Head mic or collar mic?

[billbenson]

At some point if the volume from the speakers and the volume from your lips is to great, you will get to much feedback and noise cancelation isn't going to protect enough from that. It sounds like you haven't had any problems, so I wouldn't worry about it.

[TimPiazza]

Lapel mics are usually omni-directional, meaning they are sensitive in every direction. Small distances make big differences with microphones. It's a logarithmic function, so the difference between 1" and 4" can be something like 8x difference. I'm not a mathematician, and if I were, I'd probably be sorry I tried to explain it. :-)

I was really just providing more information, not suggesting you should use a head-worn mic. It's all a matter of environment. A trade show, for instance, might be too noisy for a lapel mic.

Feedback is a tricky thing, when you do have to deal with it. Most of my stage experience is in a band setting where there are all sorts of environmental dynamics that change how the mic hears the room as the day or night progresses. Moving an acoustic instrument closer to a mic increases its sensitivity, an audience creating more ambient noise causes the sound engineer to push the PA volume to just under the point of generating feedback, then somebody moves away from a loudspeaker and all hell breaks loose. :-)

Tim

[Spider]

Very helpful - thanks. I had forgotten the exponential character of distance from source. I'm dealing with much quieter situations so the lapel mic works fine.

[Dan Furman]

I simply "like" a head mic better.