BES Audio BW300BT UHF Bodypack Transmitter - First Impression
Our first impression of the BES Audio BW300BT UHF Bodypack Transmitter was a great one. They came in really professional looking equipment boxes, which surprised us, because we were just expecting the equipment, and not the quality cases to carry them in. We were sitting in our living room in Springfield, TN, when we heard the UPS man show up, and we were super excited to see what BES Audio had sent us. We were shocked at how neat and organized everything was in their cases. We felt that in some degree we were in awe because the equipment we were dealing with was very professional, which is uncommon for most indie artists when dealing with other companies.
We opened the box and were impressed how neat the packaging was, and the box had room not only for the bodypack transmitter, but also for the chords and everything that came along with them. Our first impression was, “Wow, this is awesome!” We were like, “Man, this is legit!”
The wireless bodypack transmitters are a small rectangle shape, all black, with easy-to-read white letters on the front and back. The bodypack is about four inches long, and one and a half inches thick. We were surprised at how, in the first moment of holding them, we recognized durability, that they were not of cheap quality or easily breakable, which eased our minds; they won’t break if accidently dropped. It has a grey rectangle rubber power/mute button neatly located on the top. To turn on the bodypack, you just click and hold the power button for three seconds and you’re on. While the body pack is on, just one click of the power/mute button, and you can mute the bodypack, or if you hold it for three seconds, it turns the bodypack off. It’s easy to understand and easy to use. To the right of the power button there is a mini XLR input jack for your instrument to plug into. (A quality mini XLR to ¼” inch cable is supplied with each bodypack.) It also has a 3-inch long antenna out of the top of it that is durable and discreet, not in the way of anything.
In the center of the bodypack, there’s easy-to-grip notches to flip open the bodypack to reveal where the batteries are inserted (requiring only two AA batteries), and the controls for dialing in frequencies, which consist of an “up” and “down” selector button, one “set” button, and one infrared IR port, which receives the IR signal to sync to the BW 360R receiver, which is a really nice feature. On the front of the bodypack, there is BES Audio’s logo and item description number, which just makes the product look even more professional and trustworthy. At the top of the front of the bodypack, there are two indicator lights, one for indicating if the bodypack is muted, and the other to show if there are low battery levels. When you turn on the pack, in the top center of the front of the bodypack, a vibrant amber LED screen appears, with orange lettering and digits, clearly indicating the frequencies, signal strength, gain levels, an easy-to-read battery level indicator, and a frequency lock indicator. All of the frequency, signal strength, and gain levels (-3db-+9db) can be adjusted from the bodypack easily, by simply using the select and set buttons.
On the back of the bodypack, there’s a clip that you can attach the receiver to your belt, guitar strap, or pocket easily. There’s also a serial number and a bar code, and a sticker of the frequency range, showing the frequency range of the receiver, which for our own bodypacks are 655-679MHz.
The overall usage of BES audio’s user interface has been a delight to work with, and is simple enough for inexperienced users to just pick up and read a few instructions, and be able to understand. But also the professionalism of BES Audio’s equipment can be easily compared to any of today’s top-of-the-line audio equipment. When we first took a look at the BES BBW360R UHF Wireless Receiver, we were surprised at how easy it was to set up the system and tune in the frequencies, and be able to start running.
Once unpacked, the BES BW360R UHF Wireless Receiver looked really cool. The receiver unit is comprised of a single space rack unit that houses two receivers in one unit. The receiver unit is black in color with the main display/control areas outlined in a brushed faux stainless faceplate. The faceplate surrounds the LED display along with a few function buttons as well as the Infrared Data Sync window. Each receiver unit contained in the BW360R is numbered (1) and (2) for easy identification.
The back of the BW360R unit is comprised of (A&B) external antenna BNC plug in locations, along with ¼” unbalanced and XLR balanced (A&B) outputs. There is also a DC power supply plug. The back of the unit is pretty straight forward and well laid out and each set of outputs is divided (A&B) per unit prospectively.
Powering on the BW360R is done by pushing the power button located on the left side of the front face of the unit. You have to hold the power button for a second for it to power up. This is a nice feature as it prevents accidentally turning on or off the unit. Turning off the unit is the same process. Once powered up, the power button is illuminated in red. The main display is illuminated in amber and has a ton of info contained in the display. On the far left of the display is the AF or Audio Sound Level, where the level is displayed in a vertical “ladder” bar type of display. This is the sound input level meter coming from the microphone. The next group of information is the group and channel numbers located on the top of the display just left of center. This information is what the unit and microphone channel is set to. Next to this is the lock symbol. The symbol beside that is the mute symbol. Then there is the antenna A/B symbol to show what antenna is receiving the signal. Below these symbols and information is the frequency display, which is displayed in a six digit format. This particular frequency is set to 862.000 MHz.
Located to the right side of the display is the RF or Receiving Signal Status, which shows how much signal the unit is receiving from the microphone. The RF display is shown in a vertical ladder bar type of display along with an ascending numerical value located next to each ladder bar that goes from 10 to 40. Next to the RF level indicator is a squelch level indicator. This display is also a vertical display, but instead of a ladder bar type of display, it has a pointing left arrow that coincides with the RF meter ladder bars to indicate the current level of squelch that is being applied.
At the very bottom of the display is the IR indicator along with the auto channel search indicator. Last is the battery level indicator. I thought this was a really neat feature, because you can monitor the battery level in the microphone remotely. Pretty cool. The battery level indicator is in the shape of a battery in a horizontal position that has three sections to indicate a LOW/MED/HI battery level.
Programming For Usage:
All of the programming and usage instructions are located online via the BES Audio website. You must register and login in order to access this information.
Without reading the instructions first (a guy thing for sure), we found it was pretty user-intuitive and easy to figure out via the display on both the microphone and receiver units. The easiest way to program the microphone to the receiver is by using the IR (Infrared) Data Sync. You simply turn on the receiver and microphone, remove the microphone’s lower sleeve, point the IR window on the microphone to the IR window on the receiver, and press the ADS button on the BW360R receiver. The microphone is then programmed to the same frequency as the receiver. It’s pretty easy, which is nice.
If you need to find a better or another frequency, just press the Auto button on the receiver and it will automatically search for a clear frequency. You then repeat the IR Data Sync, and you’re good to go. If you need to manually select a frequency, you can do this by pressing the SET button once. This will cause the group number to start flashing. Once it is flashing, you can change the group number by pressing the up or down arrow buttons under the SET button to find the desired frequency within a 1400MHz range. I think of this as “fine tuning” the frequency.
Next is setting the channel. This is done by pressing the SET button twice. Once you do this, the channel indicator starts to flash. When this occurs, you can change the channel setting by pressing the up or down arrow buttons under the SET button. This gives you 16 different channels within the factory preset frequency range. This particular microphone’s frequency range is 838-865MHz
Another item that is pretty cool is the AF OUT. The AF OUT is the sound level that can be adjusted by pressing the SET button three times. Once the AF Out is displayed and the AF level meter lights up, the AF OUT can be adjusted in seven levels. I think of this as gain sensitivity adjustment.
Overall first impression: we’re VERY impressed. BES is a great company to work with, and we recommend their products to everyone, and are highly looking forward to continue working with them in the future. Their products are professional, their customer service has been supreme and personal, and we’re thankful to be a part of BES audio.
