Improving the performance of Audio Technica Pro88 Wireless
 Although there is no queston that, for the money, the Pro88's
are incredible performers — we all acknowledge that they are not perfect. Afterall,
there is a reason why people pay up to two grand for a broadcast quality portable wireless
mic system.
However, there are some tricks to improve the performance of the Pro88
wireless mic system.
When you use the CP8306 balanced output cable to mate the Pro88 with
XLR 3-pin inputs, bear in mind that the cable is unbalanced up to the XLR connector
itself. The balancing transformer is contained inside of the XLR.
So, if you plug the XLR adapter directly into some mixers and other AC
powered devices that emit electromagnetic fields, you may encounter some humm. The humm is
picked up by the unbalanced skinny wire portion of the CP8306 cable.
The solution is to bundle up the excess length of unbalanced cable,
and to use a short XLR-XLR jumper or mic cable to plug directly into the mixer.
Because the mic cable is balanced, the magnetic field has no effect on it. You only need
to separate the skinny portion of the CP8306 adapter a foot or two from the mixer.
A good technique for increasing the range and eliminating drop-outs was
told to us by production mixer John Salcedo, who does the Sabrina TV series.
John replaced the short rubber receiver antenna with a high gain
dipole antenna.
John removed the rubber antenna. A short machine screw was inserted
into the antenna mounting hole. To this screw was fastened a crimp-on lug.
A wire is attached from the lug to the center lead of a chassis mount
BNC connector. The BNC can be mounted to anything convenient, such as a pole, wooden
support, plastic carrying case, etc.
A high gain antenna system, such as a dipole or a yagi, attaches to the
BNC. The antenna is tuned to the VHF TV band (169-171), which is a standard frequency
range for professional wireless mics.
Another tip for increasing the volume
(gain) of the Pro88 is to attach the CP8306 XLR output cable to the PHONES OUT
socket instead of the MIC OUT. Set your recorder or mixer to LINE LEVEL INPUT,
and adjust the new volume. Phones out is a much hotter signal than mic out, and
will yield much louder results. But never run PHONES OUT into MIC LEVEL input,
since it will overload and distort at that setting. | 
We are authorities in production sound recording
for video and filmmaking. We also have lots of accessories for videography; and
are dealers for Casablanca, AVIO, and Renommee
non-linear video editors; as well as turnkey AVID & AVID Liquid (aka
Pinnacle) editing solutions.
If you would like a copy of our
2005/2006 "cowboy cover" catalog (free, of course), please phone or
e-mail us. We are working on a new 2007 catalog, coming later this year.
