Beta Sight: Zaxcom TRX992

Tom Williams works at his sound cart. The Zaxcom TRX992 wireless system plays an important part during run-and-gun shoots.

Being a Zaxcom power user, I've eagerly anticipated the opportunity to put the new TRX992 digital wireless transmitter through its paces. Luckily, I just started a pilot for ABC now shooting in Boston. It seemed like the perfect time to try out the new boom transceiver from Zaxcom, and the company was more than happy to let me test drive a TRX992 for the run of the pilot.

Having a Deva hard disk recorder, a Deva 5.8 hard disk recorder, a Deva Mix-12 mixer, an IFB100 wireless transmitter, an STA100 stereo wireless transmitter, and three digital wireless systems, I am well-versed in the operating protocols and ease-of-use that characterizes Zaxcom products. The TXR992 proved to be no exception.

I received the TRX992 just a few days before production and only had one prep day, so I was pleased to find out how easy the set up was. Getting a signal to the TRX992 was as simple as plugging in the mic, in my case a Schoeps CMIT, and turning on the unit. The signal came up immediately, and I saw level on the Deva 5.8 and the Deva Mix-12. The preamp sounded great. In later workouts, I found it to be very forgiving on dynamic scenes, and it had a very warm, round sound with the CMIT. There is a mic/line switch in the battery compartment, but given the pace of this pilot, I didn't have time to go into line mode.

While getting the signal up was easy, I had a bit of a tougher time getting the IFB100 and the talkback working. I have had my IFB100 for a number of months and never really had the time to integrate it into my system, but to use the TRX992 to its fullest potential, I needed to wire in the IFB and go through the menus to set it up. At first, my boom operator, Joel Reidy, was happy to hear the Schoeps directly from the preamp, but he was not happy when we tried the talkback function. I sounded distorted and broken up, with digital artifacts that sounded similar to a Star Wars lightsaber. There also was a low-level tone that was always there and would drive you crazy by the end of the day.

Upon consulting the instructions, I found the problem: pilot error. The IFB100-TRX992 system has the ability to have two signals sent to the TRX992, such as talkback from the mixer and a timecode signal. To send both, the IFB100-TRX992 combo has to be set to Low Q or quality mode to accommodate the bandwidth for both signals. If just talkback is required, then High Q can be used, which results in extremely good-sounding talkback. My mistake was that both units were not set to the same function, which, in my case, needed to be High Q because I was not sending timecode. My utility man, Kevin Parker, pulled up the manual online, found my mistake, set both units to High Q and voila! Joel had a high-quality talkback coming at him.

Our normal wireless boom setup was either a Lectrosonics or Zaxcom body pack with a Denecke power supply and talkback provided by a Lectrosonics 100 series wireless system. This has been a tried and true method for a number of years and one that we were very familiar with, both pros and cons. As soon as the High Q issue was straightened out, Joel immediately commented on how clean the return audio sounded to him compared to our previous return system. This brings up an interesting point from a boom person's view. When my boom ops get a chance to put down their poles, they like the ability to keep the return audio on their belts, such as with my Lectrosonics 100 or R1a, so they can listen to set as they hit the craft table or whatever. The TRX992 took a bit of getting used to as there was no separation between the transmitter and receiver. Given the superior audio quality, however, I think that is a minor issue—and what audio quality.

Williams wears the Zaxcom TRX992 wireless transmitter while on the set.

Anyone used to working with TRX900s won't be surprised by the sonic quality of the TRX992, but for those new to Zaxcom and those who've had issues with wireless boom, this box will change your mind. As with my Sankens, the Schoeps shotgun had no noise floor. There were times that I had to ask my operator to speak into the mic to make sure the darn thing was on.

Now, to say that we had no problems would be a stretch, but again, given the speed that this show moved, it was hardly a comprehensive test. Every once in a while we had range issues with the IFB100 that we attributed to the TRX992 not locking onto the 2.4GHz signal. Once we made the lock again, the return was stable. It was hard to know what the issue was, but it is important to know that 2.4GHz is everywhere, so it's very hard to know where your interference is coming from—it could even be from the Preston follow focus that your focus puller is using. To that end, I think it would be a good idea to have the ability to choose the power output of both the IFB100 and the TRX992 up to 250mW.

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I used the previous incarnation of the TRX992, the TRX990, when it first came out, and while I was excited at what the box was meant to do, I was disappointed that the technology seemed just a bit out of reach to make it work flawlessly. All those issues have been resolved with the release of the TRX992.

With virtually no time to become familiar with the device and under the difficult shooting situations of a fast-paced network pilot, we used the TRX992 every day with no hesitation or failure. I look forward to making it a permanent part of my kit.

Tom Williams is a member of the Cinema Audio Society and Local 481 of the IATSE and has been working as a production sound mixer for features and documentaries in the Boston area since 1985.