Harley Benton wireless system

[JohnDaBass]

This looks like another value priced offering from Harley Benton.

https://www.guitarworld.com/news/harley-benton-launches-sub-dollar100-wireless-guitar-system-with-onboard-tuner-and-cable-tone-simulator

 

[stewblack]

They really are the best. 

[Woodinblack]

Saw that, the bug part looks massive!

not sure I would want it hanging out of the bass. Why don't they do it with a socket instead?

[JohnDaBass]

Ordered one, should be here Tuesday.

I'll let you know how I get on with it. 

BTW £92 delivered. That's the same price as the Sub-Zero system and £70 cheaper than the Boss WL-50.

Let's see????

Edited April 11, 2021 by JohnDaBass

[JohnDaBass]

16 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

Saw that, the bug part looks massive!

not sure I would want it hanging out of the bass. Why don't they do it with a socket instead?

Maybe a short socket/cable to a pouch mounted on the guitar strap?

For less than £100 I think it's worth checking it out.

Edited April 11, 2021 by JohnDaBass

[JohnDaBass]

                                HB Airborne                  Boss WL-50               Sub Zero

Latency                      5.8ms                                  2.3ms                    5.6ms

Channels                     4                                         14                             4

Frequency                   5.8Ghz                                2.4Ghz                   5.8Ghz

Receiver Power           9v only                             2x AA + 9v              9v +onboard rechargeable cell

Transmission range        35m                              22m                         35m

Cable tone                    Variable                        off/short/long            variable

Tuner                              yes                                   no                                  yes

Pass-thro                       no                                    yes                                 no

PSU supplied               yes                                   no                                   no

Price                             £92                                 £168                                £99.99

[Woodinblack]

2 hours ago, JohnDaBass said:

Maybe a short socket/cable to a pouch mounted on the guitar strap?

Which is kind of my point, why not have a socket so you can connect to the strap rather than a plug to hang out of the guitar

2 hours ago, JohnDaBass said:

For less than £100 I think it's worth checking it out.

Is it? I don't know how much it would be - I can only see it in thomman, so £69, £8 for vat then who knows how much for UPS delivery - minimum £11.80 brokerage, 20% vat, 4-5% handling charge? - seems like over £100 to me.

Certainly interesting if someone in the UK is selling it

[JohnDaBass]

17 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

Is it? I don't know how much it would be - I can only see it in thomman, so £69, £8 for vat then who knows how much for UPS delivery - minimum £11.80 brokerage, 20% vat, 4-5% handling charge? - seems like over £100 to me.

Certainly interesting if someone in the UK is selling it

Order Acknowledgement states

item      48514                                      GBP 82.80

Shipping                                                GBP 8.00

Merchandise value                             GBP  90.80

Net amount                                         GBP  75.67

20% VAT                                                GBP 15.13

Total amount                                     GBP 90.80

Not sure if there will be any brokerage or handling charges added by UPS, I'll let you know.

[Woodinblack]

17 minutes ago, JohnDaBass said:

Order Acknowledgement states

item      48514                                      GBP 82.80

Shipping                                                GBP 8.00

Merchandise value                             GBP  90.80

Net amount                                         GBP  75.67

20% VAT                                                GBP 15.13

Total amount                                     GBP 90.80

Not sure if there will be any brokerage or handling charges added by UPS, I'll let you know.

So they are doing the vat again now on less than 135? I looked and it was just listed with its ex-vat price so I thought maybe they dropped it.

I was looking recently as they had a very good price on something, but checking everything on the net, effectively it is a 25% import charge plus a fixed fee on top (still a good price but my wife had one of her items she ordered from the EU take just over 2 months to get here).

 

Certainly if it comes in at £90 its not a bad deal.

Edited April 11, 2021 by Woodinblack

[MichaelDean]

3 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

So they are doing the vat again now on less than 135? I looked and it was just listed with its ex-vat price so I thought maybe they dropped it.

I was looking recently as they had a very good price on something, but checking everything on the net, effectively it is a 25% import charge plus a fixed fee on top (still a good price but my wife had one of her items she ordered from the EU take just over 2 months to get here).

 

Certainly if it comes in at £90 its not a bad deal.

Yep, if the net total is less than £135 (excluding the £8 delivery charge), then they add VAT in the checkout and UPS don't charge anything extra. I had a guitar delivered from them a couple of weeks ago. There was a couple of "Brexit related delays", but I got the order a week after it had shipped 👍

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, MichaelDean said:

Yep, if the net total is less than £135 (excluding the £8 delivery charge), then they add VAT in the checkout and UPS don't charge anything extra.

I am sure when I first looked at thomman, anything less than 135 already had the vat added, maybe it was the first few days or something.

 

[BigRedX]

Quite high latency at 5.8ms.

Not a problem on it's own, but will be noticeable if combined with additional Analogue to Digital conversions in your signal chain.

[Woodinblack]

Only 1.7M of latency, not so bad.

[BigRedX]

19 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

Only 1.7M of latency, not so bad.

What's only got 1.7M(?) of latency. All the figures quoted in this thread and in the the link in the OP state 5.8ms

[JohnDaBass]

6 hours ago, BigRedX said:

Quite high latency at 5.8ms.

Not a problem on it's own, but will be noticeable if combined with additional Analogue to Digital conversions in your signal chain.

Plan to place on my small pedal board 

Airborne >>>Thumpinator >>>Zoom B1 Four >>>Tech 21 VT Bass DI.

Zoom used for always on compressor + occasional Dark glass patch.

I seem to recall that the Smooth Hound was 5.8ms ?

Edited April 12, 2021 by JohnDaBass

[Woodinblack]

47 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

What's only got 1.7M(?) of latency. All the figures quoted in this thread and in the the link in the OP state 5.8ms

Yes, 5.8ms, or a delay equivilent to moving 1.7 metres away from your cab.

18 minutes ago, JohnDaBass said:

I seem to recall that the Smooth Hound was 5.8ms ?

I think it is 8ms

[EBS_freak]

18 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

Yes, 5.8ms, or a delay equivilent to moving 1.7 metres away from your cab.

It's not always as simple as stating that, as it takes away from some of the main issues that come with latency...

Some players can feel latency as low as 7ms. 10ms is deemed to be the common ceiling for IEM use. If you factor in any digital pedals (in series) and latency from a desk, units that are taking nearly 6ms of latency out of your 10ms working limit, put you not in a great position.

Knowing what your use is going to be is pretty imperative when working with IEM. This unit in isolation - from bass to amp for example, is going to be great. Start adding in digital pedals, a desk, IEM... well, I would say that figure is pretty high, considering that there are units available with sub 3ms latency for not too much more.

Having a delay directly into your ear, is much different to one from a cab. Well, for me anyway.

[JohnDaBass]

22 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

I would say that figure is pretty high, considering that there are units available with sub 3ms latency for not too much more.

Having a delay directly into your ear, is much different to one from a cab. Well, for me anyway.

Agreed but the sub 3ms units are £70 more expensive plus none of the three bands I play in use IEM.

Forgive me, but I was merely sharing the availability of what seemed a reasonably priced, reasonable quality , flexible wireless unit from a brand that many on here seem to appreciate.

Nothing more than sharing some product information. Its my first opportunity to try wireless.

Edited April 12, 2021 by JohnDaBass
spelling

[EBS_freak]

22 minutes ago, JohnDaBass said:

Agreed but the sub 3ms units are £70 more expensive plus none of the three bands I play in use IEM.

Forgive me, but I was merely sharing the availability of what seemed a reasonably priced, reasonable quality , flexible wireless unit from a brand that many on here seem to appreciate.

Nothing more than sharing some product information. Its my first opportunity to try wireless.

I'm not running the product down by any means. For a wireless unit, it ticks a lot of boxes.

It's affordable, it's 5.8 Ghz, it's digital so you won't need to worry about a rubbish analogue compander. Likewise, I was addressing a certain issue that is greatly misunderstood and people contemplating purchasing this, or other wireless systems may not be aware of. Hell, I'm sure if you see the Smooth Hound posts where people talk of there being "no latency" - well, that is a complete nonsense... and all those folks that have tried using them with Helix setups will tell you that. If they don't, that's more of an observation on their sense of timing.

There's no escaping that the latency figure is pretty high - but in the right setup, it is more than acceptable. So if you aren't utilising a lot of digital, and / or IEM, I am sure that it's great. 

 

Just looking through Andertons...

 

FWIW, the G10 is on sale at Andertons for £119 - <2.9ms

AKG DMS100 (with encryption also- that adds to the DAC overhead and introduces latency) - £113 - <2.9ms

Behringer ULG10 - £73 - <5ms

Mooer AP10 - £99 - <5ms

and for completeness, the popular Xvive -£109, 6ms

 

All of the above are running on 2.4 Ghz, so not ideal.

However, the 5ghz Vyre wireless is an interesting prospect - £99, <5ms

 

In in the interest of fairness, the HB has a tuner - but again, how good it is, especially tracking a low B, is unproven at the moment...

 

Edited April 12, 2021 by EBS_freak

[Woodinblack]

3 hours ago, EBS_freak said:

It's not always as simple as stating that, as it takes away from some of the main issues that come with latency...

Some players can feel latency as low as 7ms. 10ms is deemed to be the common ceiling for IEM use. If you factor in any digital pedals (in series) and latency from a desk, units that are taking nearly 6ms of latency out of your 10ms working limit, put you not in a great position.

Depends on your IEM and your setup. A 10ms latency, yes, you could feel that, a low bass frequency? Even the G string takes 10ms to do a whole cycle, and in a live setting, no chance of noticing that. I assume you are refering to the whole band using IEM? Luckily it is just me and the singer that use them and it is for vocals.

3 hours ago, EBS_freak said:

Knowing what your use is going to be is pretty imperative when working with IEM. This unit in isolation - from bass to amp for example, is going to be great. Start adding in digital pedals, a desk, IEM... well, I would say that figure is pretty high, considering that there are units available with sub 3ms latency for not too much more.

According to your list not, unless you want slower network.

3 hours ago, EBS_freak said:

Having a delay directly into your ear, is much different to one from a cab. Well, for me anyway.

To me a delay is a delay, my ear doesn't know where it is from!

[BigRedX]

17 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

To me a delay is a delay, my ear doesn't know where it is from!

Actually it does.

The ear/brain connection is a very clever thing and takes the distance of the sound source into consideration, using the minuscule delay and phase differences between each ear receiving the sound to work it out.

So 5.8ms = 1.7M distance. Unless you play big stages most of us stand less than 1M away from our cabs or monitor speakers. So the latency of the wireless system is 3 times what it would be with a cable, but our ear/brain system still works out where the sound source actually is but with a delay on it.

That's why IEMs are a bigger problem because it puts the sound source as close to the ear drum as possible and there is no perceivable delay or phase change between the left and right to give any sense of distance. Without that sense of distance to the sound source, the actual disconnect between what you are playing and what you are being hearing becomes a lot more pronounced, and all those slight delays become a lot more important.

[Woodinblack]

36 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

Actually it does.

The ear/brain connection is a very clever thing and takes the distance of the sound source into consideration, using the minuscule delay and phase differences between each ear receiving the sound to work it out.

Which are identical if you are right in front of it, and also not calculable by human ear below certain frequencies.

Quote

So 5.8ms = 1.7M distance. Unless you play big stages most of us stand less than 1M away from our cabs or monitor speakers.

Do we? My speakers are on the floor, or at least below waist hight, so that is at least a meter in height, away, so I would say I almost always am over 1.7M away from my speaker cone.

Quote

So the latency of the wireless system is 3 times what it would be with a cable, but our ear/brain system still works out where the sound source actually is but with a delay on it.

Where is the 3 times thing from?

Quote

That's why IEMs are a bigger problem because it puts the sound source as close to the ear drum as possible and there is no perceivable delay or phase change between the left and right to give any sense of distance. Without that sense of distance to the sound source, the actual disconnect between what you are playing and what you are being hearing becomes a lot more pronounced, and all those slight delays become a lot more important.

In a live context, using a smoothhound, a helix (based system), and IEM, I have never had an issue. Obviously not saying anyone would but my timing comes from my fingers rather than my ears, and any latency that may exist is almost certainly so trivial in the grand scheme of sound playing live that it has never worried me. Obviously at home it would but then I am not using wireless and IEM often at home, and its nothing compared to Rockband on the PC!

 

So it comes down to, this looks like an interesting device but I find the sender a bit big.

Edited April 12, 2021 by Woodinblack

[EBS_freak]

3 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

Depends on your IEM and your setup. A 10ms latency, yes, you could feel that, a low bass frequency? Even the G string takes 10ms to do a whole cycle, and in a live setting, no chance of noticing that. I assume you are refering to the whole band using IEM? Luckily it is just me and the singer that use them and it is for vocals.

According to your list not, unless you want slower network.

To me a delay is a delay, my ear doesn't know where it is from!

I'm talking about the additional latency that is added on top of your playing. That 10ms you talk of is already there, even when you are using a cable. Now add your latency on top of that - say ....10ms of delay. Now take that into Logic and tell me you can't feel the latency. Or maybe you can't. Everybody is different to how susceptible they are to latency. I added the 10ms as the industry standard of acceptable IEM latency. The target figure is actually more like 7ms. 

Slower network doesn't come into it. Propagation losses on a 5Ghz network are substantially higher than a 2.4Ghz when comparing like for like performance in a typical venue that is brick built with more than it's fair share of metal work with which the radio waves have to contend. This isn't me just throwing random comments out there - this is science that is underpinned via the Friis transmission formula. The reason that speed of the network doesn't come into it, is that both radio waves operating in both frequencies can carry the payload of a digital stream of a 24bit 48k digital audio signal with no issues. The latency figures are largely down (e.g. pretty much all of it) to the the DAC conversations (analogue to digital and back again). So in short, 2.4Ghz is actually better than 5Ghz for insuring a stable signal. Trouble is with 2.4Ghz, is that there are only 3 truly intermod frequencies out there... and there's so much noise from wireless access points, that you can be unfortunate that you are likely to have interference problems. So yeah, you can go to 5Ghz and have less chance of interference - but then bit of metal, thick walls - even people standing in the line of sight, can mean that you get drop out. If anybody is wondering about how the pro domain gets around this, it's because the operating figures run from 550-850Hz (taking into account world wide spectrum) - so the radio waves can pass through more dense objects more freely than the 5000 and 2400 frequencies. 

2 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

Which are identical if you are right in front of it, and also not calculable by human ear below certain frequencies.

Do we? My speakers are on the floor, or at least below waist hight, so that is at least a meter in height, away, so I would say I almost always am over 1.7M away from my speaker cone.

Where is the 3 times thing from?

In a live context, using a smoothhound, a helix (based system), and IEM, I have never had an issue. Obviously not saying anyone would but my timing comes from my fingers rather than my ears, and any latency that may exist is almost certainly so trivial in the grand scheme of sound playing live that it has never worried me. Obviously at home it would but then I am not using wireless and IEM often at home, and its nothing compared to Rockband on the PC!

 

So it comes down to, this looks like an interesting device but I find the sender a bit big.

You are completely forgetting that a bass note is not made up of it's fundamental but what we hear are mostly it's harmonics. Put a sine wave in your favourite DAW at 40hz (bottom E on a bass) and tell me whether that is anything like what you hear from your bass. Probability is that your bass cab can't even produce that note cleanly anyway - nor would you want it to to if you are using your bass on stage anyway... but that's a completely different discussion.

Oh, I understand now. I used the Helix and SmoothHound as an example of where you could run into trouble with IEMs going through a digital desk. If it works for you, that's great. Nobody is disputing that. Other people may not have the same sort of tolerance for latency as yourself - which is why I called it out in the thread. I am also aware of people that have run exactly the same setup and ditched the Smooth Hound due to the latency issues. If anything, from what I have read, I would be more concerned that you are saying that your timing is coming from your fingers rather than your ears... but hey, I'm not one to judge. I would have thought your ability to listen is a key part of locking in. But anyway, we digress. If it works for you, that's cool. If you are happy with the results, all gravy.

That''s me not being a b4stard. It's sharing information so people can make an informed decision and not spend money on stuff that runs the risk of not working for them.

PS transmitter

Edited April 12, 2021 by EBS_freak

[Al Krow]

On 11/04/2021 at 11:04, JohnDaBass said:

BTW £92 delivered. That's the same price as the Sub-Zero system and £70 cheaper than the Boss WL-50.

...and also £44 cheaper than the relatively recent Boss WL-20 (new). But I managed to pick up a pair used for sub £90 and am totally loving the form factor and ease of use!

I used a Smoothhound for several years, including playing live with my bands and got on with that just fine; it's great piece of kit and Chris (proprietor) provided sterling customer service. Tbf I mostly had a fairly simple set up of bass --> amp, without digital pedals adding any latency.

The WL-20s have even less latency than the SH and are brilliantly compact. Should give me a bit of scope of adding a few digital pedals into the mix post lockdown without the audience storming off because I sound like I have slap-back delay on every track.

If the HB's don't hit the spot for you John - worth checking the Boss WL-20s as your next port of call. They really are very neat. 

In the meantime enjoy your wireless freedom 😊.

[EBS_freak]

They won't hear a slap back Al! They will just think you can't play in time!

To be fair though, I did read about the guy who was running two moderately high latency wireless units from his bass, to his helix... and then from his helix to his amp head. I think the band had completed the set before his first note was heard*