Sennheiser Spectera SKM Handheld Transmitter Starts Shipping

Sennheiser has started deliveries of the Spectera SKM, a handheld transmitter for its Spectera wideband wireless system. With the SKM in place, the company says the core components of Spectera are now complete. The handheld is aimed at live sound, theatre, broadcast and houses of worship.

One wideband channel for audio and control

Spectera is based on Sennheiser's WMAS approach. Audio, monitoring and control data travel over the same wideband RF channel, so no separate wireless control network is needed. The SKM stays in constant two-way contact with the Base Station. Engineers can watch link quality, signal strength, audio levels, RF performance and battery state as they happen, and change settings such as gain and low-cut from a distance.

Instead of assigning a separate narrowband frequency and receiver channel to every new handheld, engineers add the SKM as another device inside the existing wideband environment. Sennheiser says this simplifies RF planning and improves resistance to fading. Product manager Bernd Neubauer said the ecosystem will keep growing with new software features, hardware and services.

Hardware and specifications

• UHF (470-608 and 630-698 MHz) and 1.4 GHz (1350-1400 and 1435-1525 MHz) versions, subject to national rules
• Latency as low as 1.0 ms
• RF power up to 50 mW, AES-256 encryption and an OLED display
• Metal body, 196 mm long, about 196 g without battery
• More than 6 hours in live mode on the BA 70 or BA 70 2.2 battery shared with the SEK bodypack

The SKM accepts a wide range of Sennheiser and Neumann capsules, including the new Neumann KK 104 A and KK 105 A heads as well as the KK 204 and KK 205 and Sennheiser models such as the MD 9235 and MMD 935-1. Each Spectera RF channel can carry up to 128 mobile devices.