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Carvin in ears EM900?

Sep 20, 2008
3,369
38
Virginia
www.faultlinerva.com
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Does anyone have any experience with the carvin in ear monitors? the EM900 series. I had the old series and they were ok but I hear the new ones arer better and have better response? I need in ears and these seem reasonably priced?

Your thoughts and personal experience with this unit please!
 
I've only used them a couple of times and have not put much effort into getting them dialed in. The first time I used them I had had several drop outs at an outdoor gig. We had no sound check and only did 5 songs before a rain-out, so I didn't have a chance to try different channels. Before the next show, I switched to a much higher frequency. I had no drop outs, but I did get some significant hiss. The included buds are scooped sounding with LOTS of highs and good bass. I actually like the amount of bleed through I'm getting, so I've not set up an overhead for the drums or ambient noise. I had bass, 2 guitars, keys and 4 vocals in my mix, and could hear everything well with the instruments mixed in fairly low. My bass signal went through my Pandora before the transmitter so I could add some eq to the otherwise vanilla pre-EQ DI signal. No ringing ears at the end of a pretty loud 3 hour set.

I didn't return them, but I thought about it. I would like less noise and drivers with warmer mids. I think I'll be able to make improvements over time by adjusting levels throughout the signal chain, at which point a digital board would be nice to save the settings. Eventually, the Carvin drivers will be relegated to backups. So not much first hand experience for you to go on, but no one else has responded yet. My lead vocalist has PSM200's. At some point I'd like to swap receivers with him to see what he's getting in comparison. If I get around to doing that, I'll add another post.
 
I had a chance to A/B the Carvin system with the PSM200 last night. The Shures were very clear with no noise. Impressive. However, I've still not really had a chance to dial in the Carvins yet, so to a degree the jury is still out. At this point I would say that if the features and/or cost advantage of the Carvin unit are important, consider going that route. Otherwise take a long hard look at competitors like the Shure unit.
 
I have the PM1000 and love it, but I must say weonly run vocals to the pem. We put one bud in to hear our vocals and open ear to hear the band.
Also I run into a compressor before the pm1000 and this works very well for our needs
 
I bought the EM900 system for the singer of a band I did sound for. I was very impressed with the audio quality through the system. The included earphones are pretty close to throwaways, IMHO. There is no comparison between them and a quality pair of double or triple driver earphones.

I did not notice any noise issue with the EM900 at all. I also tested it by playing a CD through the system and listening to it straight from the CD player and from the EM900 rx, switching back and forth several times. It sounded great through the EM900.

I kept the signal going into the EM900 tx relatively high and made sure I dialed in a level that kept the meter on the display high. I don't remeber it having any noise at all. That was definitely something I was listening for.

Anyways, I was quite impressed.

The first rx pack did have a noise issue in one channel (as in left or right) that was definitely something wrong after the volume control (it had no effect on the noise). Carvin replaced it immediately and the second pack was fine.

- John