jefferski
Fractal Fanatic
First impressions: plastic, but seems sturdy enough. The hinge is fairly stiff, so it seems like it'll stay in place when you fold it up to the body of the guitar. However, it could rotate in the jack if you move around much or when doing something like a heavy vibrato / guitar shake. It feels tight as far as not falling out, just the rotation issue, which could put it where your leg could bend it. Probably wouldn't happen, but I suppose it could. I guess any of the other brands would be like this too. They also supply little pieces of 2-sided tape and velcro, but I'm not interested in sticking something to the side of my guitars that could mar the finish.
It also fit easily into my Strat and G&L, although you have to fold it backwards or it gets in the way of the controls and trem bar. Seems like it could break if you bumped into something as it's not flush w/ the guitar body but isn't flexible like a cable... wish it would bend back a bit farther.
As to the actual playability, syncing the two units was super easy. I had to demo it through headphones so couldn't do a direct comparison through my rig with the band. Bad timing, we're off for a couple of weeks after last weekend's gig where I'd hoped to get it in time to test - but I couldn't tell a difference A/B'ing with a guitar cable. No latency that I could detect, which had been one of my big questions. Using headphones I couldn't walk far enough away to check the range.
I haven't tested the battery life yet, and I have no easy way to check the dropouts / cellphones issue (I guess I could have my wife stand next to it and start texting and downloading ;-). Wish they gave more than 10 days to evaluate it, but so far so good.
It also fit easily into my Strat and G&L, although you have to fold it backwards or it gets in the way of the controls and trem bar. Seems like it could break if you bumped into something as it's not flush w/ the guitar body but isn't flexible like a cable... wish it would bend back a bit farther.
As to the actual playability, syncing the two units was super easy. I had to demo it through headphones so couldn't do a direct comparison through my rig with the band. Bad timing, we're off for a couple of weeks after last weekend's gig where I'd hoped to get it in time to test - but I couldn't tell a difference A/B'ing with a guitar cable. No latency that I could detect, which had been one of my big questions. Using headphones I couldn't walk far enough away to check the range.
I haven't tested the battery life yet, and I have no easy way to check the dropouts / cellphones issue (I guess I could have my wife stand next to it and start texting and downloading ;-). Wish they gave more than 10 days to evaluate it, but so far so good.