mcnach

No, you can use wifi or radio transmitters. Radio transmitters have extremely low latency but sound quality can be 'meh' especially at the lower end of the budget range, but they do work. WiFi systems are all over the place. There's lots of very cheap ones, but latency tends to be higher on those, up to 12ms in some. On their own that might not be a problem, but if you have other digital devices in your signal, all adding their bit of latency, it can get noticeable, but this is very much depending on your use.

Worst than truly shocking

One thing that catches people at times is that there is a little internal battery, same as computer motherboards have. It was not even mentioned in the manual! The battery lasts a few years and when it dies, so does the V-Amp. It stops being able to save/recall presets and things just generally do not work well. Really easy to replace, if you're aware there's a battery inside in the first place.

Well, I liked mine I still have it and use it sometimes, there was a handful of guitar amp models that sounded pretty decent. FX are not very good.

It wasn't quite a band yet but... I wanted to start a new project in a particular vein, as a side thing to my main band, with as many new people (to me) as I could. I made it very clear I wanted it to be a collaborative thing, writing together etc. Mostly reggae-tinged. One guy stood out, who played guitar and sang and we seemed to be looking for a similar thing, so we met. It was fun initially. He showed me some of his stuff, singing mostly in French (he's from Senegal), and it was cool enough. He was going to do a little solo thing at a coffee shop in a couple of weeks and I agreed to play his stuff with him, mostly on bass with a couple of songs on guitar. It was fun, and then we went busking and it was fun... Until it wasn't. Very quickly it turned into just playing his stuff, and only the way he wanted. Basically I had no input... and since this was not bringing money or what I had set out to do, I brought it up one Sunday afternoon while jamming at his, with his teenage son playing various percussion instruments, and it was as I had farted, no, sharted on his face. He basically kicked me out of his place I was a little amused by it because it felt so crazy. As I was packing my stuff he was just ranting about his integrity as a musician and how it's impossible to find someone to play with because everybody wants to do their own thing and be creative with HIS songs. I had to remind him the premise under which we first met, which only aggravated him more. His son looked like he didn't know where to hide... He slammed the door behind me, and as I walked to the car I was laughing, it was so surreal... A bit later I was talking to somebody who had seen me busking with the other guy. I told him I was not doing that anymore and that's when he smiled and said "I didn't think it would last". He knew the guy... 3 years later, the guy is still playing solo. It sounds good, I enjoy his stuff, I just don't want to play with the guy. His erratic sense of timing in particular was really difficult to deal with... but as a solo artist he's good.

It wouldn't be the worst possible idea, you know?

why would anybody buy that from the US? It's not like MusicMan make those sockets...

Sorry, I just saw this. I'm far from being an expert in these matters, so take my comments with that in mind. Whenever my bandmates and I brought up the subject of IEMS there was usually some confusion between two different aspects: 1) how to get a personal monitor mix, and 2) how to send that to our ears (often the assumption is this is done wirelessly, but it doesn't have to be). I've tried a few different things in order to get some kind of monitor mix. The best is, of course, when you can get a dedicated mix from the desk, but this is only guaranteed if you're having your own band mixer. We've had a Behringer XR18 and lately an X32 as a 'band mixer'. When we're doing our own sound, that's the core of it. As a 6-piece band, the XR18 is enough as it can provide 6 individual mixes (more if you use the Ultranet system). When we have a house engineer, we use a couple of 8-channel splitters (Behringer MS8000) and that way one half goes to our mixer (controlling just the monitor mixes) and another half to the main desk for teh sound engineer to do their thing. However, that requires the most £££ investment and also has to be a bit of a band effort, in order to get everything into the monitors, so I've tried other ways that are not as 'nice' but can still work pretty well, in fact I'd say they all work better than having wedge monitors and a loud stage. Basically I use a small mixer (Behringer Xenyx 302/502) to blend two signals: my bass, and "whatever I can get". With earphones with a good seal you get a good amount of isolation, as if you were using earplugs (comparable or better than my ACS 17db) so you still get a LOT of sound from the stage, just attenuated. All I do is add a bit more 'me'. The 'whatever I can get' signal varies a lot... I've used a microphone stage (Zoom H2), placed strategically so that I can capture guitars/vocals strongly, as drums I can hear enough anyway, and vocals and guitar is the only thing I really need to hear clearly, as we go 'off-script' a lot). That works, but it's better when I can get a feed from one of the wedge monitors. Most places have active monitors these days, with a 'thru' XLR connection. Take an XLR from a monitor, into the mixer, done. Many PA systems have the same on the main speakers, so you can often get a feed from there too. Yes, I'm not getting a dedicated mix there, but it can still be very useful, and it'll still sound way better than a loud stage does. I'd recommend ensuring you can EQ the 'whatever I can get' channel, as I find it's often better to turn down the low end in there, makes the mix clearer with my bass. This is not going to give you a "CD listening experience", but that's not what I am going for either, I want something that allows me to monitor what's going on, which it does. When we use the XR18/X32, you can use a PM-16 connected via Ultranet, which does not use the standard monitor channels, so you get better easier control, but also free a monitor channel for others, which can be useful. The PM-16 is basically a little 16-channel mixer connected to the main XR18/X32 via a single network cable using Ultranet. The output from that can feed your earphones. If you use a small mixer for my ghetto approach described above, its output can then feed your earphones. You can use a Behringer P1/P2 too. These are basic 2-channel mixers designed to be worn on your person. I have used a P1 to blend my bass with the "whatever I can get" signal, but I like the minimixer more, as it gives me more controls, EQ, etc. Again, the output from that goes into your earphones. Now we have a mix. We can use a wired method to send the signal to our ears, in which case we're done. For a drummer or keyboard player, wired is probably the simplest and easiest, and you don't need to worry about anything else, interference, dropouts etc. For others... it will depend. I have used a combined cable that carries both my bass and earphone signal (Ernie Ball,£45 or so) which sounded like a great idea, but the cable is thick and heavy and a bit of a faff. Ok in a small stage where you can't move much, but not comfy if you're moving around. I'd use separate cables. If you don't want cables... then there's wireless, which is a different subject. For wireless, live I've only used the MiPro58 system, which was around £400 (stereo, very low latency, 5.8GHz). At home I've tried the ultracheap Lekato WS-1 (£40, also stereo, but higher latency and operating on the 2.4GHz band that is more prone to interference), which didn't sound as good as the MiPro, but in all honesty, for a band mix it would do the job. My only concern is the higher likelyhood of dropouts and the high latency. The latency on its own is unlikely to be noticed, but the problem is we're using a lot of digital devices and they all add some latency... so it adds up: it can work very well for some people, but if you have a lot of additional digital processing it can get tricky... but you need to try and see. Wireless is nice, but I'd still prefer a wired IEM over no IEMs, in general. On a big stage, wedges can be great. With a considerate band who understands noise, wedges can be great in a smaller stage too, but my personal experience is that I encounter stages that are too loud too often, and IEMs just give me a combination of a quieter & clearer sound for the bits I need in order to play well. I hope that makes sense! I'm not claiming any of this is THE WAY, but it seems to work. Other methods may exist

elaborate a bit?

you need to give us a better prompt 😄

I suspect we'll be disappointed. "Justice" really is a joke. 😠

I just bought an A4 sheet on eBay, lots of sources: sheets of different sizes, rolls...

Good way to find out that everybody in the band was a closet polka fan... and then what?

Earphones with teh right tips can provide a lot of attenuation. The KZ something or another (sorry, I forget which) quoted 26db reduction, which sounds a bit optimistic but it would depend largely on the tip material and how they fit your ears. The idea is not to provide all your sound via IEMs (that would be ideal, but in reality...), but to provide as much attenuation as possible and just add what you need, and no more. Keep it sensible. In my case, I typically add a bit more 'me' and depending on the situation I may get a bit of rhythm guitar and main vocals, that's it. I started using IEMs because one of the bands I play in tends to be way too loud onstage and no amount of chat persuaded anybody to change their ways... that, couple to the fact I rarely get my own monitor in that band made me research the IEM ways. I think the problem I see with lots of people considering IEMs is that they either want it to be perfect, or nothing, while the truth is that almost any IEM solution sounds better than wedges and a loud stage. I had assumed it had to be expensive and that it would be too much faff and overkill for pub gigs (which are the ones I had most trouble with, music venues are largely ok)... in the end I have invested in decent wireless, but that's just 'decoration'... the actual function/sound is no better than when I used a simple wired system (in some ways wired is actually better). I just wish I had done this years ago instead of getting frustrated gig after gig.