Nothing is more important than communication with your teammates, and sometimes com solutions are needed to accomplish this when you find yourself in loud environments like concerts or sporting events, or even quiet environments like speeches and meetings. Finding the right system for the right budget can be a little tricky, but Saramonic has you covered for those looking to keep things simple, with its Saramonic WiTalk Wireless Intercom Headset System.
This system was designed for those looking for complete mobility. Allowing you to walk around without being tethered to any kind of wires. Simply a headset with everything built in. No belt packs or wires running to a base station. In some cases, there isn’t a base station at all (just the headsets).
You can have up to five headsets connected without a hub (any more than five and a hub becomes necessary). A truly wireless solution that is perfect for outdoor or indoor activities. Great for film, sports, studio, convention, and more. These headsets allow you to walk as far as 1,312 feet from the master headset (line of sight), making for a simple yet powerful system.
Saramonic’s headsets come in the typical single-muff and dual-muff design. In some cases, you may find that you want to keep one ear free to listen to your environment. In other cases, you may require deep immersion into the conversation while draining out the noise by covering both ears. You are able to mix and match as needed as long as you have one “master” headset and the rest “remote”.
Each headset is clearly marked on the side of the band, showing which one is the master and which ones are the remote units. Your kit/setup would simply have one master. Master is marked in a yellow accent (as seen above), while remote is marked with a black access.
The headsets feature a very simple button layout that includes a volume up and down button, a power button, and a mute button. Making control of the headsets a breeze as there are no apps or software needed.
Users can manually mute and unmute the microphone by pressing the mute button. Acting as a talk button that is press for on and press for off (no press and hold, which would get old quickly). You also have the option to swivel the boom mic upwards, which triggers an auto-mute.
The boom microphone can swivel in either direction, allowing you to wear the headset on either ear, and is fully bendable to make sure the mic gets to your mouth without any trouble. It features a condenser microphone at the end.
Each headset has a lithium battery that is detachable using a button on the opposite side of the headset of the controls. The small battery pops out and snaps back in quickly, allowing quick swaps during use in case you need to keep going. Additional batteries would be needed to pull that off, but the option is there if you need it.
The batteries are chargeable via USB-C and charge directly in the headsets unless you opt to buy a desktop charging station. In this case, you would pop all of the batteries out and slide them into that. The charging station seems to also automatically come with any kit that is larger than five headsets.
As mentioned, you are able to connect more than 5 if you are willing to make use of a hub. Once you add the hub into the mix, you are able to expand to up to 9 headsets. If you need more, you can use two hubs with a special link cable running in between, which gives you up to 17 headsets for a grand total.
This means that you can find a solution in this system for just about any need. At least, until you are looking for more advanced controls, networking, and other features found in big-name brands that cost much more than these do (and I mean MUCH more)
They operate within a 1.9GHz spectrum, helping to keep clear from commonly used frequencies. Just far enough below 2.4GHz to stay away from your typical wireless networks, and far from the frequencies usually used for wireless microphones. These headsets offer full duplex communication, allowing you to both talk and listen at the same time, in case others are chiming in as well. There is even side tone (where you slightly hear yourself in the mix) so that you know when your mic is open (working) or not.
Battery life is pretty decent with these when you are using fewer packs. You can get as much as 18 hours of use out of the remote headsets when you only have a few connected (master and remote). While up to 10 hours in the same condition.
These numbers come down a little as you connect additional headsets to your setup. Likely one of the major reasons you need a hub in the max once you get past five headsets as it might be a little too much for the master headset to manage without quickly draining the battery.
When it comes to comfort, the headsets feature leatherette muff cushions and a silicone headband cushion. Allowing for some noticeable comfort when having to wear them for long periods of time. They aren’t the absolute best when it comes to comfort and long-term use, but they are far from the worst all the same. So being that they fall into such an affordable price range, this makes for a great perk.
They are also decently light when it comes to overall weight. The single-muff headsets are the lightest, to the point that they somewhat disappear on your head if you have them adjusted properly. The dual-muff headsets have a bit more weight to them and this is noticeable after so many hours. While still not being terrible by any means.
The company provides storage cases with every kit or headset. Buying a full kit of two or more headsets will yield you a hardshell case to store everything into (seen to the left in the above image). Buying extra headsets seems to yield semi-hardshell cases with a zipper (seen to the right in the above image).
When buying into a kit, the headsets come individually tucked away into resealable bags that help keep them from rubbing against each other and scratching.
Finally, we keep mentioning how affordable these are and this is no fib. A basic three-pack (one master, two remote) comes with an MSRP of $659. Additional remote headsets are $149 each (single-muff). So that means a 5-pack would still fall under $1K. While a 9-pack will run you $1,549 (single-muff) or $1,999 (dual-muff), which is also incredibly affordable when it compared to fancy com solutions from the big-name brands.
In the below unboxing video, my colleague uses a great price comparison by showing that a 5-pack of these is less than $1K. While a 5-pack (kit/system) of wireless Clear-Com Freespeak II packs will run you $25K and involve being tethered down with a base station somewhere. Mind you, the Clear-Con kit comes with an interface that is completely filled with features and interconnectivity via analog and networked solutions. Clear-Com solutions are incredibly powerful and robust, but you are definitely paying for that.
These headsets are as simple as they come when it comes to features, adding to overall user-friendliness. As well as helping to keep that price tag as low as possible.
Performance
We ended up being a little impressed by how well they performed. They worked all throughout our offices here as we wore them on and off throughout the day. Their line of site range is great, although you do drop in the distance when you start adding multiple obstacles in the way (thick walls, etc). This isn’t a surprise though so it doesn’t really affect the score.
When it comes to sound quality, these do come in at a level we’d expect from Saramonic. This company has a long record of delivering some really great microphone solutions within a fair price range. So when these sounded crisp and clear, we were impressed but not surprised. For the price, these offer a great sound performance for both capturing someone’s voice over the mic and feeding it all to your ears via the muffs. It won’t exactly compare to a $25K system (of course), but for what you are paying for, this is fantastic.
The user-friendliness of the controls is perfect for anyone jumping into using intercom (com) solutions for the first time. There is no guessing involved as it’s as straightforward as it gets. The only tricky part involves syncing new/additional headsets to your system (and even that simply involves turning them on while holding the “+” button at the same time, both on the master and whatever new remote headset you are adding to it).
It would be nice to have a local aux-in connection on them so that users can connect something to feed into their own headset. So if one of the users is a camera person, they can also listen to the camera while also listening to everyone else. So in this case, I can see a camera person skipping on the use of one of these (unless they don’t need to personally listen to the audio coming in on the camera and only need to communicate with others for shots/angles/etc). Maybe on the next-generation model as some affordable companies are slowly starting to consider this with one already on the market (we just couldn’t say how they compare quality-wise to this system).
Our Conclusion
These are incredibly friendly to use, offer plenty of distance to them, and you can get a lot of headsets together without the need for a hub. While being able to expand further with a hub for those that need more than five users. It’s a good balance and helps deliver as much battery life as possible for those looking to go completely mobile. Perfect for those who simply need a single channel of intercom and not multiple channels or any need for additional settings.
They sound great for the price and the price is fantastic when it comes to beginners and prosumers looking to keep their budget low while still being able to get their hands on something that works. This makes for a great balance and a great find. We’ve quite enjoyed testing these and will have to see how well they do on a show floor one of these days.
It’s also quite nice that the kits also come with some nice plastic cases to carry them around in. Making sure your gear arrives in one piece with everything else.
| Our Rating | Average Price* $149 – $1,549+ |
*Average price is based on the time this article was published
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Specifications:
- Duplex mode: Full-Duplex (FDX)
- Modulation: GFSK
- Carrier frequencies: 1920-1930MHz
- Microphone type: Condenser microphone
- Operating range: Up to 1312ft (400m) without obstacles
- Frequency response: 300Hz-5KHz
- RF output power: <24dBm
- Power consumption: <0.5W
- Signal-to-Noise Ratio: 65dB and more
- Distortion: <1%
- Power requirements: Li-ion Battery 3.7V/1200mAh or USB-C DC 5V
- Battery life: Approximately 10 to 18 hours (with 2 Remotes) | 5 to 10 hours (with 4 Remotes)
- Dimensions: 6.9 x 8 x 3.4” (175 × 203 × 89mm)
- Operating temperature: -10°C to 50?
- Storage temperature: -20°C to +55?
Are you a manufacturer or distributor that would like us to test something out for review? Contact us and we can let you know where to send the product and we will try it out.
