In article ,
Lostgallifreyan wrote:
In your opinion maybe. Professionals in the sound industry use
quality replaceable batteries, they are reliable - reliability means
_everything_ when a show (or your job) is at stake.


Lame. I keep hearing this silly excuse. This is consumer high-street
shop level thinking. The whole audio industry is riddled with it. For
decades dull black boxes have been shifted with the letters PRO on
them, regardless of how tacky they are, never has an industry blown its
trumpet so loudly.

Err, we're talking radio mics here. And pro ones are in a different league
to the low end stuff. They have to be rugged - and possible to fix if
damaged.

Do they use alkalines in space?

That's a stupid comparison - you'd have to take all those needed with you.
Plus the fact that 'space' has easy and constant access to a source of
power - the sun. Unheard of in the UK. ;-)

In oil drilling gear that has to go down deep in the earth and stand
vibrations?

They use PP3s there? Or AAs? AAAs?

In pacemakers?

Cost almost certainly doesn't matter there.

In aircraft black boxes?

Any battery used in that will be a backup.

Ok, maybe they do, sometimes, but there are lot of battery technologies
reached for when mission critical reliability is needed, and I bet most
industries don't reach for alkalines.

Their requirements are likely different. With radio mics you need a
cost/performance/reliability compromise.

Oil wells reach for lithium thionyl chloride, for
example. If long life primaries with extreme reliability are important
to people who are so up themselves with their 'reputation' and their
expensive hours that are worth SO many batteries, why not buy those?

I can give a reason. Very high capacity (and cost) primary cells might be
ok where you can log the usage. Unfortunately in the film etc world this
isn't always possible - one person might be looking after dozens of the
things. So fitting brand new ones with a reasonable life is simply more
convenient - you change them all at natural break times. That might be
once a day - or twice. With some, three times. Most give a life of at
least 5 hours.

Instead of clinging to one aging method that is highly polluting, use
some imagination and explore what REAL professionals with mission
critical requirements are up to. Compared to those, the industry that
makes such a song and dance of putting microphones in front of
delegates at conferences is like the hairdressers and telephone
sanitisers that Douglas Adams whimsically crashlanded on some planet
along with a captain with a penchant for bathtubs and rubber ducks.
While we need entertainment and communication to make life worth
living, people used to get by till very recently without having to use
so many mics to feel important or get themselves heard.

Thanks for showing you don't have any understanding of this industry.

Think I met you once in the form of a large middle aged lady. I was
working on a live TV current affairs program. Went to clip a mic on her
and she said 'I don't need that, I have a perfectly good voice'

Get a grip. This thread has wound its way round this silly circle for
too long, and I should never have got into it myself, but I have, and
this is my parting shot. I'll read the flames if I have the patience,
but I will try not to get further involved.

It's as well to understand the problems in an individual industry before
trying to apply fixes from another. TV is full of kids just out of college
trying to do just that - and failing miserably. I've seen hundreds come
and go...

I admit to using a few alkalines at times, but either where laziness is
more attractive than performance, or where nothing else fits yet. If I
could change all to Li-ion or lithium thionyl chloride types, I would.
Specifically, the only time I justify an alkaline is when I need a PP3
that is ready to use, between long periods of disuse. For anything
else, I find another way.

One of the most important things with some RMs is size - if they have to
be concealed on the body. Better batteries allow smaller units. But good
RMs are extremely expensive and none will junk good ones just for this.

--
*When cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say? *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.