Most of us who have been involved with live production for any length of time have used party line communications systems. Clear-Com has been making said systems long enough to become the generic name for all such types of equipment. While generally reliable and certainly useful, they have perhaps never been known for outstanding audio quality. Usable audio? Sure. Something you enjoy listening to for eight hours? Not so much. But that could be changing.
Clear-Com has recently released its new RS-700 line of beltpacks, and one of the key improvements is the audio quality. Based on the popular RS-500 series—the ones my church and hundreds of others use each week—the 700 series has been redesigned to even more rugged and reliable, and with better audio quality. They have also updated several user features that make it much easier to operate.
The new lineup is very similar to the old one—the RS-701 is a single-channel beltpack; the RS-702 is a dual-channel analog unit with a six-pin XLR jack; while the RS-703 is a dual-channel model with a three-pin XLR in. The whole 700 lineup is designed to be backwards compatible with legacy party line systems and is protected against damage from accidental connection to newer digital systems.
New form factor
The old RS-500 series units were somewhat square in design and tended to feel awkward on the hip. The new RS-700 are slightly curved and far more comfortable to wear. Replacing the hard white and black plastic housing is a sleek new rubberized blue plastic shell that not only looks better but feels a lot better, as well. According to the manufacturer, the new case is so rugged, it can be run over with a Jeep and still work. I saw the promo video and it did indeed hold up, but I decided not to test this personally.
The volume thumbwheels are set in the corners of the unit, and are larger and more knurled than earlier versions. They are much easier to find without looking, and are simple to adjust, even with gloves on. In fact, all the buttons are now much larger and rubberized. Again, this makes it easier to operate without looking, something we tend to have to do quite frequently.
The 700 series has an improved audio design that does indeed sound better.
The logic for the talk buttons has also been refreshed, and in my mind this is a huge improvement. Whereas in the older units, latching "talk" on required a double press of the button—something that seems to confuse novice users. The new unit is normally configured for a single press latch. Speaking of configuring, DIP switches now replace the jumpers that used to control various options for the unit. There are more options than ever to customize how "talk" and "listen" modes work, which makes this unit far more versatile. The DIP switches are on the bottom of the case, making it easy to select different modes.
The 700 series is also designed to require a lower operating current than older models, which means more beltpacks can be chained together. Finally, when used with six-pin cabling, program audio can be supplied to the beltpacks, and a thumbwheel control on the bottom of the pack adjusts program level.
New audio circuitry
The 700 series has an improved audio design that does indeed sound better. The new mic preamp has a 130-dB dynamic range, making it suitable for video directors during a sermon, as well as highly excitable stage managers at a concert. The audio response is contoured for clear speech reproduction. The company calls it "Clear-Com Sound."
Frequency response of the mic preamp is listed at 280 Hz-15 kHz (+ or -3 dB) with less than 0.1% distortion. The headphone amp is listed at 150 Hz-20 kHz (+ or -3 dB) with less than 0.5% distortion. Clearly, there is a high-pass filter on the mic preamp, which is a good thing. Filtering out all the low end may keep users from sounding like Barry White, but it will also make them a lot easier to hear.
Specs are one thing when it comes to sound, but I was curious about the company's claim that it sounds dramatically better. There was only one way to test that out.
In use
We were sent a dual-channel RS-702 to test, which is perfect since we have two com channels in use at our church; one for general production and one for video. Using the supplied six-pin to dual three-pin wye cable, I connected the beltpack to both our channels. We just rewired our whole com system last year, and it is generally pretty quiet and noise-free, and we use a MS-702 Clear-Com base station.
In addition to a variety of headsets, we also use telephone-style handsets at many of our stations. We tested these first. I had one of our volunteers talk into the handset connected to the base station while I was on the RS-702. The audio quality was indeed quite good, but it wasn't until I switched back to the older RS-502 we normally use there that the difference became so apparent.
While the audio on the older pack was clear, there seems to be a level of distortion to the voice, perhaps due to some overly aggressive contouring of the audio. The RS-702 was much smoother, clearer and simply more pleasant to listen to. On headsets, the difference in audio quality was readily apparent, as well.
The bottom line
The obvious question is this: Is it worth upgrading to the new beltpacks? If you have an older Clear-Com system that is used for a few seconds each service to say, "Yes, we're ready. Go ahead and start," then probably not. On the other hand, for video teams--directors and camera operators--that are on com for several hours a weekend, the new beltpacks will be far less fatiguing and more enjoyable to listen to.
Having spent some time with the new RS-702, I am planning on putting money in next year's budget to upgrade our video team's packs. And I say this after not expecting to be that impressed with it. But it really is a lot better, and I think our volunteers will really appreciate the better audio quality and the new features.
