower priced Airline micro units, the MXL FR-500WK does run on AA batteries which is a positive. They also include a cold shoe adapter unlike Sennheiser’s units which is also a plus. I’d like to get my hands on a test model when these are released next month and give them a try in a more controlled environment. According to the rep the MXL FR-500WK should start shipping at the end of May.
April 13th, 2013 at 3:41 pm
Do you know if it provides phantom power?
That would be a big plus over the Airline Micro.
April 13th, 2013 at 4:12 pm
I think you might be out of luck. The rep I spoke with wasn’t sure and the specs don’t list in “mic power”. I would guess it’s the same story as the Airline Micro.
April 13th, 2013 at 4:28 pm
That is too bad but not surprising.
I’ve done a (quite expensive) upgrade to my Airline Micro. I use it with a Sanken COS-11 with the AA power module. This lowers the noise floor by 10-15db compared to the stock lav and obviously gets me much better sound quality. Too bad the Sanken power module is about twice the size of the transmitter 😉
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6196177/P1000028.jpg
The Sanken obviously also works great in wired situations.
April 13th, 2013 at 4:45 pm
Thats a pretty interesting mod. If you get a chance, send me some audio samples and pictures of the full setup and I’ll post them on the site. I’ve been eyeballing the Sanken CS3 for awhile now, they make some great mics.
April 14th, 2013 at 5:17 am
I sent you an email 😉
April 14th, 2013 at 11:25 am
Awesome got it, thanks!
April 15th, 2013 at 2:51 am
I am so looking forward to the first company that can build a decent wireless kit for less than the cost of the Sennheiser G3 set. I guess in the grand scheme of things, $600 isn’t that bad. It does add up when you need a couple or even four or five.
July 25th, 2013 at 4:03 pm
I’m assuming when a lav mic is plugged into the transmitter, it disables the unit’s onboard mic, and plugging a cable into the line out will disable the receiver’s onboard speaker, correct?
July 25th, 2013 at 7:02 pm
That is correct.
March 11th, 2014 at 1:49 am
I use the MXL FR-500WK quite often. I usually plug in a mono mic with a cardioid pickup to mask environment noise, the included miniature lav mic has a… hard to describe undesirable sound. Favors the lows and lacks clarity. It’s not terrible, mounted on the chest it can easily pick up a dialog, but holding a real cardioid in your hand while interviewing will get you a much better sound.
I ran into some unexpected interference issues. I did not try the bank switch on the back to see if it fixes the problem, but when I got interference, it stayed across all the channels selectable from the front.
I tested it out in nature at over 100m distance and the sound was perfect. I tried it on a construction site with line of sight frequently blocked by construction equipment, and it was useless. Personally I love it, but you have to pick your battles, test to see where it will work.
Today I had another surprise with it: I had a dashboard camera set up, mounted this receiver on it, took the camera battery out and plugged it into an AC inverter. The lav picked up strong interference from the inverter. I discarded the power supply, I don’t think that is an MXL issue; but if good sould is important to you, you have to be careful. Always test each environment variable.