mikeyp.net

From recent posts here of pictures of them, you can tell I've used a fair number of them. We use them for shows that simply don't warrant the use of our Shure UHF units, i.e. any time we won't be attending to their use, or dry hires when we can't verify the competency of the renter/operator. The company I work for is mainly corporate, but does some entertainment, and a few rentals, and we need to keep the Shure stuff in good condition for the high end corporate shows.

For those of you unfamiliar with the line, it is distributed by Avlex who makes their own consoles, and also the home of Superlux microphones. They are made in Tawain and of relatively good build quality. The high end handheld transmitters, ACT-707HM, have an all metal housing that seems to be virtually indestructible material. We did have one come back from a dry rental once that was intermittent and had parts rattling around in side, although the mic body and grille we're unharmed, perhaps the outside is built a bit too sturdy... We also have some, ACT-707H, transmitters that have a great rubberized texture and great shape. Don't take this the wrong way, but most females that have used these love the shape and size of this mic. Many women feel uncomfortable holding units such as the large Shure UHF transmitters. Unfortunately the plastic that these are made of just doesn't hold up well. The battery cover on both the ones we have has broken at the threads from over tightening. There is The units we have cover several frequency bands although all in the 600MHz range, they are divided up into 6A, 6B, and 6C. I believe even more ranges are available, and each range supports up to 16 transmitters. The 6C units came with a smaller antenna and while adequate, I did notice a decrease in signal from them compared to the A and B units at similar ranges in otherwise identical conditions.

The basic operation of these units is rather unique from my understanding (although there are probably others like it by now) in that there is an IR transmitter located in the receiver units (we are using the ACT-707 and ACT-707S) and an IR receiver located in the mic and bodypack transmitters. The way this works is to use the menu's on the receiver to select a group and then press the channel select button, and the receiver will find an open channel and settle on it. After this, pressing the ACT button on the receiver and holding a powered on transmitter in front of the receiver will cause the group and channel settings to be transmitted from the receiver to the transmitter (Now doesn't that sound backwards?) There are times where this is certainly handy, and makes quick work of programming the transmitters. There are a few things that I find frustrating about this whole process though: 1) because pressing the channel select button causes a scan to occur, you can't always set the channel to an exact setting as you would expect to be able to do...sometimes quite frustrating because 2) you have to start at one set of receiver and transmitter and leave all the transmitters on as you program the whole system because if you turn the first unit off, the second unit will most likely settle on the same channel as the first unit when the scan is executed!! Also, there is no way to program the transmitters without having the receivers! How they failed to put a set of two buttons on the transmitters is beyond me. The receiver do have a computer interface that I have not used, that uses standard RJ-11 cables to chain the receivers together.

Once programmed their operation is quite simple just turn the unit on, and if using the ACT-707HM you can use the included covers that clip over the end of the mic to cover the power switch. A blue and orange cover is included in addition to the black one. I have found this quite handy to use on some shows where we used the MiPro for MCs due to all 20+ Shure UHF units being in use by that show (don't ask, it was ugly, like 20 headsets on 8 year olds ugly) and the colors made it easy to identify the MC mics. The ACT-707H has no clips for it due to the design. The battery life on both is exceptional!! On the last show I used them as table mics for a business meeting and had 16 units running for nearly 15 hours and they all showed over half battery strength on the transmitters after that day, using the included off name batteries! I imagine that getting 20-25 hours out of them with ProCell or Energizer Industrial batteries is easily possible, and maybe more.

Onto the one area where I am probably least qualified to judge them: Audio quality. Using them for table mics at a business meeting is an interesting application of feedback rejection (kinda...they were in the house and people frequently failed to even position them or move near clsoe enough to them before beginning to speak) and their pickup pattern. The only time we did a strict shootout of these mics side by side in comparison to others they performed very well. We tried a ACT-707HM against Sennheiser EW300 series and our Shure UHF series with Beta 87A heads. The audio quality of the MiPro in comparison to the EW300 was definitely in favor of the MiPro, especially with regard to companding issues. Overall the MiPro was more 'open' sounding and produced a more dynamic sound than the EW300 with a crisper high end too. Compared to the Shure UHF was definitely in favor of the Shure. The MiPro seemed to have about 90-95% of the perceived audio quality that the Shure did. and in blind testing they were always identifiable, but the MiPro was much much closer in quality to the Shure than it was to the EW300. When it came to using them as table mics the audio quality difference seemed to be more pronounced in the form of less predictable pickup patterns and generally less 'reach' than the Shure had for similar conditions.

One problem I had with the units, that seems unresolved for some time now, is that when the power switch is turned off, the transmitters go into shutdown mode for about a second and a half and Display PwrOFF on the display or something similar. This wouldn't be a problem but if the power switch is turned back on during this time, the transmitter won't come on. This caught us and a performer extremely off guard once, as their mic was on and it was accidently muted and they assumed it off, so they flipped the switch off while continuing to speak into it (thereby turning it off) and then the flipped it back on before the shutdown mode had cleared, leaving the switch in the on position and the mic off. The performer then looked at the mic and finding the switch ON and the mic itself OFF, gave up on it and switched to the standby.

Well it looks like this review ended up being a little longer than I thought it would be. I think you'll find it quite thorough though and I hope its given you the info to make up your mind on this product. I'm not gonna get into pricing issues here, except to say that it is one of the lowest priced units out there, and the quality is a good bit better than higher priced units in some ways. I've been general pleased with them and would recommend them if they fit your application. Most churches would be very pleased with this product, and many larger production and rental houses could certainly find a place for MiPro products as supplements to their high end products, or for sheer numbers of units depending on the application.