Wireless guitar system suggestions

Not TOO much experience with wireless, but the best wireless I have tried, in regards to it not messing with your tone too much, is the Shure ULXD4. Great wireless but somewhat pricey. The lower cost devices that I have tried always seem to change the feel and tone. Just my experience tho!
 
Shure GLXD16

Why? It has stood up to having a wireless router 4 feet away with a laptop and a phone on the other side also both two to three feet away.
My number one worry these days is wireless interference and cell phone beaconing. I won't tell people to get farther away from me or else, I'm not Gene Simmons. The Shure has worked where other systems sputtered and dropped.
 
I have a Line6 G75 and I do not recommend it. It has drop outs too often. In an open space, about 10' away, with nothing in between me and the receiver, I still get drop outs. If I'm doing drum lessons and playing along with folks, but I need to walk over to the kit to point things out, I get drop outs. My room is not that big. I've tried different channels, different transmitters, batteries, positioning of the transmitter pack, etc. Nothing fixes the drop out issue for me.
 
+ on the Shure GLXD16. Had a L6 G90 for years, but the Shure is smaller (no rack), has better battery life and the transmitter is built to last. I have multiple transmitters and can easily switch guitars without a hitch.
 
I've been using the Boss WL-50 for the past couple of years without issue. I have it mounted on the board with my FC6.
 
I'm loving my new Boss WL-20 System !

The road test for it will be a bigger live gig on Feb.1.2020. A small hall that fits about 450 people and is sold out :)
I'll have my old Xvive U2 (which served me well but is losing battery life ...) and an ordinary cable as backups just in case ...

I'll report glitches if I experience any.

Cheers Toode :cool:
 
Awesome. Thanks everyone for the input. @s0c9...was thinking that for live shows it may be hard to plug the guitar right into the Axe if I don’t have it rack mounted. I’ll have to look into how and where to have it for a show. We playing in April so I have some time to figure it out.
I’d put money toward some kind of rack before I bought a wireless unit :grimacing:

That being said, I’ve used Shure QLX-D and Line 6 XD-V series (basically the same as the G50/90) extensively. They’re both great. The Line 6 is definitely more prone to dropouts, but you just have to make sure your antennas are set correctly. Most people who are having trouble with Line 6 dropouts either have them sitting right next to their wireless “router” or they have the antennas facing the wrong way.
 
FWIW - just saw this on FB..
"Shure has just announced some amazing deals on their upper-tier digital wireless systems.

$100 instant rebate per channel on QLXD
$200 instant rebate per channel on ULXD
$300 instant rebate per channel on Axient Digital (AD)"
 
on a budget, the line 6 G30 has been pretty good. I'm not a fan of the virtual cable thing, instead I just use my actual guitar cable coiled up and connected between the receiver and the input of my AxeIII. You lose a little bottom end with the tone but it's still pretty good for the cost. No issues with dropouts, latency or distance for large stages. I played a football field and ran all the way to the 50 yard line with no issues. At that distance there was only latency between sound leaving the PA and getting to my eardrums.
 
I have used the L*ne 6 G90 and XD-V75 for years ( tried the G50 but it was a useless steaming pile of excrement... dropout city )... up until the last couple years, they were flawless... but as more clubs ad more wireless routers , they have become unusable. I picked up this inexpensive Carvin WG-5 and has been flawless... https://carvinaudio.com/products/wg5-wireless-guitar-and-bass-system
The difference being that the L6 "digital" stuff is all 2.4G while the the Carvin unit is 5G (5.8 actually). :)
 
Awesome. Thanks everyone for the input. @s0c9...was thinking that for live shows it may be hard to plug the guitar right into the Axe if I don’t have it rack mounted. I’ll have to look into how and where to have it for a show. We playing in April so I have some time to figure it out.
tbh - I had my G90 racked in the slot above my Ultra, then AF2 in a 3-space case. Ne'er they parted. Cable went from back of receiver into secondary input on back of AxeFX. I tried the front side, but really couldn't notice any audible difference. The cable routing for back 1/4" was plug and leave, while I had to disconnect if using the front - due to lid depth!
 
The nice thing about analog wireless systems is that you don’t have to worry about Wi-Fi routers and such. As the years go by, there are fewer and fewer analog users, and the band becomes more freed-up (as long as it’s still a legal frequency band). And used pro-level analog systems can be had for dirt cheap.
 
- How's the Carvin in the tone-suck department?

- How do these various company's units do with responding appropriately to load impedence changes, like for fuzz?
 
It sounds good. I've only used it straight into my AX8, and now my AxeFX III. It uses digital transmission, so no weird companding stuff going on. For $139 it's pretty awesome... batteries are internal and rechargeable, so no batteries to buy, and last at least 4 hours on a full charge.
 
Another vote for QLX-D.

Had an old X2 digital system (900MHZ) that was a dream. Aside from my transmitters getting old and the connectors getting oxidized occasionally, it worked beautifully. No dropouts. I sold it cause I wanted 2 wireless units in 1U of rackspace, so I got a pair of Line 6 G55.

Never had problems at rehearsals, or even at shows during soundchecks, but as soon as the room filled up, I'd have dropouts like no other. I also work as a FOH engineer / RF tech for a touring regional act. Several of the musicians were using GLX-D and/or Line 6 wireless. Over the course of the last couple of years, dropouts became more and more frequent.

It's my opinion that 2.4GHz is no longer a viable band for professional / high availability wireless systems. There are simply too many consumer devices and technologies that operate in that band. It's too risky, especially in a touring environment where the RF landscape can be drastically different every night.

I bought a Shure QLX-D and it's like I have my old X2 back, but it's even better. Range is insane, tone is basically indistinguishable from a cable, and the RF side is professionally done. Wide tuning bandwidth, good filtering on the receivers, and can easily be coordinated with other UHF/VHF systems using something like Shure Wireless Workbench. I convinced the band to upgrade to QLX also, and we haven't had dropouts since. For price to performance, QLX is the way to go. If you need even better RF performance, ULX-D is the next step up. QLX-D transmitters are partially backwards compatible with ULX-D receivers if you ever decide to upgrade down the road.

I also have a Shure SLX system that I tested out for guitar for a while. The SLX is analog and suffers from some high end signal loss and uses a compander. The RF performance is also much worse than the QLX unit. I generally wouldn't recommend the SLX, but it's in the same price range as the 2.4GHz stuff (especially on the used market) and will likely perform better if you're experiencing a lot of dropouts using 2.4GHz systems without a HUGE down-grade in audio quality.
 
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