Cagey
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tylereot said:
No, I haven't used one yet. But, all I know about those units says they're almost the only ones to have. I used a Shure for a short bit, and also experienced screw-ups. Interference, drop-outs, etc. Then, I had a Nady for a while that didn't screw up so much, but like the Shure it definitely had an effect on the sound. Not so much that it was a deal-breaker, but it was there.
The Line 6 units operate up in the Ghz range, so they have room to do all sorts of things the others can't as far as security, dynamic range, frequency response, noise immunity, selectivity, etc. They're the best, and not only does the price reflect it, it hasn't dropped since day one even though there's no real reason for the cost to be so high. Somehow, they don't seem to have any competition, so there must be some overly-broad bullshit patents involved that nobody is willing to attack.
The only drawback is transmitter battery life, but that's true of all of them. RF transmission over a reasonable distance in this application is a power-hungry thing, and the power budget is necessarily limited lest you start to lose portability. Nobody wants to carry a 2lb. transmitter, so everybody tries to do the best they can with either a 9V or double AA pair.
In the case of the Line 6 units, the G50 (floor model) is pretty much everything the G90 (rack model) is for about $200 less and ~100' less range, but it's still spec'd at 200', which is quite a distance. I sincerely doubt I'll ever be on a stage that large. But, you don't plan to work in the extremes. You want a lotta slop. I'd like to be inside about 1/2 the range or less, just so the rx/tx is tightly coupled. At 200', I'd still be in there by a long shot, and I suspect the vast majority of players would. But, in my case, I don't want an audio-handling pedal on my pedal board. As it sits right now, there's no audio signal on the board. It's purely data that along with power all travels along that one little CAT5 cable you see on the upper left corner of the thing...
It's a pretty short line in the picture, but that cable is actually 30' long so you can put that board anywhere on stage.
There's clearly room for a receiver, but then I'd have to run two more lines back to the amp for power and signal. Not gun doit. So, I need a rack-mountable receiver. That way, the receiver's power and signal lines are handled internally to the rack.
