Can a wireless mic be simple enough for real people?

  “Finally, there’s a wireless microphone that knows how you work, so you don’t need to learn how it works.”

Wireless microphones allow presenters to move freely around the room without being tethered to a microphone stand or podium. They can engage with the audience, demonstrate exercises or experiments, and create a more dynamic and interactive presentation.

But traditional wireless microphone systems require significant technical expertise to set up and configure properly.  Most systems operate in the UHF TV band, which makes careful coordination of frequencies necessary to prevent interference from local TV stations and other wireless systems in the building.  It’s also important to regularly check battery levels to ensure that the microphones are fully charged and ready for use.

When wireless mics are used for a concert, West End play, or TV broadcast, experienced audio engineers are present to manage these tasks, and the users are professional performers.  But in an office training room or university lecture hall, wireless mics are used by presenters and instructors with no technician present.  In short:  real people who don’t spend all day pondering radio frequencies and antenna cables.

Wireless Mics For Real People

Now, there’s a new generation of wireless microphones that is made specifically for meetings, presentations, and lectures.  It’s called Shure Microflex Wireless (MXW) neXt 2, and it makes great audio simple: simple to set up, simple to use.  Choose any two transmitters that meet your needs – a bodypack transmitter that lets presenters keep their hands free; a handheld mic to pass around for audience Q and A; or a boundary transmitter to pick up a seated participant.

It combines the receiver, antennas, DSP, charging station, and all of the connections into one discreet unit that sits on the table or credenza.  For the first time, onerous setup tasks are eliminated; daily use is made easy.  And with Microsoft Teams certification, gone are the technical issues that vex installers and users of these systems.

Seven Things You Can Stop Worrying About

• Antenna mounting and cabling? None, because the antennas are inside the unit.  Place the access point on a table or credenza and it picks up the microphones up to 150 feet (50 meters) away.
• Frequency coordination?   Unlike most wireless mics, MXW neXt 2 finds open channels automatically and changes channels to avoid interference without interrupting the audio.
• External DSP? No worries: IntelliMix^â DSP is built in – automatic mixing, echo cancellation, noise reduction, automatic gain control, EQ.  It sounds fantastic right out of the box, but of course you can make adjustments if you like.
• Charging? Drop the mic into a slot.  A full charge lasts all day, and the time remaining is displayed on each mic in hours and minutes.  When you take the mic out it turns on by itself so users don’t need to remember how to do it.
• Setup? Forget all about menus and up/down buttons.  Place each mic into the charging slot and press the Sync button for three seconds, and that mic is linked to the sound system in that room.  That means you can give each presenter their own personal microphone and they can use it in any room they walk into, just by pushing a button.
• Connections? You’ve got analog, Dante, and USB-C connections to a computer, sound system, and videoconferencing codec.  You can even add a Microflex Advance ceiling array microphone to capture audience participation in larger rooms.
• Signal routing? One button.  Press the “Conf” button and the microphones will only be heard by the remote participants.  In a larger room where you need the microphones routed to loudspeakers for the audience to hear your presentation, press the “Pres” button.

Optimized for Meetings

Whether it’s a presentation, team conference, or university lecture, it seems like every gathering includes a mix of local and remote participants.  Delivering flawless audio for the people in the room and those joining remotely isn’t always easy.  Accommodating a moving presenter and audience questions makes it even more of a challenge.  What’s needed is a wireless microphone system that is optimized specifically for meetings and geared for use by real people with little or no knowledge of AV equipment.  One that gives you the benefits of wireless microphones without the headaches and complexity.

Finally, there’s a wireless microphone that knows how you work, so you don’t need to learn how it works.