Not a tone quest

[Mesotech]

Well, it's finally on it's way after about a 5 week backorder process.

I decided that there are a few dates a year where I could use a wireless unit for the mobility it offers, so I set off on the quest for something I could live with. After trying a few units belonging to friends, with none of them tickling my fancy, I decided to take a gamble on the Line 6 X2 XDS-PLUS. I picked this unit mostly because it's new, relatively low cost, and overall Line6 makes decent products.

It should be here on Thursday, hopefully before I leave for my gig that evening. If so, I plan on testing it out in a live situation. Trial by fire, so to speak. Of course I'll have my cables ready for the hot swap if necessary.

I'm not expecting a complete cable replacement unit, as I actually prefer cables. I just need something reliable, noise and interference free, and hopefully not excessively limiting in tone. The other units I tried (and I tried a bunch) all fell short of expectations. This probably will too, but here's hoping for the best.

[CyberStrat]

Can you post an update after you test it? I too was thinking about ordering one of these.

They seem to be recieving good comments.

Cyber

[Mesotech]

I'm waiting for it to be delivered today. I need to leave in an hour, and if it isn't here by then, I'll have to give my report at a later date. Otherwise, I should know how it works tonight.

[chuckocaster]

peter stroud endorses those, i'd imagine they sound pretty good.

[Mesotech]

I just got back from my gig. The package arrived about 3 minutes before I had to leave, so I was able to open the shipping box and take the actual box with me.

The unit came with it's own 9V battery for the transmitter (but I already had a few spares with me just in case). It was increadibly easy to set up. Attach the two antenna's to the receiver, install the battery into the transmitter, hook up the receiver to the input of my tuner, and the supplied cable from the transmitter to my guitar, and daisychain power from my tuner to the receiver. Turn the two units on, and start playing.

The sound was exactly the same as with my 25 ft instrument cable. I was impressed. Zero noise issues, and I walked around the bar and even outside for a bit during setup. I didn't experience any dropouts at all. So far, a good showing for the unit. Line6 did well.

One of the big issues I had with other wireless units was that I couldn't get any controlled feedback through them. Not so with the Line6. As stated before, it behaved exactly the same as if I were using a cable.

At one point during the evening, the transmitter slipped off my guitar strap. The supplied cable was long enough for it to fall to the floor, and it stayed there until we finished the song. I think this was my fault, and I had just changed guitars and probably didn't get it on the strap properly. I didn't have that same problem at any other point of the night. I'm not too impressed with the clipping mechanism to attach it to my strap, and will most likely get a pouch to put the transmitter in instead. However, it did work and wasn't a pain to deal with, provided I clipped it to the strap the right way.

As I read in the reviews, the 9V battery in the transmitter has about a 5 hour life. We played for 4 hours, and I left it plugged in for about 30 minutes before we began playing. It lasted the entire night. One of the features of this unit is that the receiver also gets a battery level message from the transmitter, and displays the remaining battery life with an LED indicator. I watched the life drain off during the night, but still had plenty of battery life to make it through the night. I thought it was cool that I could tell at a glance how long I had left before the battery needed to be replaced. That's going to ease my mind a lot in the future. One of my big fears was that I would be playing a song and run out of battery life in the middle of a song without having any clue that it was near failing. I won't have that problem now, provided I pay attention to the LED's. They are well lit and easy to read with a glance.

I really enjoyed being able to get away from the stage at different times to hear what I sounded like through the mains instead of the monitors. I really liked what I was hearing. I still had the same touch dynamics that I could hear onstage, but they sounded even better through the mains. During those few times out front, it almost seemed as if I was listening to someone else playing.

For those interested in a wireless unit, this is an excellent one. When you also factor in the costs, this unit rivals other units costing 5 times as much or more. I haven't found any wireless under a grand that I like better, and I haven't tried very many that were priced over a grand because I never could justify spending that much on a wireless unit to begin with.

Tomorrow night my bass player wants to test it out with his rig. The freq specs indicate that this is the best wireless unit available for a bass guitar. It'll be a good test to prove or disprove the claims. From what I heard tonight, it'll pass with flying colors.

[CyberStrat]

Thanks for the great detailed post.

I cant tell you how many times I stepped on my cable while playing. I even had a time where my bass player stepped on my cord going to the amp and it pulled my 112 combo right off the stand.

I'll be ordering one today.

Cyber

[Mesotech]

Thanks for reminding me of the post so I can finish the review.

Friday night I let our bass player try it out. Great tone and no dropout on the bottom end. His 5 string Spector with active pickups didn't overpower the unit either. He really enjoyed having it and didn't want to give it back. He has decided to order one also, but says he will also get an additional transmitter so he doesn't have to change out when he switches basses. With the price of the second transmitter being slightly less than the complete package, I advised to get two complete packages so he'd have a spare receiver as well. He's seriously considering it.

While the base unit is sturdy and metal, the transmitter is supposedly high impact plastic. It feels very lightweight and doesn't appear very sturdy, but I'm not sure just how much abuse these things are supposed to take "in the wild". I'm more concerned with the battery compartment cover breaking than any other part. It's a semi hinged unit (no actual hinge, but plastic tabs that prevent it from coming completely off) that seems fragile. Nothing has broken on mine, and I've now changed batteries twice (confirming 5 hour battery life - almost exactly 5 hours).

Back to the tone review, I was impressed with the low end response of the unit. I've not heard another wireless that went that low. On a whim, I connected it to my Yamaha Motif synth and got some great bass synth tones (most PA systems can't reproduce those sound without getting choppy, but ours does). The wireless hung in there as well as any cable. It also reproduces highs very well, plenty well enough for natural harmonics to pass through. Of course, the amp and speakers really define just how much of those you would actually hear, but the wireless doesn't induce any additional limitations.

Again, I'm impressed, especially with the price. As stated, I've tried out much more expensive units that didn't operate as well, and I haven't tried anything that was over a grand in price, so I can't compare this to those. I would expect that those are good too. Line6 really did hit it out of the park with this one and proves that the most expensive thing on the market is not required in order to get something that does what it's advertised to do.