Personal Monitor Systems...Aviom, Hearback, Roland...your take?

[steve_man]

Hi guys,

looking to replace our current 8 channel Hearback system at our church with a 16 channel system. We are looking at the Avioms, Rolands, and possibly the Hearback systems. Any of you have experience with these systems? I've used Hearback and Aviom, but have no experience with the Rolands.

Thanks!

[ChiroVette]

Originally Posted by steve_man

Hi guys,

looking to replace our current 8 channel Hearback system at our church with a 16 channel system. We are looking at the Avioms, Rolands, and possibly the Hearback systems. Any of you have experience with these systems? I've used Hearback and Aviom, but have no experience with the Rolands.

Thanks!

This is a very timely thread because I decided to experiment with wired IEM's for myself and one other band member and tried it out last weekend. Worked very well even with relatively low end ear buds. Can't wait to try them with the pair of Shure e4c buds I happened to discover I still had! Anyway, I didn't bother with any of the big name brands, but put together a fantastic system on the cheap.

It worked so well I am ordering another setup for the female vocalist for our next show!

Here is a snippet from my post in another thread:

I actually haven't tried IEM's yet, but I kind of pieced together a wired system I am absolutely dying to try at our next gig. I posted this in the other IEM thread, but I did it kind of on the cheap and from all the research I did, I believe this may be an unbelievably good system for very low dollars.

I purchased two each of the following to experiment with, one for me and one for my female vocalist:

2 Rolls PM351 headphone amplifiers: http://www.amazon.com/Rolls-Personal...ds=rolls+pm351
2 Mic Stand Mounts: http://www.amazon.com/Rolls-MSC106-S...ds=rolls+pm351
2 Elite Core Bodypacks with 18' 1/4" to XLR for headphone extension: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o04_s00_i00

I already own two pairs of Klipsch s4 noise cancelling ear buds, which sound awesome with MP3 players and will be good enough to try this out. If I like it, I can always upgrade myself to a really hot pair of earbuds and custom fitted inserts and she can do the same. But not counting the price of the buds, because I owned them already, but all told, EACH setup cost me a total of $117.47. I am probably going to borrow or rent a Brickwall limiter to use for a month or two until I finally get my Presonus 24 channel mixer which has one built in that I can apply to each of the aux sends. But from all the research I did, this should sound amazing.

Now since the wind up was that my female vocalis wasn't there that night and the rhythm guitarist instead tested out the system she would normally use (and he, too loved it, by the way, and he has the same s4 buds I do), I realized that the Rolls unit I ordered is actually for musicians who sing since it has two pass-throughs, one for a vocal mic and the other for your instrument. So we were each able to balance the sound of our own personal monitor mix with THREE volume knobs. One was for the Aux input, another for your own instrument volume, and the third for your vocal mic.

So I realized that the female vocalist doesn't need an instrument pass-through, only her vocal mic. So I ordered this unit (Rolls PM55) today for $45.55 with free shipping for her monitor station:

http://www.amazon.com/Rolls-PM50S-Pe...+headphone+amp

I think you can save a lot of money this way.

[Koopdaddy]

http://www.elitecoreaudio.com/ Makes some nice stuff and I prefer them over Aviom.

 

I have heard the Roland system is nice, but expensive.

 

Aviom is expensive and the quality in sound and manufacturing is not so great.

[ChiroVette]

I highly recommend the Elite Core bodypack I listed above. You can also order it paired with a fairly nice 1/4" to XLR to go from the heaphone amp to the bodypack:

http://www.amazon.com/Elite-Core-Hea...extension+able

[jasps]

Originally Posted by steve_man

Hi guys,

looking to replace our current 8 channel Hearback system at our church with a 16 channel system. We are looking at the Avioms, Rolands, and possibly the Hearback systems. Any of you have experience with these systems? I've used Hearback and Aviom, but have no experience with the Rolands.

Thanks!

Questions:
1. Do you have a Roland digital board
2. What do you not like about Hearback?
3. what is your current mixer/do you plan to get a new mixer within 2 years? If so, what is your budget?

Comments: Aviom is good product but is getting long in the tooth. I personally do not care for the plastic on the boxes, and feel like the distribution options and price to performance leaves a lot to be desired in todays market; especially seeing the offerings from Pivitec and Behringer(really). The Elite Core are solid as well, but they are bulky.

I would steer clear of the Roland product unless you already have a Roland digital mixer or are planning to get one; their product is more of a solution that needs to be managed, although the nice thing about the Roland system is that each mixer can have different inputs. The ambient mic and external input are "features," too. And Reverb.

[fdew]

We are on our second personal mixer system as well. When the first one died we already had a SAC system as our FOH mixer and recording mixer so we temporarily set it up as personal mixers. We borrowed a few laptops as control surfaces. The worship team loved it. They didn't want the old one repaired. We bought a bunch of used Dell Minis (9 inch) and they are very pleased. I asked what they liked. First was the sound. Second was the meters! It turns out that they like the visual feedback. For instance, when they don't hear a guitarist they can glance at the screen and see that they don't need to adjust anything, he isn't playing right now.

A SAC system could be installed for IEM only. If you need more then 5 or so, it will be price competive.

[steve_man]

Originally Posted by jasps

Questions:
1. Do you have a Roland digital board
2. What do you not like about Hearback?
3. what is your current mixer/do you plan to get a new mixer within 2 years? If so, what is your budget?

Comments: Aviom is good product but is getting long in the tooth. I personally do not care for the plastic on the boxes, and feel like the distribution options and price to performance leaves a lot to be desired in todays market; especially seeing the offerings from Pivitec and Behringer(really). The Elite Core are solid as well, but they are bulky.

I would steer clear of the Roland product unless you already have a Roland digital mixer or are planning to get one; their product is more of a solution that needs to be managed, although the nice thing about the Roland system is that each mixer can have different inputs. The ambient mic and external input are "features," too. And Reverb.

Yes, we have a Roland M400 V-mixer. Hearback is fine, but we just need more channels.

After the above recommendation, I checked out the Elite Core website. Sent in an email with a few questions. To my surprise, a rep from the company called me within a couple of hours. Turns out, he's only about an hour away from us. He answered my questions, and offered to bring an entire system to do an on-site demo for us next week. Their prices are really good. So, we'll just have to see how it works in person. I'd personally rather steer clear of the Roland system, as they are about $1200 each. We're looking to install about 12-14 of them, so that would be crazy expensive.

[Flogger59]

There's a new player: www.pivitec.com
Pivitec was started by a couple of ex Aviom people, so it pushes the Aviom concept a bit further with iPad wireless control, metal construction, and better output levels. The control software is available from the iTunes store. Disclosure: I'm a rep.

[jasps]

Originally Posted by steve_man

Yes, we have a Roland M400 V-mixer. Hearback is fine, but we just need more channels.

After the above recommendation, I checked out the Elite Core website. Sent in an email with a few questions. To my surprise, a rep from the company called me within a couple of hours. Turns out, he's only about an hour away from us. He answered my questions, and offered to bring an entire system to do an on-site demo for us next week. Their prices are really good. So, we'll just have to see how it works in person. I'd personally rather steer clear of the Roland system, as they are about $1200 each. We're looking to install about 12-14 of them, so that would be crazy expensive.

If you're looking to do it "cheap/expendable," the Behringer is probably the best bang for the buck. The Elite Core stuff will probably work nicely for you as well in the "cheap" category.

Obviously, the Roland stuff interfaces nicely into what you already have. Check out Pivitec, too.

After seeing the number of stations you are or would be using, I would also strongly recommend you make a pro/con sheet with the possibility of using a dedicated monitor mixer. One problem with most "personal monitor mixers" out there is that you (at FOH) end up "mixing" monitors/IEMs anyway because you have to deal with a bunch of submixes, etc, so the idea that you are giving the soundperson a break is actually not true. Perhaps you could even have a hybrid option of some sort where you have a monitor mixer and a personal monitoring system setup for some of the musos.
Best.

[ChiroVette]

I wouldn't go Behringer ANYTHING. The system I set up is unbelievably cheap and sounds absolutely fantastic. I would advise anyone looking for a wired IEM to take a hard look at the Elite Core for the bodypack and the Rolls heaphone amps (PM351 for a singing musician and the PM50S for a singer that isn't playing an instrument. Both units have mic stand mounts and allow microphone pass through to give the person a know they can have "more me" without bothering the sound man. And the PM351 also has an instrument pass through so the singing musician has three knobs (instead of the two on the PM50S) to control the mix coming from the aux sent, their own mic into their ear, as well as their own instrument volume in their IEM. So if the sound man gives the person a decent monitor mix, the user with that IEM can then blend the three signals by just reaching for their own little headphone amp.

Seriously, I didn't look at the price of the Behringer, but here is what I paid:

$73.00 - Rolls PM351
$36.00 - Elite Core Wired Body Pack + 18' 1/4" to XLR Headphone Cable (with Neutrik ends)
$20.00 - Mic Stand Mount for Rolls Amp

That is a whopping $120.00 per setup (not counting the ear buds, of course) and keep in mind that the PM50S is only $55.00, so you can set up a non-musician singer for about $100.00 and I can attest to the fact that it works great.

[fdew]

 

Originally Posted by ChiroVette

That is a whopping $120.00 per setup (not counting the ear buds, of course) and keep in mind that the PM50S is only $55.00, so you can set up a non-musician singer for about $100.00 and I can attest to the fact that it works great.

 

The discussion is bouncing between IEMs and IEMs with a more of me control, and IEMs with personal mixers. $120 for IEMs with more of me, and between $300 and over $1,000 each for IEMs with personal mixers. Both can sound good and fill a need but they are different.

[steve_man]

Michael from Elite Core came and demoed their system for us. I have to say that I was very impressed with the sound quality, as well as the volume that it will push through a good set of headphones. I really liked their wired body pack, as well. Keeps the headphone cord from dangling around your guitar neck. He actually gave me one of those, along with the cable. Pretty cool stuff. I also like the fact that it's made right here in Texas.