Hi welcome to Tear Down Tuesday where is it Is it up my sleeve? No, it's on my shirt here. well not actually this. this is just the uh little microphone for it. What we're going to tear down is the Sennheiser G3 it's called wireless microphone uh for camcorders and other gear.

it's pretty much the Ducks guts in the industry for wireless microphones. real expensive bit of Kit goes for over $600 or thereabouts now. um I have had well I do have uh Wireless uh microphones in the past I've used a an Asden brand and they were really crap and then I switched to this Audio Technica Pro 88 and uh it's kind of done the job for a few videos but it doesn't have a property and proper uh diversity receiver on it and well everyone Raves about this. this is the number one in the industry apparently.

the Sennheiser G3 uh so I thought we take a look inside not only the uh belt clip receiver here uh sorry the transmitter but also the receiver which is on top of my camera. Let's go and yes, sorry I do already have it uh powered on here and I'm actually still using it to record. you can see this cable. this is actually going from the receiver here, the diversity receiver up to my Um Canon HF G10 camcorder here and you'll notice that it had a nice little uh Fade Out backlight there on the display and this thing just oodles quality from the moment I took it out of the box.

These things feel like you know, these things weigh and feel like they're built like a brick dny they really do it. weighs probably twice as much. This is the Uh transmitter here. H You know, look at my old Uh Pro 88 here.

it's it. You know this thing probably weighs like twice as much and as half the size because it's um, built with a diecast um alloy case on it and it's just oh, it really is just a beautiful bit of Kit opens up like this is not a review I really just literally taken it out out of the box before I decided to do a tear down here. So I don't even know how to uh use it properly but it's all programmable graphic display. It's got battery indicators fantastic, runs on standard uh doublea's for like 8 hours or something like that.

Um, it's got I think you know dozens and dozens of channels that can do auto searching and auto sinking and all sorts of, uh, weird and wonderful stuff like that. and you can actually set the Uh. One thing I really like is that you can set not only you can set the sensitivity here in Uh DB on the Uh transmitter for the mic level, but you can also do the same thing over here on the audio frequency out that goes into the Uh camcorder. minus 24 DB So full flexibility there in terms of actually, um, you know, using this thing and setting up for your camcorder I Love the little battery door that clicks in place like that.

Oh, really is a nice bit of Kit I Love it. and it does come with um, the camcorder uh, shoe attachment thing as well. This is the SK 100 body pack transmitter effectively uh, know one like as the G3 nobody calls it, the uh, uh, you know, the 100 or whatever and the EK 100 diversity receiver property. proper diversity receiver design so that uh, you know it doesn't uh, drop out like the other crap ones do and things like that.

So absolute first class. um RF Quality designed in Germany assembled in the USA and disassembled in Australia Beauty Other thing I really like is the proper threaded uh 3.5 mm uh TRS Jack on these things so they can't accidentally come out many times I've um, accidentally plugged uh, my mic in, you know, halfway and I was getting something on the LCD but it was picking up crap loads of 50 HZ T and things like that and uh, it just really is quite nice. Nice little uh, flexible antenna there on the thing so really you know, impossible to break these suckers pretty much and a uh, mute and a mic button there nice. and I Do believe they can take a rechargeable uh like you can get cradles or something cuz they look like recharger uh tabs to me if you put rechargeable batteries in the thing.

and oh, as I said, just feels first class that D diecast alloy uh case. just fantastic. And the quality of the battery contacts and the uh, the hinge and the whole the whole works, it just feels like you're getting your money's worth. It really does.

And this is a UHF a model of course better than the uh lower frequency VHF ones which I've used before. this uh particular one is um 626 to 668 MHz I'm not sure if it uh uh changes in different regions. this is the Uh Australian model so it may actually differ in that respect. So it looks like we got some uh Torx uh screwdrivers here uh, designed in Germany of course.

So I'm going to use my Uh made in Germany we screwdrivers It's Curious that the Germans outsourced to the USA Ah, it's hilarious anyway. Let's uh, crack this sucker open and see what's in it. Hopefully we'll be able to get in with just these uh, four screws here. Perhaps we'll see I'm of course not.

uh I switched my internal mic on my Canon uh camcorder of course as I do for most tear downs, but uh, if this thing works really well I might uh use it more for the more for just general purpose in the blog but generally I got it for uh fielded use. So let's whip these screws out now. I Expect first class uh quality design and build quality in here in here. Maybe some RS shielding? although it's got the diecast uh case on the thing.

hey, that's that's popping open really easy, it'll be all SMD of course. and oh there it is. Look at that. Oh beautiful.

The whole thing just hinges out the whole case. Oh fantastic. You see the uh, Listen, there we go. Nice diecast alloy case.

Beautiful a and that looks like H basic two bow construction. Don't know if there might know I think no, there's a ribbon cable connecting fine pitch ribbon connecting the two boards. The C is probably mounted on the backside of that one though. I'd say but uh, that is looking very nice right off the bat.

I Rather like that. and of course they threaded metal insert screws right down into the um, molded and uh, then tapped uh threads in the diecast case. there. just beautiful quality.

Ah, I Love it. and it's all sort of hinged on the one point there. it is a bit loose like that, but of course once it's all uh screwed in, it's going to be Rock Solid But it's very nice. and there's the RF board like that.

just two metal uh cans with the uh, some surface mount circuitry on the back. The antenna is solded directly onto the board like that so it just pops out and hinges open in one. Fell Swoop Like that. That is just beautiful design.

No problems at all. No signs of any bodges or anything like that yet. So oh, it's looking beautifully designed and you'll notice that side charging contacts there just you know. folded right angles and solded directly into the board.

Really quite beefy, excellent and on the back of the main transmitter board. there no surprises for finding an Analog Devices ADF 417. That's a 1.2 GHz uh phase lock loop and that generates the local oscillator frequency for for the transmitter. It's a digital Um interface device serial interface, so that's how the microprocessor in this thing can, uh, select the required frequency just uh, you know, send the serial command to choose your local oscillator frequency to easy and there's our antenna output over there.

you can see and look at that little puppy. Nice little distributed well part of a distributed element uh filter going on there. uh, pretty much just basically coming out of there I'm not sure you know, that's probably the RF output uh Power transistor or something like that. Not going to decode those so 23 uh devices or anything like that.

Um, but yeah, there's not much else on there. Probably some local regulation around here. They're going to have the Uh Crystal oscillator associated with that uh Pall as well somewhere. I'm not sure where that is actually.

I can't see the oscillator down in there. Is that like a little that maybe looks like a little choke there? I Think that might be a little common mode choke between those things, but yeah, just some power regulation. Got some big uh tanms on there for some huge bulk de coupling and well, not a huge amount more. There's going to be more in the RF cans on the other side.

One thing you will notice is all of these uh test pads here all around here. These are for uh, production level testing. After they've assembled the board of course they've got a bed of nails uh, tester which this thing would be uh, plugged into, makes contact with the Pogo pins and does all of the RF testing for this thing which you know would not be easy some r Real expensive production RF test gear there I'm sure and that's inside one of the cans there. Not a huge amount happening once again.

I'm not going to decode those uh little uh so 23 type uh devices in there, but you know, probably some RF uh transistors or something like that little four pin package you don't see that uh, very often that's for sure. and just one six pin so 23 and a whole bunch of passives and not a huge amount under the other RF C But we do have ourselves a nice big wire round inductor there look at that puppy and some tiny little um SMD inductors and things like that. So yeah, not a huge amount. You'd have to really get the uh, schematic, um uh, proper to know really what's going on here and we'll have a look at what I call like the main uh processor kind of board.

Check this out we've got is that a 4051? There you go. You got to have some 4,000 series uh, Seos MX in there, that's for sure. And right here's a pretty uh critical comp it for a high quality wireless mic like this ON Semiconductor Sa 575 and that's a uh, dual channel uh compander. Well, one channel is a compander, the other channel you can configure as a compander, a compressor or an auto level uh, gain controller.

So really versatile. uh chip for um, you know, getting maximum uh dynamic range out of your audio signal. Awesome. So a compander is basically a combined uh compressor and expander uh circuitry.

and they're doing that to get the maximum use out of the available dynamic range of this thing. Pretty critical in these microphones so that they're basically, uh, going to automatically bring up the lowlevel stuff, but there's an art in doing that without amplifying the noise and and compressing some of that uh High stuff and things like that. So I I didn't think this one actually did in the reviews I Read: didn't actually uh mentioned that it had any, um, sort of aggressive, uh, uh, compression or you know, dynamic range compression or anything like that. So yeah, not exactly sure how they implement it in here and how aggressive it actually is up there.

We've got a Japan radio Corp Jrc 4580 pretty. uh Jelly Bean sort of Op amp. Uh, nothing much going along there once again. Probably lots of Tanel and maybe some local regulation and stuff like that.

It looks like probably, um, that might be part of the battery uh, switch M or the charging uh, circuitry linear technology charging circuit. being that it's right near the charges there. There we go going through an input diode and into there, so that's probably part of that charging stuff. and uh, not much else happening on top here.

We can't find the main processor, it's not there. There's another 4051 marks, but yeah, that's uh, main processor must be under the bottom there. Not sure what that one is. It's uh, not branded with anything familiar.

So I don't know I'm GNA Pop the board out and look at that. The whole thing just swings out. Once again, that is just absolutely beautiful product design. I Love that they've thought about how they're going.

You know, not designed for servicing really. But oh, you know, almost like it is. Uh, back in the old days. I'm not sure that they service these at component level, but oh, that's just beautiful how it all goes together and all in the one common hinge point there.

Oh, and here's a our main processor board. Once again, we can't get access to the processor, so it must be under the Uh LCD in there, just a chip on board LCD They've got the chip embedded in the top there. Uh, we got ourselves a crystal oscillator there. another Crystal oscillator here.

4 megahertz. We've got ourselves some uh, tactile uh Dome uh switches right on the uh PCB yes, that is an infrared uh transceiver because these things can actually, uh, talk to each other via infrared to actually sync. Fantastic. Nice little design touch there.

so they actually know that they're on the same frequency and you know the uh. The receiver can, uh, know exactly what the transmitter's on and vice versa. Brilliant. Even the front panels all diecast metal.

Just gorgeous. And you can see the backlight is just a single LED there going into that light pipe. and that's just fantastic. Very nice even light pipe from a single lead like that.

Very impressive for those playing along at at home. That's the LCD model number. and there we go. A fairly beefy little processor in this thing for what it's got to do.

really, it's an Nxp um LPC 2364 and that's a Uh 72 MHz Arm 7 processor 128k of flash. It's got all sorts of peripherals buil in 10bit Adcs and 10bit Dax, and Pwms and all sorts of stuff. It's a lot more powerful than I would have expected uh for something like this. So I don't know.

You got to wonder uh, what sort of uh, processing this thing is actually doing. And of course, they're most likely not running that thing at the full Uh 72 MHz capability. Of course it. You know that would be probably gross overkill on a Um product like this where battery life is pretty power.

Mar but this is quite a low power Uh processor. Very efficient in terms of uh, you know, number of myips per Watts So after the impressive little Uh transmitter there, let's take a look at the receiver. and as I said, this is a true diversity receiver. So it, uh, you know if you're going to get a wireless mic a real the real proper ones have diversity receivers in there and what that means? it's just a a Um.

There's many different types of uh uh techniques to uh diversity receivers, but uh, pretty much it just tries to eliminate uh, you know, multipath Distortion and stuff like that which can cause uh, dropouts which are really annoying on wireless mic systems like this. And here we go: I Expect this to be a very similar uh arrangement to what we had before of course. So if we get that open here and of course, what we expect to find, The interesting thing about a diversity receiver is that it's got to have dual antennas. And of course this only has one antenna so you got to wonder where the other one is.

Hm I Think we'll find out shortly. Pretty sure I know where it is cuz there's only one with this diecast case. Of course it can't be inside there. so how can we have a second antenna in this thing? Well, the only other output here is the Um AF Jack going across there and I bet you your bottom dollar that is going to be used as our second antenna.

Now if I can get this apart Wh? Yep, Oh look at that same hinge design. Beautiful. Oh what a Bobby Dazzler. Aha yeah, I was right on the money.

Check it out there we go. There's another looks like another distributed element uh there on the PCB and well, there's another one there. But yeah, here's the main receiving antenna and then the secondary one going up there through a little wire that goes up to the shield the outside Shield of the output um cable which goes to your uh to your video camera over here. So they are using that as the second antenna and that's how they get the uh uh diversity uh feature of this thing.

and of course um, you'll see some receivers that are diversity. They will have uh, you know, two separate antenna uh you know, usually one coming out here and one coming out here separated by X distance and well, that's another method to do it as well. A bit more controlled than this one with just the lead sort of you know, hanging out flapping around in the breeze there. but still, that's obviously going to work quite well as a diversity uh antenna system.

And just like before, we've got our top RF board here. Not a shielded can. Maybe there's a a can on the other side, but I can't really? uh, see? it may not be. But anyway, here's our input here.

We've got maybe an input um amp over here or something like that. Yeah, we got some sort of uh filtering happening around here. We got a huge big uh, uh, Tracer is that a ground uh plane there obviously stitched down in there through. There's a little Senheiser logo there on the PCB.

They've obviously got some uh via stitching around here to reduce the Uh impedance of the internal layer. It's obviously a multi layer board you can see in here. You can actually see the Uh copper on the inner layers down in there inside this thing. And uh, yeah.

so the Via stitching all around here. They're very common in RF systems just to lower the inductance of the Uh ground plane and the grounding system. little uh, ceramic, uh, hybrid modules there. Not sure what they're doing.

some sort of you know, RF device or something like that I don't know. Ahh, no idea if anyone's are familiar with those. Please let us know once again, all the Um test pads as well for the automated production test system. and no surprises for finding the exact same ADF 417 in the receiver as well.

the Uh PL to get that local oscillator frequency and you can see that uh connection tab much clearer here. it's a real big fat wide one going over to the Uh Shield of the TRS Jack there and to get this board out, I've had to desolder the Um tab there on the TRS Jack and we got ourselves four metal cans under there. Oh brilliant, but once again, we're probably not going to find a huge amount interesting. Under there, there's the top one very interesting little uh, eight pin, sort of extended uh So 23 package.

it's not I don't think it's a So 23, but yeah, um, with sort of like, you know, power um uh, you know, pins coming out either side. sort of double width. very interesting. And there's the antenna by the way with the uh second diversity uh pad over there which I desoldered and uh coupled in so they've got yeah.

one headed off over to here which is the cam we just looked at over there and you can see the filtering uh, the surface mount SMD inductors in there and uh, the caps and all sorts of stuff. and under this can not a huge amount. uh, interesting. another four pin uh, you know, power type device under there.

but of course this isn't a transmitter, it's only a receiver so that's interesting. and some um, nice huge um SMD wire round inductors there. aha look at that. 23033 MHz um oscillator module there with a no brand name chip.

It's just got 4127 there, so that's rather in and then 32 uh 44 which doesn't look like a day code. you know it wasn't manufactured in uh, uh, 1944, that's for sure. and the fourth can over here. Just some more basic stuff as well.

Nice little potted uh, inductor there. You can see like four turns on that sucker and uh, that's about it. But yeah, it's um, just most interesting that they've really, uh, gone to town here. really built and braces stuff in terms of uh, you know, uh, separating and shielding each section I mean very impressive and no surprises For the same uh, compan chip we saw.

uh, the companion one in the transmitter. you got to have one here on this side and a, uh, there's another uh Jrc Jelly Bean opamp and that looks like another Jrc opamp probably a T62 equivalent. Not going to bother to look that one up and and a couple of unpopulated Uh devices on this board though. So there is there another model I haven't uh, looked off hand I Don't know if there's another model there, but uh, certainly some unpopulated parts.

There's a Max 4581 um, analog switch. Nothing really special about there, and that's about all she wrote here, but on the other side, we'll probably find the same Nxp processor. Actually, the top side here is rather interesting. Check this.

I mean it's all the same You know we've got our infrared transmitter, we've got our Um oscillator there, two oscillators here, and our single lead diffuser. And you know, sort of the same stuff happening that we had before. but interestingly, it looks like we have some sort of interlock switch here and over here as well. Check it out.

Now at first I thought it was like a door. uh, switch. You know, to make sure the battery door is actually uh, locked in position like that, but you know it doesn't make contact with that battery door there. so it's certainly not that.

and on closer inspection, no, it's not a switch in itself. Um, it's just a surface mount spring contact like that. Maybe some um Spring contact grounding going to the front panel and yep, exactly the same Nxp uh processor on here. So yeah, no surprises because you're going to, uh, reduce your bill of materials, you use it on one, E, you're going to use it on the other, even though uh, you may not need uh, the same capability in both.

So that's the Sennheiser G3 wireless microphone system and I am very impressed. as you probably uh, could tell with the design and build quality of these things. Absolutely First class, The design of the Hine construction and how that all goes together. It's just beautiful first class quality uh components.

So you certainly do get your money's worth. You're what is it? 600 bucks worth. of these things. You know they're really expensive, but hey, you can't beat quality like this.

Just absolutely fantastic. They're built like a brick dunny. I Reckon they'll last forever. Fantastic! So there you go: I Hope you enjoyed that.

Uh, tear down of this Sennheiser designed in Germany made in the USA disassembled in Australia Sennheiser G3 If you want to discuss it, jump on over to the Evev blog. Forum The links, as always, are down below and if you like the video, give it a thumbs up. but the YouTube system is just these days anyway. Catch you next time.

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