Al Krow

I think the main beneficiary to a band's sounds from decent subs is actually for the kick drum in the 60 to 80 Hz range and not for the bass. In fact, no need for the bass to be occupying that same low-end space in competition with the kick as that's likely only going to muddy the sound, so recommend HPF'ing the bass accordingly. We get by just fine without subs, but in comparison to eg @bassfan's crew 24K, it's undoubtedly a thinner sound than they are delivering on similar gigs. At a pub no biggie, but for function work at bigger venues and with a more party/dance vibe, I would personally lean to 24K's bigger sound with subs, over ours without.

Really good run through of wireless systems generally: In terms of 5.8GHz systems - he gives a big thumbs up to the Nux (14.20) and also recommends the Lekato (14.44) as a more budget option. My own experience is that the Nux works better with my active basses (apparently it's advertised as being designed for active bass compatibility) and doesn't have the distortion that the Lekato had when digging in. With the Nux, I'm finding that if you max the treble EQ and with certain directions / positions of Nux transmitter you can get a high-pitched whine, but having the treble at normal settings and lining the transmitter bug either towards or away from the very bottom of the bass, depending on which bass and where the preamp is located, pretty much eliminates that whine. PS - liked his point that we're never going to eliminate the risk of drop-outs with wireless, even Metallica with some of the highest end gear on the planet and large sound crews suffer from occasional wireless drop-outs!

Are you using your Lekato 5.8 Ghz with an active or passive bass (in terms of preamp)?

Cheers Russ - the ZS10s have absolutely been a gateway IEM and proved the concept to my band for relatively minimal outlay (we managed to pick up a pack of 4 for £100 for the full band from AliExpress). To that end they've certainly proved their value and done the job.

What's been the key that's made you return to the fold?

For these purposes, anything with a strong beat. Starting with Disco I guess (rather than 50s/60s rock'n' roll).

I think the key part of that is "a good pair of 12s". In which case, sure, definitely perfectly decent for most pub gigs. Having said that when I've heard bands with decent subs added to good 12" tops, it's definitely been a "bigger" sound, and if the vibe is dance music rather than "listen to" music then that bigger sound can make quite a difference.

Thanks for sharing that. Oooh, that's going to put the cat amongst the pigeons! He's not at all keen on the BC goto KZ ZS10s!! (at 12.33+) Interesting that he rates the single driver Moondrop Aria and Dunu Titan S much more highly that the 5 driver KZs and says that number of drivers does not necessarily equate to quality of sound, which goes against the received wisdom we may have bought into. If you get the Moondrops - please do let us know how they stack up against your KZs.

Did you manage to get any improvement on the IEM sound? I guess we've been pretty content with our KZ ZS10 Pros for monitoring, which coincidentally we are also using with the Xvive U4 wireless system (decent value and very compact), as we can hear each other pretty clearly, albeit I do boost the bass on my individual mix! Tbh I've not really expected that the sound from the £50 KZ IEM headphones should be on a par with what our RCF 912A (£1k) or 735A (£1.5k) PA speakers are delivering FoH. But maybe I would if I had invested £650+ for the UE6 or similar high-end IEM headphones. The fairer comparison would be with the £200 monitor we previously used and the IEMs are decently on a par with that and obviously present us with less feedback issues. Out of interest what channels did you settle on for Xvive U4s? Singer and I are using 1 and 5 respectively, which seem to be working fine.

I spoke too soon about the Samson Airline also being at 863 Mhz, based on one retailer's description. I guess it has the possibility to be 863Hz, however...from the manufacturer, it has "100 wireless channels over a wide 25 MHz bandwidth and uses one-touch scanning to automatically select the clearest channel available in your performance space." Maybe not a surprise that it can find a frequency that's not going to result in drop outs, but not sure it's going to be permitted tech in the UK? So I guess I'll be sticking to @Chienmortbb's recommendation of sticking with my 5.8 GHz wireless options, to minimise the interference drop-out risk.

A couple of us have found the Lekato 5.8 GHz to be a bit noisy / distort slightly. For me it's on 2 out of 3 of my gigging basses - but all three are active basses. So I think it might be more accurate to say it's not compatible with some active basses. Trouble is you're not going to know which ones in advance - guess that's the advantage of being able to return stuff on Amazon! Correction: got my Spector back, the Lekato 5.8 Ghz is a little bit noisy with that, so actually that's 3 out of 3 active basses it doesn't seem to be playing nicely with.

Thanks for that! The fact that it's at a significantly lower frequency will likely have a direct bearing on the reason for being capable of delivering a longer range - one of the downsides of going up from 2.4 GHz to 5.8 Ghz. Actually when you mentioned Channel 70, it reminded me that I'd had a conversation with Russ (the fella you're not impersonating on TV) about this very topic, a while back when our singer was looking into getting a wireless, so I should really have remembered it was a legit frequency channel! His advice, back then, which I hope he doesn't mind me reproducing as it seems very relevant to our discussion about crowding-out, was as follows: "Basically there are two bands that you should be interested in. Channel 38 and Channel 70. These are 606-614Mhz and 863-865Mhz respectively. Channel 70 is free to use but typically you’ll only be able to use 3 or 4 devices in that area of the spectrum. The gotcha with this is that a) you can only use a low number of devices b) most DJs, venue mics likely to be on this band. Channel38 enables you to run 12 devices (assuming no hi density devices are in use) in that piece of the spectrum but requires something called a shared mic license from Ofcon to use legally. These are available in one or two year licenses. The advantage to this is obviously more devices and it’s also less likely that you will encounter interference. Channel 38 is where you should be really." But I guess if we're wanting to avoid getting a shared mic licence for Channel 38, which these units aren't offering anyway, then the issue is are we going to be any better off with Channel 70 at 863 - 865 MHz than 2.4 GHz in terms of what's crowded / likely to cause interference?

That is super helpful confirmation, thank you! Apologies if this has already been posted, but just came across this: Best guitar wireless systems 2023 | Guitar World What's very reassuring is that pretty much all our favoured options on this thread feature in the list! I'm intrigued by the last mention on here - the AKG WMS40 (£105) and also the Samson Airline (£155) which allegedly has the best range. Both these operate at 863MHz. Is that a legal / permitted frequency band in the UK? I'm guessing it must be otherwise Gear4Music and Bax wouldn't be selling them? Paging @EBS_freak, wirelessly of course...

Yeah some really good points - cheers guys. Does seem that a lot of this is going to come down to individual circumstances. Just reminded myself that the significantly poorer range and much more frequent drop-outs on my Boss WL-20s, which had previously worked really well and provided excellent range (please see link - don't try this at home 😅), coincided with a couple of us in our band moving to Xvive U4 IEMS, which are 2.4 GHz, and I guess have literally been crowding-out the Boss WL-20s. And maybe supporting that conclusion, we recently did a 2 hour outdoor gig when we weren't using our IEMs, as the PA output was easy enough for us to hear, and the Boss worked fine with no drop-outs while I stayed within line of sight.

Thanks for sharing that! Two things - firstly: that drop out at 02.12 in the clip is a really good illustration of a typical drop out. Secondly - love your band, very cool!

Seems like there's a 2.4 GHz crowding issue that's going to be there regardless of the quality of the unit i.e. not something that the Shure GLDX16 is going to be able to escape - which makes sense. As @BassAdder60 mentions the ability to offer 5.8Ghz as well as 2.4 GHz seems to be a key upgrade feature of the Shure GLDX16+ and the unit automatically selects the optimal band/channel. I think there's a few 5.8 GHz in the £100 to £250 price range i.e. comparable to the WL-20 e.g. the NUX C-5RC have an RRP of £189 but are available from some retailers for around £140.

What was the issue with the Shure for you? I was going to ask how the HB compared to the Shure and it seems you're actually happier with the HB?

So here's the thing about "every penny" 😄, and I totally get this is most likely just my weird way of looking at the world: we've invested in a similar quality desk (albeit ours doesn't churn out 1,600W, we've left that to the powered speakers!) and it costs a similar amount i.e. around the £400 mark. Given just how important a desk (and PA) is to band's sound, it just feels the wrong priority to be spending £500 on a wireless just for the bass, when you and I have both spent less on our mixing desk? Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way and I'm sure there will be plenty of views in the opposite direction. But I think I'll likely be seeing how this lot fare first: which I've recently managed to pick up used for < £100. If they crash and burn, too, I may well be following you down the Shure GLXD16+ path! Or.......maybe just getting myself a looong lead for £30 instead 😁

Tbf my Smoothhound never had any issues with doing that. But I guess my views are being very coloured by the regular drop-outs for anything beyond close range I'm currently getting from my Boss WL-20, which certainly wouldn't have the range now to let me walk tables in venues such as Boxpark (maybe a good thing!). But perhaps just wear & tear and the unit degrading as it's probably around 3 years old now and has had regular use?

Damn you're not making it easy for the rest of us trying not to fork out £500+ on one of these are you?! Out of interest what mixing desk is your band using?