Al Krow

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?

Good shout re. the Zoom B1-4 and I've similarly loaded all my Zoom patches with the HPF (= "low EQ" patch). So I've got a Thumpinator acting to get rid of low end crud --> B1-4 variable HPF. Maybe that's a little bit overkill? Just sensing that the Sine Effects could do a better possibly more "musical" clean up as there's always going to be a trace of digital noise with something like the B1-4 (definitely not an issue in a band mix), but for the price the unit is ridiculously good value. Probably still can't justify having 3 of them though, haha! Be interested to explore what the HPF capability is like on the Boss GT100 Core and whether that's noise free.

This looks like a really neat HPF! By way of comparison: Sineeffect: variable HPF (25 - 400Hz) with 24db/oct slope, £89 Broughton: variable HPF (25 - 190Hz) with 12dB/oct slope, around £95 (with import costs)? Thumpinator Mk2: fixed HPF (c. 25Hz) with 36dB/oct slope, £139 I've had a Thumpinator Mk1 sitting at the start of my various pedal boards as an "always on crud cleaner" for several years, but the Sineeffect pedal looks to be the better option with the ability to set the cut off frequency to suit whilst providing a pretty aggressive slope.

Wonder if they will start offering 24 frets on the rest of their range? A PJ5 24 fret with their semi para EQ would be very tempting!

I was thinking the exact same 😊 This is quite a decent workout by Patrick Hunter from 02:16+ The pedal started to get into Darkglass territory around 03:40 on the clip with the drive set at 09:30pm and Tone (mids) at 11:00pm. Have to fess I really liked that. Would have been interested to hear it on the same drive setting but with boosted mids, say at 2pm - but that seems to be the one missing setting from the PH reivew. Any of your other clips cover that off? @danbowskill