AKG DMS300 review wireless instrument system

this is the DMS 300 by Keiji and this is pretty much a wireless microphone system that Katie makes him recently a cutie Hazzard released two fairly new systems into the market a AKG DMS 108 kg d NS 300 - day we're talking about the DMS 300 but almost everything applies to the 100 BOCES since they're pretty much almost executives and with a few key differences we'll try to point those out so this obviously we got this from Amazon this is not a sponsored video no one paid us for this video no one sent us this item we bought this item from Amazon warehouse deals we'll talk about it we used it we'll talk about it and we'll give you our opinions but just let you know this is going to be a real user opinion without any influences from anybody else but anyways the point is that we're talking about this system which is 300 ok and I'm going to give you a quick information here real quick there are two main big differences with between the three hundred and 100 there are a lot of small differences but they're pretty negligible with depending on what you think but the two big differences are number one on the DMS 300 system the it has the antennas are external they're to external sticking antennas on DM is 300 and then on the DMS 300 you can also use up to eight co-existing systems on the 100 you can only use up to four so keep that in mind other small differences are like it has an ID number here for instead of like color coding but I mean pretty much still gonna be the same so make sure you keep that in mind when we talk about it so before we get into it let me just give you the quick marketing hype they put on the Box vivid display unravel security pristine 24-bit 48 kilohertz sound simple to use rack mountable right ears are not included adaptive frequency channel selection it's got diversity in three tight kinds antenna time frequency the carrier frequency is license-free it's less than 2. 9 milliseconds of latency and roughly about a hundred feet of working range alright today we're gonna be talking about the body pac system but these systems pretty much come in two different configuration you can get a handheld microphone or you can get a body pack configuration today we're going to talk about party pack but just know that you can get it in a handheld configuration so I pretty much put this back together we opened it used it for singles three ish weeks and we put it back together because we're gonna return it and you have to wait to the end of the video to figure out why so when you open it and you get two little antennas these are pretty much the Wi-Fi old-school router Wi-Fi antennas now you get keep in mind this is a 2. 4 gigahertz digital system ok we'll talk more about that later but here is the body pack portable body pack that comes ok this got like a piano black tight finish in the front obviously that logo there's a little tiny little screen here we'll show you later stick her in the back it's pretty much all plastic it's got a metal wire belt clip power button on top it's got the TA 4 F connector and the way you open it is you press down and push out press down where the little logo is and press out and this thing is powered by two double-a batteries two double-a batteries are included in this at least in the one that I got let's take these out two double-a batteries here so two double-a batteries are included in this kit you get there is a link pairing button right here and then this is the sensitivity button or sensitivity knob that you can turn to adjust the sensitivity in order to turn it on there's a power button here that serves as a mute button but no return not you have to hold this button for a few seconds and then it will turn on I think unless I installed the batteries incorrectly let's see here did we install the batteries backwards yeah no we did it so the batteries going this way goes in this way let's see why does this nut or not there you go alright so battery turns on I mean system turns on obviously you can see it's got a three bar LED status gauge for battery life and little ID so here's a quip if you hold this button for a second it will go to mute in the little red LEDs you turn red or a little LED she turn right at me if you press it just real quick it will not unmute you have to actually press and hold for about a second and then it should mute and unmute there you go okay so if we just do a quick press won't do anything make sure you keep that in mind but that is pretty much the body practice and the build is almost entirely plastic feels relatively pretty cheap probably the cheapest feeling build quality I've ever felt in your pro audio pack on the main mainstream systems so the model number on this one is PT 300 so AKG has a pretty fairly naming scheme pretty easy it's pretty straightforward PT means portable transmitter 300 okay you get that obviously you get the manual which almost nobody reads let's talk about this receiver here okay so this is the receiver for the DMS 200 system it's got two external antenna ports here now you stick the antennas onto like so right it has a same type of piano black type finish screen on the front it's a fingerprint magnet obviously a little button here that's a little nod that also serves as a button and that's pretty much all the controls you really get on the front will turn on you'll see the LEDs but the build quality on this thing almost is almost entirely plastic - feels relatively pretty cheap probably the cheapest and lightest pro audio receiver that we have ever touched - felt what they're used in the mainstream brands remember I'll keep that in mind oh there's a power button right here under this um antenna that I mind it's to go to the back here it's got a barrel port for a 9 volt DC end uses roughly 1. 3 amps it's got two RJ 12 ports for sink and sink out and what the purpose of that is if you have multiple systems you can link them together for instance if I had two or two let's say I had three systems but the system here stack the other system on top so that their system on top on the first system you would come out of sync out and go to sinking of the second one and come out of sinking of the second one and go in to sink in of the one and then go out of sync out of the third one and go sink in to the first one okay that way pretty much creates an entire loop and they can all communicate together that is primarily used for when you're using multiple systems together like I said on the third DMS 300 system you can use up to eight systems together or so they say but the way you can do that is kind of you can what do you call it link them together and use them simultaneously the good thing about that they can all coordinate with each other channel time frequency whatever they're using so that when they're all trying to get the same clear channels and time slots that transmit on they're not fighting each other and they're working as one unison units on unit one unit instead of three different units pretty much like I said you can do that up to eight so it's not just three here's the unbalanced port so if you need unbalanced here is the XLR port if you need a balanced and then it has an attenuation switch you can go from zero DB or negative 30 DB I'm sure you little bit more of that up closely but it's got a little rubber feet on the bottom that helps prevent from sliding too much but that's that's pretty much it and if you ever get this you pick it up and see and you'll see why the build or use you would see what I mean when I say that their quality is extremely cheap and feels like the cheapest thing ever felt for a pro audio receiver here's the power brick the power brick nothing too fancy standard wall work a non polarized plug let's plug it in and you get this plug it in right here alright so you plugged it in I should power on there you go plug it in and that's what happens when you power it on so I know how to keep it have it right here from name purpose of the review but minimum working distance is really you really want to keep it about six feet away in order yeah roughly about six feet away so they can work properly but also in here is the cable for your instrument see this little ta four F connector plug in here and then you have your quarter inch Jack right here for guitar violin whatever you're playing and it's got this rj12 cable that you can use something come all together we're not gonna talk about this one sim I said we're gonna put this back alright guys that's pretty much what you get in the box when you get the kit or when you buy the kit so let's talk about microphone system in general so when it comes to wireless microphone systems either pretty much too kind so analog they're digital analog usually a little bit older but analog has a low benefit to it where it's a little faster generally in terms of latency so this one has about 2.

9 milliseconds which is fairly low really low actually analog is even lower than that but the benefit to digital there's a lot it's sending one in zeros in the audio stream path here so if there's no companding that a lot less compression or almost no compression in that and there's a lot less of susceptible to interference and audio artifacts so when you send an analog set no pretty much the waveform gets sent from a transmitter to the receiver and that waveform is a little bit different depending on what audio is going through there so it can expand or control I don't say expand into contract but it's pretty much companding and the audio the receiver has to interpret it and then get it out right so because it's flying through the air obviously since that's pulling interference it may have artifacting and stuff like that digital systems 1 to 0 when when it gets sent from the transmitter and someone and then it ends up here it's pretty much zero not exactly like that but that's pretty much the basic idea so it'll generally sound better given the same type of system same class of system so make sure to keep that in mind the other benefit to this one it says it says and three times and diversity time frequency and space space two antennas frequency it can hop around frequencies we'll talk about that in a second and time so what does that mean in a digital system like this you can actually transmit the same sound in multiple different time slots and these are tiny tiny time slots so it's getting sent in multiple different time slots so if there's interference or in one copy or whatever you'll pick it up in a second copy and this is happening in multiple frequencies okay not just one at a time so that's actually really good makes it a little bit more reliable or supposed to so this one in particular isn't 2. 4 gigahertz band of the frequency spectrum that's good and bad why is that bad it's bad because primarily there's a lot of Wi-Fi systems in a 2. 4 gigahertz range also bluetooth also operates the 2. 4 gigahertz and there's a bunch of other stuff I'm shaking who would figure it out so it's very crowded so a lot of 2.

4 gigahertz water systems are susceptible to a lot of other types of interference but they usually the people that manufacture D types of systems in this case AKG has tried to mitigate that as much as possible by implementing a system where the receiver is always constantly scanning for backup frequencies and always just getting the RF environment to figure out which frequency Channel and time spots are best to send on so when it sends it can send in multiple different frequencies and multiple different time slots so when you first turn it on and when you first turn the system on it's gonna automatically scan and pick the best channel and frequency and the best buddy call it channels to transmit and receive on right so when it does that it'll sync up what the transmitter and transmit the audio signal or whatever's coming through and then at the same time when it's on its gonna scan the environment in real time all the time I'm not sure exactly how much doesn't really say but I'll probably be somewhere between 100 somewhere around probably 100 to 300 times per second and it when it does that it scans to figure out the best frequencies on those time slots and the time slots to transmit that on so as you're using it it can always be rolling and changing all the time and you won't even notice it or you're supposed to not notice it so make sure you keep that in mind so that's pretty much how they were able to fit these systems into into almost any environment because the 2. 4 gigahertz spectrum is a part of the spectrum is licensed free and globally license free so some people may know this but Wi-Fi also runs their 5 gigahertz systems most the higher-end systems will have two point four and five gigahertz but Wi-Fi usually runs on both if you get like a all-in-one home type router if you're more if you have more advanced and more advanced system and you can set it up on only five definitely do that because it'll reduce the interference so make sure you keep that in mind so I've had the privilege to use this for about three weeks use it a couple times a week and sounds ok we'll play some clips for you and later but on a digital system like this it's they designed it to fit into almost any environment and it can work if your specific environment works out well for that in the type of environment that I'm using it especially in like a house or a corporate environment or even house of worship it generally works out pretty well mainly because I'm usually involved somehow with sending on my home network right I can turn off the 2. 4 gigahertz and make it a little better it in corporate environments it gets a little bit tough because you may not be the network administrator or you may not have the ability to influence that kind of stuff so make sure you keep that in mind if you're going to buy something like this generally I'll go out and say this the system generally works pretty well it's usually carefree it's easy to operate so for somebody who doesn't know anything about wireless systems this is probably going to be a good system for you depending on your use case ok so let's talk about that a little bit so because this operates on a 2. 4 gigahertz band of the frequency spectrum you need to make sure it's gonna work for you in your environment before you get it ok in environments such things that's like if you're a wedding DJ or whatnot and you're always going to wedding venues and hotels and conference spaces and stuff like that you probably don't want to stick with this kind of system because you're always going to be around people ok and those people are always going to have smart devices I mean those devices are going to be in trying to connect and network and most people are going to be connected to some kind of network if the network is free or whatnot obviously and that's gonna cause a lot less capacity for this system to be able to work ok corporate environment depending on your environment may not be best to use who knows but if you can control the space and you have some ability to influence the the other factors in the environment it's gonna be great for you but these types of systems in 2.

4 gigahertz range or frequency spectrum are pretty much gonna be as some people call it point of sale or in this case point of usage units what does that mean you probably do not want to separate the receiver and the transmitter long distance so if you have a stage you want this thing to be pretty much next to the stage or on stage so this type of unit is this really best function or best designed to be next to the stage under the stage on top of the stage somewhere right next to the stage or wherever it's gonna be used because of the short distance required to use it okay usually the better you keep it with the closer you keep it within six feet the better it's usually going to work okay other systems that are that are digital not in the 2. 4 gigahertz band or you can pretty much put one end at the front of house or whatnot and you can use this on stage and network fine this type of system is going to be very very difficult to do that because of all the other stuff I just told you about but also think about it if this is on this is on stage and you got a bunch of people in the crowd and they're all have smart devices some people may have three devices a phone watch iPad whatever that that's all going to be network traffic interference in between the transmitter and the receiver if this is the front of house on stage think about it which is why you want to put this next to it other systems like the AKG DMS 700 or 800 or stuff like that and you could probably get away with getting that near the front of house or somewhere else so make sure if you get this kind of system make sure you keep it close together and that's pretty much what's designed for there's other people who make 2.