This article was written to complement the resources published by Sennheiser, since the decision to buy Sennheiser EW-D, or the more expensive EW-DX, or both, can be a bit complicated. Many people will be considering the switch from the long-standing EW analogue systems, probably EW G3 or EW G4.
See also: the Sennheiser web page, white papers on the evolution to digital, and Sennheiser’s EW-D information library.
There’s the online HTML manual and product information directory.
As yet, there is no IEM equivalent of the EW-D/EW-DX.
My guess is that EW-D will be the preserve of weekend singers, small venue installs, low-budget ENG, and kits for simple break-out rooms at small conferences. EW-DX is going to be for the main stage at city festivals, conferences, theatres, and career stage performers. Sennheiser have higher 6000 and 9000 series of their radio mics, aimed at high-end production companies, TV studios etc.
Upgrading from Analogue EW G4
The analogue systems came in four generations, so G4 is the newest and last. Within a generation, there are 100, 300 and 500 models, with 500 generally having the most features. The EW-D and EW-DX don’t have extra model levels, and only one generation so far. They are pitched as the replacement for G4 analogue.
The EW-D and EW-DX series don’t directly correlate as replacements for the 100, 300 or 500-series analogue models. If you aren’t using the PC software integration from the 300 or 500 series, and you don’t need more than four or eight channels, EW-D will probably suit fine and will be a capability upgrade in most ways.
If you want a larger system where monitoring and management become more important, maybe replacing an EW500 G4 radio rack with Sennhesier WSM software in active use, then EW-DX is probably best, but it’s going to cost around double per channel. The EW-D series can be managed and monitored with the bluetooth-based EW-D SmartAssist app, but not PC software.
There are some things you might lose. None of the digital options have configurable transmit power, but that shouldn’t be a problem for most users, with a quoted range of 100m. The EW-D transmitters have no onboard display or controls apart from power and sync buttons. The EW-D receiver doesn’t have a headphone socket. Although your existing antenna distribution amps can distribute the digital signals, only the EW-D receivers can be powered via their antenna input.
You could transfer any of your existing lavalier and handheld microphone elements to the EW-D/EW-DX series.
See the comparison chart below.
My Position
I’ve owned and used every generation of Sennheiser’s Evolution Wireless (EW) radio mics over 20ish years. My use case is being a one-man sound/light/video operation on a part-time basis, doing function bands, small music festivals and spoken word events. I prefer Sennheiser’s aesthetics and ergonomics over Shure gear, but that’s personal, and Shure have their own rival products at many market tiers that are all respectable in their own right.
I decided to upgrade from EW G3/G4 to digital for three broad reasons: to keep my gear current, to gain more control and monitoring, and to eliminate the very occasional noises that sometimes you get with analogue radio transmission. There are lots of other advantages, but their value varies by use case.
In the end, I bought EW-DX equipment for primary use and some complementary EW-D/EW-DP (camera) kit for its unique features or lower price.
Comparison Chart
Transmitters
| G4 Analogue | EW-D | EW-DX | |
| Display Screens | Yes, LCD | No | E-ink, visible when on and off |
| Indicator LEDs | Power/low battery | Status/battery level/low battery; Bluetooth | Status/battery level/low battery; Bluetooth |
| Control buttons | Power, menu control rocker, select | Power, sync | Power, sync, menu control buttons |
| Mute – SKM handheld | Pushbutton, 300 series only | Switch | Available with and without switch |
| Mute – SK belt pack | Switch | Switch | Switch |
| Mute switch override at receiver | No | Yes | Yes |
| AF/RF mute configuration | No | No | User-configurable |
| Configurable transmitter gain/trim | Gain | No | Trim |
| Input socket – SK belt pack | 3.5mm TRS | 3.5mm TRS | 3.5mm TRS or 3-pin socket |
| AA battery power | c. 8 hours | c. 8 hours | c. 8 hours |
| BA70 Lithium battery power | Not compatible (has legacy alternative) | c. 12 hours | c. 12 hours |
| Transmit battery remaining | Basic | Time remaining | Time remaining |
| Works with CHG 70N networked drop-in chargers | No (legacy drop-in chargers) | Bare BA70 battery only | SKM handheld, SK pack, and bare battery |
Exceptional Transmitter Models
EW-D SKP
The EW-D SKP plug-on transmitter ostensibly carries on the capabilities of the previous analogue SKP transmitters, which you can often see in news broadcasts attached to the end of a standard XLR microphone. The EW-D provides phantom power to the microphone, meaning it can be used with nearly any mic you like.
It has a couple of extra tricks though. It can hold and record to a micro SD memory card, which allows it to capture, say, a safety copy or a better copy of what goes to a video camera. It now also has a 3.5mm microphone socket and a mute switch, meaning it can do double-duty as an SK body pack equivalent, with a lapel mic or headset mic connected. To assist with that, there’s an EW-D SKP pouch to fix it to clothing.
Receivers
| G4 Analogue | EW-D | EW-DP | EW-DX EM2 | EW-DX EM4 | |
| Format | Rack 1U Half Width | Rack 1U Half Width | Camera mounting, magnetic stacking | Rack 1U Half Width | Rack 1U Full Width |
| Receiving channels | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Display | Dot matrix backlit LCD | Custom backlit LCD | Dot matrix, OLED | Dot matrix, OLED | Dot matrix, OLED |
| Sync settings to transmitter | Infrared close-range | Bluetooth | Bluetooth | Bluetooth | Bluetooth |
| Direct Individual Power | Low Voltage PSU | Low Voltage PSU | USB-C PD Power Input | Low Voltage PSU | 230V IEC C14 inlet, internal PSU |
| Alternate Power Input | Antenna socket (from Sennheiser ASA series) | Antenna socket (from Sennheiser ASA series) | No | PoE | No |
| Battery Power | No | No | Yes – charges and runs from BA70 battery | No | No |
| Antenna Connection | 50 ohm BNC | 50 ohm BNC | Fixed mini antennas | 50 ohm BNC | 50 ohm BNC |
| Antenna Power Out | No | No | NA | No | Yes |
| Antenna DA | NA | NA | NA | Internal 2-way split | Built in, with loop-through |
| Dante connectivity | No | No | No | Dante and non-Dante versions | Yes |
| RJ45 sockets | One, except 100 series | No | No | One, or three on the Dante version | Three |
| Wired network control | Wireless system manager (except 100 series) | No | No | Wireless system manager or Sennheiser Control Cockpit | Wireless system manager or Sennheiser Control Cockpit |
| Bluetooth Control and Monitoring (EWD SmartAssist – 16 channels) | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Configurable output gain | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Exceptional Receiver Models
EW-DX EM4
When you compare buying one of the EM4 vs. two of the EM2, you don’t need to buy a separate antenna splitter with the EM4 as it’s built-in. You can daisy-chain up to a total of four EM4 units for 16 radio channels. The EM2 units would need one EW-D ASA per four receivers (eight radio channels).
The EM4 is the only receiver to have a built-in 230V PSU.
EW-DP
This dinky receiver is officially part of the EW-D series and is aimed at videographers.
- It can be mounted on a camera tripod screw and comes with a magnetically-attaching cheese plate for mounting it onto video rigs.
- The magnetic attaching function also allows the receivers to stack.
- You get an XLR output lead with it, but the signal isn’t balanced.
- It’s USB-C powered or can run off the BA70 battery, which it can also charge.
- There’s no option for external antennas – just the short attached ones which can be angled.
- It can display the remaining transmitter run-time in hours and minutes, which the desktop EW-D receiver can’t.
- It’s got a headphone output as well as the line out. You could sort-of use it as an IEM receiver.
By System Family
All systems use the same radio spectrum.
| G4 Analogue | EW-D | EW-DX | |
| Transmission method | Analogue with compander | Digital with Sennheiser codec | Digital with Sennheiser codec |
| Transmission latency | None | 1.9ms | 1.9ms |
| Channel layout | Intermodulation-free sets | Equal frequency spacing | Equal frequency spacing |
| Link density mode, more channels at reduced range | NA | No | Yes |
| Encrypted signal transmission (AES-256) | No | No | Yes, user-activated |
| Upgradeable firmware | No | Yes | Yes |
PC Management Software
The EW-D series can’t be managed by the PC software, just the phone/tablet app. You have two extra PC-based choices with EW-DX:
Wireless Systems Manager
Familiar to some analogue EW users, WSM is orientated around radio microphone set-up and monitoring.
Sennheiser Control Cockpit
This is aimed at monitoring and configuration of an estate of Sennheiser equipment covering more than just radio mics. It doesn’t do RF spectrum scanning, but it does support comprehensive level monitoring and configuration of receivers and transmitters (via the receivers).
Control Cockpit can be run in a server mode that allows remote client instances.
www.sennheiser.com/control-cockpit-software
Radio Frequency Choices
See the official page on the frequency ranges. Make sure you know what is legal in your area.
In the UK, the licence free band is covered by Sennheiser’s U1/5 variant – the UHF licence exempt range is 863.100-864.900 MHz. This is within TV channel 70.
Most UK production companies will be using TV channel 38 (defined by Ofcom as 606.500-613.500 MHz) which is covered by the EW-D S1-7 (606.2-662MHz) and EW-DX S1-10 (606.2 – 693.8 MHz) variants. The EW-D S1-7 frequency chart suggests channel presets 2 to 12 fall into that. The EW-DX S1-10 frequency chart suggests channel presets 2 to 13 fall into that, using 600kHz spacing. Link density mode would double the channel count by using 300kHz spacing.
Sound Quality
I haven’t done any tests by sending test signals through the system but I have been more than happy with the sound quality of the handhelds and packs for voice.
Mixing and Matching EW-D and EW-DX Radio Mics
You can mix the -D and -DX transmitters and receivers. You will not be able to do certain things that are the preserve of an end-to-end -DX system, such as link encryption or link density mode. My EW-D handheld can send battery life information to an EW-DP or EW-DX receiver,in spite of the fact that the EW-D receivers can’t show this.
Requirement for Sync
Any receiver can receive any transmitter without synchronisation, provided that it’s set to the same frequency and that link encryption is off. Using Link density mode will also preclude reception by an EW-D family receiver.
Links and Synchronisation
All control/monitoring links with the receivers are continuous, except the Bluetooth synchronisation to the transmitter, which is a transient one-time thing.
A possible exception to this is when an EW-DX receiver is managed via Sennheiser Control Cockpit and the sync options are set to update on-the-fly.
Synchronisation of a transmitter to a receiver will copy various control parameters from the transmitter to the receiver, not just transmit frequency. The receiver does not acquire any of its configuration from the transmitter.
Antenna Splitters (Distribution Amps)
Broadly speaking, RF signals are agnostic to which distribution/amplification they go through, so long as it passes the relevant frequency range.
The official splitter for the digital series is the EW-D ASA. Other splitters covering the right frequency band are likely to distribute the radio signals just fine.
Whilst the EW-D receivers can be powered from the EW-D ASA via their antenna sockets, the EW-DX EM2 receivers can’t (but they can take PoE power or low voltage DC on barrel plugs). The EW-DX EM4 does not need an extra antenna splitter unless you want to go above four units (16 radio channels), which is the cascade limit on the built-in splitters.
Latency/Delay
The analogue systems have no inherent delay, whereas the EW-D/EW-DX systems have a 1.9ms transmission delay due to the digital encoding, decoding other processes.
1.9ms is about how long it takes sound to travel 63cm through the air. That means that sound takes about 3x as long to travel from a floor monitor to someone’s ears as it took for the digital radio mics to send the signal from the transmitter to receiver output.
As relevant comparisons, Shure SLX-D has a latency of 3.2ms and Shure QLX-D is 2.9ms. Digital sound desks also add their own processing delays from input to output. The Allen and Heath SQ series add about 0.7ms, and the Behringer X32 adds 0.8-1ms or more.
Charging Options
The EW-D series and the EW-DX series transmitters all take the BA70 lithium battery, but with the EW-D series you always have to take it out to charge it.
The simplest charger is the L 70 dual-slot USB charger, which comes with a USB-C power supply.
The CHG 70N-C is a drop-in charger that takes a pair of BA70 bare batteries or EW-DX SK belt packs or EW-DX SKM handhelds. It can be powered by a 12V mains PSU (kit CHG 70N-C + PSU KIT) and up to five units can be cascaded together, or units can be individually powered by PoE. Therefore, a suitable PoE switch could power a bank of CHG 70N-C. The network socket can also be used with Sennheiser Control Cockpit or Wireless Systems Manager to monitor the chargers. (There’s a legacy discontinued version called the CHG-70N which doesn’t have the ability to fix the chargers together in a cascade. I bought two. They work well with Control Cockpit monitoring.)
The maximum charging time for the L 70 and CHG 70N is the same: 3.5 hours. Both chargers use a coloured LED to indicate charge level in three levels + complete.
If you really want a rack-mount charger, you could buy the L6000 rack unit with some LM6070 BA70 battery modules. It will be expensive and you still have to take the batteries out of the transmitters to charge them.
If you have the EW-DP receiver, this can also charge a BA70 battery internally, which can then power the receiver or be removed to put in a transmitter.
Sennheiser don’t appear to reference the use of NiMH rechergeables with the digital radio mics.
Capsule Compatibility
Good. If it works on G4, it will work with the EW-D/DX. The full list is in the manual.
Firmware Updating
Receivers can be updated using Wireless Systems Manager, Control Cockpit or the Smart Assist App. You’ll probably find that the app doing the update needs to be on a device that also has an internet connection.
Only receivers can update transmitters, and they do it wirelessly with firmware they’re already carrying on board. (Once I interrupted a firmware update by loading a transmitter with a low battery. I thought I’d bricked it. Amazingly, with a new battery it continued the update and worked.)
Logic dictates that you should update your receivers first, then see which transmitters updates you can do after that.