Which wireless?

[Woodinblack]

10 minutes ago, BassAdder60 said:

I don’t think the low cost units scan at all and only “ pair” and stay at a fixed frequency 

 

By low cost I mean not the real budget ones, the ones in the £100 range. Certainly the nux, smoothhound and a few others list that as a feature.

 

[Jack]

48 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

I presume it does more than that though as even the cheap wireless systems automatically pick the least congested channels and switch to them if they are better than the ones they have rather than having to do it manually?

Oh indeed other ones may also do something similar or the same. Firstly, I'm on record as saying that every wireless I've ever used (which includes the Smoothhound) has been just fine. I'm sure that the tech is not proprietary to Shure. However, there'll undoubtedly be differences in the algorithms used, transmitter power, all that stuff. As far as I know the Shure is the only one that transmits on several channels at once, but I am happy to be proven wrong on even that. If you've ever used the Shure, you can for instance choose more secure transmitter modes with better signal connections in exchange for higher latency and 'blocking out' more channels. On the flip side, you can chose to transmit on fewer channels at once in order to make more 'room' for other systems. It's the best total package I've ever used but I'm not one of these people who's been through 15 systems and found faults with each one, I don't really think I've had more than 2-3 dropouts in 15 years and 5 or so wireless systems. Maybe I'm lucky, maybe it's good planning. I only 'upgraded' to the Shure because I had a rack Helix and a floor HX Stomp and I wanted one system I could use with both.

 

I'm absolutely not an expert on guitar wireless systems, just a nerd who knows a lot about networking in general. 

 

Going back to 2.4/5.8, I recently forced all of my smart home stuff on to 2.4GHz because it was so empty on there. There was I think one old smart bulb that didn't have any 5.8 compatibility but everything else was on 5.8 and cluttering that up. You don't need the speed for streaming spotify or asking what the weather is, so I put all that rubbish on 2.4, leaving 5.8 free for the good stuff. It's 2023, 2.4 is not that busy and 5.8 is not that empty.

Edited July 31, 2023 by Jack

[Al Krow]

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.

 

Edited July 31, 2023 by Al Krow

[Woodinblack]

58 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

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 / 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.

 

As a data point supporting that, I used to use my X18 with either a 2.4GHz external router (the TPLink travel one) or its own internal router. At the same time I used the smoothhound, with no issues. Then when I bought the XVive U4, the X18 would simply not work - it connected, but trying to change anything was an absolute nightmare. it was definately the XVive as if I turned it off it worked again. I could get some reasonable sort of connection from it by sticking the X18 at one end and the XVive at the other end of the channel, but it wasn't good. So I went out and bought the 5.8GHz TP link travel router, the one up from the one I had. After getting that (and now moving on to another), I have never had a wireless problem (except when the XVive died). So it could well be that the XVive is 'dirty' and just dumps all over other 2.4GHz stuff.

[tauzero]

21 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

The Harley Benton seems OK . I have had one for about 6 months https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_benton_airborne_pro_5.8ghz_instrument.htm

 

I've recently bought one. Not used at a gig yet though.

 

Something that doesn't seem to have been mentioned yet is relative practicality of various wirelesses for standalone or pedalboard use. The Line 6 G30/G50, the Smoothhound, and the Harley Benton all have receivers powered from external PSUs which makes them handy for pedal boards where you don't have to take the receiver off the board or furtle around with USB cables to charge it. The double bugs like the Lekato are very handy for standalone applications because you don't have to connect a PSU to the receiver, just plug it into the amp or whatever minimal effects you're using.

[Al Krow]

56 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

As a data point supporting that, I used to use my X18 with either a 2.4GHz external router (the TPLink travel one) or its own internal router. At the same time I used the smoothhound, with no issues. Then when I bought the XVive U4, the X18 would simply not work - it connected, but trying to change anything was an absolute nightmare. it was definately the XVive as if I turned it off it worked again. I could get some reasonable sort of connection from it by sticking the X18 at one end and the XVive at the other end of the channel, but it wasn't good. So I went out and bought the 5.8GHz TP link travel router, the one up from the one I had. After getting that (and now moving on to another), I have never had a wireless problem (except when the XVive died). So it could well be that the XVive is 'dirty' and just dumps all over other 2.4GHz stuff.

 

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...

 

Edited July 31, 2023 by Al Krow

[jimmyb625]

I'm not EBS_freak, nor do I play him on television, but I can tell you that 863MHz is legal. It's channel 70 (863-865MHz) and is free to use, although you are realistically limited to the number of units you can use simultaneously.

 

There's more info here: https://www.mercury-av.com/sales/channel-38-radio-mics-3754-0.html

 

You can also find info on the Ofcom website, although I don't find it that easy to navigate.

 

 

[Al Krow]

1 minute ago, jimmyb625 said:

I'm not EBS_freak, nor do I play him on television, but I can tell you that 863MHz is legal. It's channel 70 (863-865MHz) and is free to use, although you are realistically limited to the number of units you can use simultaneously.

 

There's more info here: https://www.mercury-av.com/sales/channel-38-radio-mics-3754-0.html

 

You can also find info on the Ofcom website, although I don't find it that easy to navigate.

 

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?

[Woodinblack]

29 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Apologies if this has already been posted, but just came across this: Best guitar wireless systems 2023 | Guitar World

 

I saw that. I did wonder why it thinks the Lekato 5.8 GHz aren't compatible with active pickups though.

They aren't the ones I use, mine are sort of square.

[Al Krow]

On 31/07/2023 at 16:13, Woodinblack said:

 

I saw that. I did wonder why it thinks the Lekato 5.8 GHz aren't compatible with active pickups though.

They aren't the ones I use, mine are sort of square.

 

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.

Edited August 1, 2023 by Al Krow

[Jack]

Some of the bug type ones rely on a trs connection for switching and charging too, and active preamps (not pickups, but the two are often confused) can cause issues with that.

[Woodinblack]

 

19 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

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.

 

Fair enough, if it is a level thing (I have a passive that is louder than all my actives). I wondered if there was some technical reason I couldn' think of.

I will say, I can't use my 2.4GHz transmitters (either the dongle or the Waza air transmitter) directly on the bongo, because of noise, and i can't use the waza air on the ibanez as the whole is too small!

 

20 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

 guess that's the advantage of being able to return stuff on Amazon!

 

Take your word for it - would rather throw my money down the drain than order from Amazon, but we all have our things we won't do!

 

18 minutes ago, Jack said:

Some of the bug type ones rely on a trs connection for switching and charging too, and active preamps (not pickups, but the two are often confused) can cause issues with that.

 

Yeh, but the ones in the image aren't which is why I wondered

[jimmyb625]

2 hours ago, Al Krow said:

 

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 5.8Ghz.

 

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?

The biggest difference is that channel 38/70 are analogue systems, whereas 2.4 and 5GHz systems are digital, which brings in some of the potential latency issues which get discussed quite often here. 

I have digital TX, into a digital board, with monitoring being either wired iem, or wedge (or none at all in many circumstances). I haven't been able to notice any latency when playing, but that doesn't mean others may not have the same problem. Adding digital IEM's may make it noticeable, but I'm tempted to look at a channel 38 system if I go down that route. We already use 3 channel 70 IEM's and one of them doesn't perform that well, so it's a bit hit and miss. 

Edited July 31, 2023 by jimmyb625

[Woodinblack]

3 minutes ago, jimmyb625 said:

Adding digital IEM's may make it noticeable, but I'm tempted to look at a channel 38 system if I go down that route. We already use 3 channel 70 IEM's and one of them doesn't perform that well, so it's a bit hit and miss. 

 

Do you mean that out of the 3, only 2 work well at any time or that one of your IEMs isn't functioning well?

[jimmyb625]

1 minute ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Do you mean that out of the 3, only 2 work well at any time or that one of your IEMs isn't functioning well?

It's one specific unit that's temperamental (LD U308). I never get the chance to properly test various things with it, as it's virtually impossible getting everyine together at the same time to run tech stuff. The other two units are rack mounted and always seem to work ok, or it might just be that the folks using them don't complain as much.

[Chienmortbb]

 

@EBS_freakis already saddling up his charger (get it?) but her is my take.

 

Channel 70- Like 2.4GHz is not dedicated to PMSE* and has all sorts of things using it. The bottom end is very close to the frequencies used by 4G/5G mobile networks, and they are notorious for overlapping into different bands. In a full stand at Poole Town, our Ch70 mic was almost useless once the mobile operators started using what used to be Ch69. We solved that problem with a Ch38 mic. However, the Licence for a Channel 38 Mic currently costs £75 per year.

 

I have also attended an AV exhibition where Shure kindly lent us a Channel 70 radio mic. Again, it was unusable on any part of Channel 70, due to the number of Channel 70 mics being used in a small area.

 

Channel 38 is relatively interference free except close to a big venue, i.e a West End theatre

 

2.4GHz has two problems, the main one being that all its channels except 1 and 13 (from memory) (memory bad it is Channels 1, 6 and 11 as pointed out by @EBS_freak)  overlap with adjacent channels, so Channel 2 overlaps with Ch1 and Ch3. In contrast, 5.8GHz channels do not overlap, so even with higher use and shorter theoretical range, it is IMHO still a better bet.

6

Channel  70 and 38 are traditionally Analogue and do not suffer from significant delay. Digital systems have a delay/latency built in.

 

If want your system to have the best chance of working, go Channel 38 or 5GHz.

Edited July 31, 2023 by Chienmortbb
Teacher marked my homework

[EBS_freak]

 

2 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

Channel 38 is relatively interference free except close to a big venue, i.e a West End theatre

Theatres tend to have a fixed site license and allocated a range of the RF spectrum for use by Ofcom. (eg not channel 38)

 

2 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

2.4GHz has two problems, the main one being that all its channels except 1 and 13 (from memory) overlap with adjacent channels

1, 6 and 11 are intermodulation free.

 

2 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

Channel  70 and 38 are Analogue and do not suffer from significant delay.

Channels 38 and 70 are simply sections of the radio spectrum. What you run in those frequency ranges could be digital or analogue. I run ULXD in channel 38 - and thats digital. There's no reason why you couldn't run digital in channel 70 - although with 2.4 and 5ghz available, as a world wide, license free solution, its making less and less sense for manufacturers to build anything for channel 70.

 

 

Overall, not too bad.

Edited July 31, 2023 by EBS_freak

[EBS_freak]

26 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

I have also attended an AV exhibition where Shure kindly lent us a Channel 70 radio mic. Again, it was unusable on any part of Channel 70, due to the number of Channel 70 mics being used in a small area.

Thats some high brow trolling from Shure.  

[Chienmortbb]

1 hour ago, EBS_freak said:

Thats some high brow trolling from Shure.  

I cannot really blame Shure. The whole hall was flooded with 863-865MHz Wireless Mics. 

[Al Krow]

4 hours ago, Al Krow said:

 

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...

 

 

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. 

 

Edited July 31, 2023 by Al Krow

[EBS_freak]

26 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

I cannot really blame Shure. The whole hall was flooded with 863-865MHz Wireless Mics. 

As if they didn't know

[Chienmortbb]

1 hour ago, EBS_freak said:

Channels 38 and 70 are simply sections of the radio spectrum. What you run in those frequency ranges could be digital or analogue. I run ULXD in channel 38 - and thats digital. There's no reason why you couldn't run digital in channel 70 - although with 2.4 and 5ghz available, as a world wide, license free solution, its making less and less sense for manufacturers to build anything for channel 70.

 

I was on the committee that worked on the second revision to EN300422 (EN 300422-1?). At that time the 5GHz band was allocated solely for the use of PMSE, wireless mics, IEMs and audio links. At that time, analogue was not allowed in 5 GHz band, hence my mistake.

 

Sadly, all the major manufacturers were there proposing different schemes and the CH69 switch-off was a long way away. For years there was no equipment made/sold for the 5GHz band, and so it became a shared band.

 

[Al Krow]

On 31/07/2023 at 10:23, warwickhunt said:

 

Don't be put off by the low price of the 5.8 Lekato units.  I have a sub £50 unit and I've had zero issues with drop out and the signal sounds no different / better / worse than a cable or my more expensive 2.4 Line 6 unit.  

 

<edit>

 

I'm not saying for 1 minute the Lekato is better than Shure or other top brands, it isn't.  More expensive units have tougher construction, higher quality switches, jacks, sockets and likely chips in them but if you aren't throwing them around and abusing them I can't see that they are x10 worse a product than a £500+ unit.  IMHO

 

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

[tauzero]

On 01/08/2023 at 23:28, Al Krow said:

 

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

 

I use mine with active basses with no problems.

[warwickhunt]

7 hours ago, tauzero said:

 

I use mine with active basses with no problems.

 

Active or passive doesn't affect my Lekato 5.8.