My experience with Saramonic wireless mics

Hi, I’m Tyler and this is The Sharp Shooter. Teaching you valuable skills to make better videos.

Today, I’m sharing my experience with two different Saramonic wireless microphone kits. At the time of making this video, I’m not being paid by Saramonic or any retailers to promote or review these microphones.

I bought these microphones with real money and have used them on professional video shoots for the last year or so.

The first set we’ll look at is the UWMic9, which currently sells new for about $375. The second is the UWMic9S and sells new around $400.

For the sake of this video, I’m going to call the bigger one the “9” and the smaller one the “9S”.

These kits are similar.

Here’s a rundown of the basic features they share:

• They both use wireless UHF technology, running on the 500 megahertz (MHz) band.
• They include two microphone transmitters with one shared receiver.
  • I really like having only one box attached to my camera for the receiver, as opposed to two boxes compared to many other brands. That means less batteries, less cables, and a lighter load in my camera bag.
  • The receiver has stereo output, so you can record each microphone onto separate channels in your camera or recorder. If you need a mono mixdown, it can do that too.
  • The receiver comes with 3.5mm cables and XLR, and includes a 3.5mm headphone jack to monitor your audio – which is handy if you’re using a camera that doesn’t have a headphone jack.
• The microphones are omni-directional, meaning they pick up sound equally from all directions, which gives you flexibility when mounting onto clothing.
• The menu settings for these models are nearly identical, and I’d say they’re intuitive and easy to adjust.
• Both sets came with a hardshell case to keep them safe from the elements and basic wear and tear.
• Although $400 is a lot of money, these kits fall in that price point, and that’s considered really affordable for wireless mics.

Here’s where the two models differ. Let’s start with the 9

I bought this set for field and location recordings.

It runs on AA batteries. You can use standard alkaline batteries from any store. I’d recommend using professional batteries like the Duracell Procell, Ray-o-vac Ultra Pro, or Energizer Industrial. They also on rechargeable batteries.

I mostly used these mics with the Watson MX series, and they would easily last for full-day shoots on a single charge. Honestly, they would probably last longer than that, but I always try to charge my batteries at the end of the day.

Personally, I like that these mics run on AA, because if you’re traveling and fly commercially with them, you don’t have to worry about having too many lithium batteries in your luggage. The Watson batteries are nickel-metal hydride (NI-MH), so you can pack them in your checked luggage since they’re TSA compliant. Standard AA batteries can also fly in checked luggage – but lithium batteries cannot, they’ve got to be in your carry-on bags. If you’ve flown with your camera equipment, you know it can be a hassle.

Let’s talk about the 9S.

I bought two sets of these, and my use case was different from the 9 kit. I never planned on using these while traveling for recordings. I wanted these to be used indoors only.

They’re powered internal lithium batteries which are rechargeable. The set includes USB-C charging cables for each unit, but it did not come with a USB block to plug into a standard power outlet.

I like that these are rechargeable, because I bought them to use in an office-based recording studio for simple interviews in a controlled space. They get used about once a month, so the batteries should last a long time being charged and discharged on regular basis.

Although it came with a hardshell case, I keep the microphones on a shelf inside a cabinet where they are always plugged into the charger if they’re not in use.

One thing I noticed off the bat with the 9S is that the metal belt clips comes off really easily. It’s just a thin metal wire that’s molded to the size of the box with prongs that stick into each side. I use these for talking-head style interviews where the subject is seated, so I usually just ask the person to set the transmitter on their lap – or if they have a jacket, to drop it into the inside pocket. To me, it’s not a big deal. It’s kind of funny though, because people will instinctively try to clip it onto their belt, and the clip comes off every time.

Setup

Setting up these microphones is an easy process. Attaching the antennas, cables, and wired microphones is simple and intuitive. If you’ve ever used a wireless mic before, you should be comfortable setting these up.

The menu systems are simple too. I disabled the mute button on all the transmitters – and that’s just a personal preference so I don’t have a subject accidentally mute the microphone themselves during a shoot. For me it’s Murphy’s Law – if it can wrong, it will go wrong.

I also turned down the mic gain to 07. I don’t remember what they were set to by default, but they sounded a little hot. And I haven’t run into this myself, but I’ve read that if you have the older model 9 kit, with the yellow border display, it doesn’t have adjustable gain. Maybe you can fix that with a firmware update, I’m not sure. So, I’d stay away from those. No matter how much you’re paying for a wireless mic, you should be able to adjust the gain of the microphone signal.

The last thing I did was change the frequencies to the local area I’m shooting in to ensure I have no interference. If you’re not aware of how to do this, check for links in the description. I have another video that shows you how to do it with any UHF mic, step-by-step.

These mics do have an automatic frequency scanning option, but I would not trust it for UHF mics in this price point. Digital mics seem to work great with automatic frequency hopping, but I’m not going take a chance picking up static with these mics during a recording.

The rest of the settings, in my opinion, are good as-is.

Pros/Cons

The pros of both of these mics is that each of their features matched my needs really well. They were replacing some older Sennheiser G3 series wireless lavaliere sets, which worked great, but had been used for the last 10 years or so, and I wanted to use the Sennheisers for other projects.

The sound quality of these microphones are great in my opinion. There’s a very slight difference between these and the Sennheisers – I’d describe the Sennheisers having a bit more brilliance or crispness in the higher-end EQ frequencies, and maybe a bit more low-end presence too, but if you’re just using these microphones for voice work, the Saramonics sound great. I have no issues with the quality of sound.

The transmission range seems to be good too. I’m not really using these with a big distance from the transmitter to receiver. I think the most I’ve used them is about 30-40 feet, but they worked great and had full signal strength.

So, on the surface, these mics did exactly what I wanted them do to, they were reasonably priced, and sounded good.

I bought the 9S microphones first and one of the transmitters was dead-on-arrival. No matter how long it was plugged into the charger, I couldn’t get it to turn on. Fortunately, I didn’t need to use the microphones right away, and I was able to file a warranty claim. I called Saramonic, and they referred me to their warranty support team to figure out what to do. They emailed me a shipping label, and I sent the transmitter back to them, and they replaced it within a couple of weeks. They were really easy to work with, and I thought the turnaround time from my first phone call to receiving the replacement unit was very reasonable. The set has a two-year warranty, and I just had to include my purchase receipt with the return form inside the package.

I wasn’t too upset that it happened, because in my experience, most defective equipment that’s brand new fails pretty quickly. So the fact that it happened within the warranty period didn’t concern me, and I chalked it up to just being defective when it left the factory or maybe damaged in shipping.

Now, the 9 is a different story. I bought the 9 strictly for field use and shared it with a colleague of mine. The first week we used it, we produced several videos and it worked flawlessly. Over the course of about one year, he used it for several shoots too and never had a problem with it.

Just a few months ago, we were on a week-long shoot together and it failed. On our first day, we did an interview in the morning and it worked. We drove a couple of hours to the next location, set it up, and during the soundcheck it started cutting out and sounded like it had interference. I had checked the local frequencies beforehand, and we were in a good range, but we decided to change the frequencies anyway to troubleshoot. We tried both transmitters, and they were doing the same thing – producing static or no sound at all. Then, both mics stopped producing any sound. We spent a lot of time changing out the wired microphone elements, antennas, changing frequencies, using different cables from the receiver to the camera and got nothing. And unfortunately, we had to cancel that interview because we ran out of time.

And I’m not trying to toot my own horn, but I know what I’m doing with wireless mics. I’ve been using them for live sound companies, broadcasting, and other work for the last 10 years, using Sennheiser, Sony, Audio Technica, Azden, you name it.

Later, I noticed that the meters on the receiver registered the RF signal was strong, but it didn’t register any audio levels. I can’t explain what happened, but I later tried to use these mics with the 9S set, since they’re essentially the same microphones and run on the same frequency band, but they still did not work. It was like the whole system just died.

Luckily, they were still in the warranty period, and I sent them back to Saramonic. They didn’t explain what went wrong, but they actually sent me a brand new set, still sealed in plastic. So they full replaced everything in that kit, down to a new hardshell case. I did test the new set once it arrived, and it works – but it’s become the “backup” set because I’m kind of afraid to use it as the primary set.

Final thoughts

With both of those problems, I don’t think I’d buy another Saramonic wireless kit anytime soon. I do have to say that their warranty claim process was one of the best I’ve dealt with – so thank you Saramonic for that. And when these mics are working, they sound great.

I really like the 9S set for my studio work, and I will continue to use them. One set is passed the warranty period, and the second set is almost there, so I’m hoping they’ll last another few years. If they continue to work without issues, maybe I’ll give Saramonic a second chance in the future.

As far as the 9 set, I don’t plan to use it anytime soon. I actually went back to using my old Sennheiser set for the travel shoots, and my colleague is doing the same thing. Even though they’re at least 10 years old and they eat through batteries – even rechargeable ones – I’ve never had one fail.

And I’ve used the Sennheiser G series with different companies for years. We had them at the TV station where I worked as studio mics that were being used like 10 hours a day, every day… I used them for sound companies for live events, and personal use for video production for more than a decade, and I’ve never had one fail. I’ve had to replace parts like the wired microphone capsule it if it got physically damaged from wear and tear, but that’s to be expected. The transmitters and receivers never had any issues.

So that’s my experience with Saramonic. I would not recommend buying their UHF wireless mics. Maybe their digital 2.4gHz mics are better, maybe their wired mics are great – I’m not sure, I haven’t used them. But for me, there’s so much affordable competitors out there that make the same features, and I’m willing to buy used equipment to save money, if it’s good stuff, so there’s not a reason I’ll buy them again. Let me know what you think about them in the comments.