Aspen Mic monoprice wireless (5 of 5)

I had a little bit of time to test the Monoprice 2.4Ghz wireless system this weekend and it works. The design choices, connector types, and labels aren’t exactly straight forward, and it seems as though the volume controls only affect the headphone output, but for a price of $89, it works.

One of the major questions that I wanted answered about the Monoprice wireless system is “Does it provide power to the lav plug?”. The Monoprice wireless system does provide power to the lav port, and I was able to use a 4 pole (TRRS) to 3 pole (TRS) adapter plug to get things working.

Aspen Mic monoprice wireless (1 of 5)

The powered lav mic I used for this test is the Aspen Lav with a 4 pole adapter to 3 pole adapter. While the Aspen mics aren’t ultra high end, there is a very noticeable audio quality difference between the Aspen Lav and the included Monoprice lav mic. As I suspected, the audio quality of this unit is mostly tied to the included low end Lav mic.

Here is the Included Monoprice Lav mic. 

Here is the Aspen Lav with adapter using the Monoprice wireless system.

Both samples were recorded through the Monoprice wireless system via the Zoom h1 which was set to an input level of 16.

There a few things to note about the test. First the Monoprice system’s output level is fixed. For that reason I went with an input level of 16 on the Zoom h1 so that it was in the range of gain you’d get out of the lower gain setting you’d use on a DSLR camera.

Second, if you listen closely to the Monoprice mic test at the very beginning you’ll hear a slight digital hiccup. There are 5 wifi networks in the area I was testing and the units were only 4 or 5 feet away from each other. In the short amount of testing I was able to perform, I only heard this digital “hiccup” a few times and I didn’t actually notice it until I listened to the recordings. However, this is probably a red flag for those of you living/working in a highly congested wifi area. I wouldn’t consider 5 wifi networks “congested” and I’m getting a few digital hiccups, how well would this work if there were 7 or more in the same space?

Last but not least, there does seem to be a low, but noticeable digital static sound in the noise floor of the recording. I was traveling most of the weekend so I didn’t have a chance to do more testing, but in the initial tests it does seem to be there. It’s low enough that you could easily remove it with a noise gate and it’s not as noticeable as the low price Audio-technica 88w units, but it does seem to be there.

Aspen Mic monoprice wireless (3 of 5)

As for the Aspen Lav, the mic is smaller than a Sennheiser lav. As you can hear in the test above the audio quality of the Aspen Lav is more crisp and less muddy sounding than the Monoprice lav. I’ll post some more audio tests of the Aspen lav recorded directly into the Zoom h1 in a feature post.

Aspen Mic monoprice wireless (2 of 5)

If you spend a little extra, Aspen also sells the adapter + mic as a kit for $64 on amazon. The adapter allows you to plug the mic directly into the Monoprice system or use it with your cellphone for remote audio recording. If you already have a nice Lav in your collection you can buy the adapter for $14.

If I get some free time this week, i’ll post some more tests of the Aspen Lav, as well as the Monoprice system. For now though, hopefully this post answers a few of your questions.

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