Rechargeable batteries for Mics - BAD idea? ( Eneloop 🆚 Ansmann 🆚 PowerOwl ) 

EnergizerMax - 7 hours 3 min Power Owl - 9 hours 15 min Amazon - 9h55m IKEA - 10h40m Sennheiser Ba70 - 10 hours 52 min 3 year old Ansmann 10h 56m NEW Eneloop 11h 21m

I've used the Eneloops for a while and one thing I like to do is use a label maker and put the date purchased on each battery so if they start underperforming we know how old they are. Thanks for this video! Having a battery tester on hand is a great tip too.

Thank you for this video Ryland! I work in the film industry as a sound mixer and just recently got Deity Microphone's new Theos UHF system which requires AA batteries for powering. I appreciated your knowledge and expertise on the 4 different batteries that you tested and for providing your honest recommendations for each.

Great information, Ryan. Thanks for sharing the information about Ansmann

I have use Ansmann for many years and they have worked really well lasting from 7 - 12 for two services. I will note that at least in my Shure UHF-R wireless handheld they are snug so you may want to consider their "Slimline" series

Great job, you had me at pasture! That was a little farm humor.

I don't know how i wasn't aware of ansman. I've been pretty happy with enloop and powerowl for the last 2 years.

Just ordered Ansmann yesterday!

The point you make at the end is important: Rechargeable gives you peace of mind at every event, because all batteries are full. Total runtime is not that important in most use cases, as you probably never hit that duration of an event. Better chargers have a mode where they can measure the capacity of the battery (by charging full, discharge until empty, charge to full and measure that), especially after a few years that is advisable so you know which battery is in what state. Based on that info I put batteries with similar capacity together for uses where they run until empty (think wireless keyboards, string lights and similar), so all batteries drain around the same time.

We actually just started testing out rechargeable AA batteries. We got the Panasonic Eneloops and they worked flawlessly. We are going recharge them every service just to make sure

Great stuff, thanks Ryland! Short, sweet, informative. Doing great things for God’s glory. Blessings from Tacoma.

hello, and thanks for the detailed video about the double A batteries. it really helps us a lot. we are deffo going for the eneloop batteries when it comes to AA. but my question is: our body packs work with 9v batteries. and there are multiple types of these, maybe the most notable are the Li-Ions and the NiMhs. which im sure you know the pros and cons of both. which ones do you recommend for the body packs? You think we should go for higher cappacity and get the Li Ions or for higher voltage and get the NiMh? Also what brands do you recommend for the 9v ones? thanks again, and looking forward for your advice

Thank you!! A quick answer and love your testing standards! Really appreciate you taking the time to make this. I think the environmental impact of using rechargeable is a win as well. Thanks again!

We used to use Eneloop Batteries in the past, but recently we found that the newer shure products require 1.5v and Eveloop only provides 1.2v. So recently we updated everything to Tenavolts 1.5v Lithium batteries and it’s been great.

Thanks for doing this video. Once you charge the batteries how long do they stay in the battery ladder before you use them? Second question is do you discharge the batteries between each charge or just every so often?

Learning about the battery storage ladder was worth the whole video. 😂 I use Power max AA's. It's the brand that Shure recommends. So far, I've only had 3 battery go bad. Had them over 2 years.

Loved the video.. I’ve had success with Eneloop AAA in the past…Would’ve love to have seen Amazon Rechargeables in your test to see how they faired with the pro audio gear - considering price. We’ve got a bunch but I haven’t really measured its durability outside the length of a worship set.

thank you for this video , real life feedback is the only way

Thanks for the video! What rack do you use for your EW-D mics and antenna distributor at 1:31?

I'm using Eneloop(1900mAh/2100 cyles) & Eneloop Pro(2500mAh/500 cycles) for a decade, top performer and most reliable batteries I've ever used. Every single eneloop battery has very little production date stamp on and you can check dates when you need, also if you use one of Panasonic's advanced chargers like CC-55, CC-87 and CC-65 it will indicate if your battery is near end of it's life. Which not happened yet for my eneloops but Duracell NiMH batteries :)

The title of this video caught me off guard, are people not using rechargable batteries? It's less wasteful and they're always at 100% on Sunday morning. I recommend getting a rack mounted charger and more batteries than you need, that way while one set is being used another set is charging.

Thank you ... Peace and Light ..

The best so far has been the energizer ultimate lithium aa batteries but they're expensive. Are there any lithium rechargeable batteries that come close to them?

Thanks for this review! i have a senn. xws2 mic system and a phenyz pro ptm10 wireless iem system i purchased deleepow lithium which seem to run well on the senn. but the phenyx display acted weird(flickering signal meters)do have any thoughts on lithium? also i've heard the regular eneloop non-pro is better than the eneloop pro. i would appreciate you view on these questions thanks! God bless bro!🙏

I've been using Energizer rechargables for years and haven't needed to replace them. I understand Duracell makes good batteries, too.

Do you have a picture of the microphones during your test? Batteries use to drain a little bit faster if there is metal really close to the transmitter (e.g. you put the transmitter on a piece of aluminium foil). So if you put one mic on a stand and put the other mic on a sheet of metal, the first one will last some minutes longer.

We don't use 9v batteries much in our church, as we only have 1 thing that uses them, which is a guitar that the guitar player brings in every Sunday. I don't know how much they use the guitar elsewhere if at all, but I know we probably use maybe One battery in church every year or two, unless of course they're changing the battery out at home somewhere, which could in theory change that number, if it was strictly for church use... I'm not really sure if rechargeable 9 volt batteries are that important in that particular use case... Any ideas there??? It's a little different with AA batteries though, because we have both a headset mic that we try to use only 2 weeks for the approximately 2 to 3 hours each, on a single set of batteries, and since we don't turn our handheld microphones off when they're not being used, and at most mute them on the device itself if not just leave them wide open, we try to use them at most 3 weeks in a row before replacing them... Now, that's just including Sundays and not other days of the week, which really irks me sometimes because they will have a wedding ceremony or a funeral or something that requires a microphone, and they will automatically put new batteries in sometimes, when I already have new batteries in, that have only been used one week, and I have a chart in a folder that I color in days that they are used which does not get used on those days, since I'm not the audio video man on those days usually... For a note of reference, each box is referring to one week not one day but all the same, so three boxes filled in with pen or whatever would be referencing 3 weeks worth of Sunday level of usage... Mostly when I'm done with AA batteries at church, I bring them home and use them till they're completely dead in my Quest 2 controllers, but often times it just feels like I'm going through so many batteries at church, that I'm going to eventually buy some kind of battery charger, and rechargeable batteries specifically for the purpose of the audio video ministry at the church to hopefully try and save the church some money, because buying Duracell batteries in those 16+ packs at least 5-6 times a year isn't very economical... I can see using non-rechargeables for clocks but that's about it, and the reason for non-rechargeables for clocks is because I'm not the one changing clock batteries therefore I wouldn't want my good rechargeables to be tossed out on accident... One question I have though, is what a good battery charger for a professional setting such as for a church audio video person's role would be... I've seen the ISDT brand c4 Evo and c4 air, which are smart chargers with a twist, that being that the evo model has an LCD panel, which allows you to change many different settings on how the batteries are charged, and gives you voltage and milliamps information on your batteries while they're charging, and the c4 air does the exact same thing at half the price because it uses a cell phone app presumably hooked up over Bluetooth, to provide that same functionality, And was wondering if there would be Some kind of use that such advanced battery charge level reporting could be used for in such a professional setting? If there is no real use for such a advanced setup, similar to the devices that I just mentioned, then aside from that what would be the things you would want to look for in a rechargeable battery charger for AA batteries? (Or any kind of batteries not just AA) We (read *I*) have a small area to work with, but no easily accessible plugs for a wall style charger and am looking at desktop based variants to plug into the wall plug via cable or a USB wall jack... One last question I have, is that, because of the fact that we use only four AA batteries at a time, 2 each for a headset mic and handheld mic, originally I was thinking a total of eight batteries would be all I would need, but now that I have found this video, I have to ask the question, even though I'm using only four batteries at a time, would there really be any benefit to having more than eight batteries, when they are not used usually that much to make more than 1 spare set a requirement? Also, what's the best way to store rechargeable batteries? In the battery charger, in a battery case, or something else completely? Is there anything that I'm missing on asking about, or am I asking all the right questions, or the wrong questions???

Just received an order of Ansmann 2850 AA's and Ansmann Chargers. I'm curious if you 'marry' your batteries in pairs, or if thats necessary with these? Trying to plan ahead to maximize our investment. Thanks!

How often are you recharging the batteries? Is it a put them on the charge on Sunday after services and then back in the mics at rehearsal?

I noticed the Sennheiser EW-D manual calls for 1.5v AA’s and the Eneloop Pro and Ansmann’s are both 1.2v. Could this potentially mean a weaker range for the transmitter since they’re under the power recommended?

I am the first view! Best way to start my day. Actually this is something so helpful for our church. Thanks for sharing this.

So is anyone looking at the self discharge rate of using rechargeable batteries? 2. Most rechargeable(if not all) are 1.2v as against 1.5v the device recommends. Will these not affect the mics causing them to use more strenght to makeup for the difference?

Look for the powerex smart charger. Don't get the one with 8 ports unless you really need that amount of ports to charge. The 4 port Maha powerex gives you so much control over charging. For what your using batteries for I would recommend Eneloop pro and Ansmann for capacity. Eneloop have a great low self discharge where as I'm sure you are aware Ansmann give great capacity.

How much does voltage matter? Shure and Sennheiser Recommend Not to use anything lower than 1.5V When I called them.

We have Ansmann batteries and the Energy 16Plus charger will refresh your batteries in order to keep them good longer. It also has an error light that indicates if the battery is no good any more.We've been very happy with them for several years. As someone else mentioned, the "slimline" batteries are very helpful for going into some things, such as the Audio-Technica wireless pack our pastor uses. It's just a little too tight for the standard size AAs.

Is there a charger that have a feature to restore dead rechargeable batteries. My dumb energizer charger blinking red. And my energizer AAA batteries less than 1 year old only recharge few times.

I was surprised that you got longer run times out of the rechargeables. I've never tested them, but I know people who are always quick to say that rechargeables don't last as long. I've never been too concerned about run time because we always pop freshly charged batteries in.

Eneloops are awesome. Highly recommended.

I am a professional Sound mixer and trust Nothing but Ansmann. I have put Professional (Lectrosonics) Transmitters on 4 different Presidents, captured truly unique Documentaries and will Never trust Nothing less.

IKEA LADDA 2450 here. Made in Japan in same factory as Eneloop Pro. With same test results. Sometimes better. But at half the cost. $8.99 per four. Alkaline also have lowe mAh than rechargeables. And to fully use an alkaline regarding your issue of trusting it. Use them fresh on Sunday and continue to use them on rehearsal night. Always change out batteries on Sunday mornings whether rechargeable or Alkaline.

If you happen to live near an IKEA you can pick up their Ladda batteries, they’re reskinned Eneloop pros and cost half as much. Little life hack for ya.

Wait. Why is nobody talking about the environment? Using one set of batteries for a year (or a few years) vs one set per week. We’re stewards of God’s creation. We gotta take care of this beautiful world He’s created for us!

Powerowl is so much cheaper than the others

Rechargeable batteries will always pay for themselves. Maybe not the Eneloops because they are wildly overpriced, but the every other brand will for sure be worth it.

8 batteries and a charger for 125 dollars? is this a joke?

Likes your vid until the holy roller crap.