Review: Line6 XD-V Wireless System

Imagine a vocal mic that allowed you to almost instantly swap capsules: SM58 for one gig, Audix OM5 the next; Beta 58 one song, Sennheiser e835 the next. Or put it this way, have you ever taken one vocal mic to a gig then realised the vocalist was totally unsuited to it and you’d be much better off with another? Sure, you can make it work, but we all know how important it is to find the best mic match for a vocal, and sometimes that search can last years.

SEARCH FOR A SUPER MIC MODEL

Line6 does a wireless range called the XD-V and the handheld mic in the V70 system allows you to do just that. There are six virtual mic models onboard, based on the performances of Shure’s SM58, Beta 58, the Sennheiser e835, Audix OM5, Electro-Voice ND767a, and the Audio-Technica AE4100. With a few swift taps on the two buttons on the handheld you can switch between models. Are they electron-for-electron clones of the real things? Who cares. They’re close enough and ultimately the best thing about it is you instantly have more tools in your locker. Only last weekend I had a guest vocalist who I started on the OM5 mic model, only to quickly realise a trusty SM58 was going to be way more suitable for the idiosyncracies of her voice. So between songs during soundcheck I made the virtual switch on the mic. Immediately I felt like I was way more in the ‘ballpark’ than I ever could be with the three-band EQ of my analogue mixing console.

You might be thinking: that’s a good party trick, but hardly worth wagering the farm on. And, to be honest, when I first heard about the Line6 wireless I was of the same opinion: “here’s a company with instrument modelling smarts trying to find new ways in which to package its IP”. Turns out the mic modelling is only one aspect of a really well conceived system.

2.4GHZ: WHAT’S THE DOWNSIDE?

XD-V is a complete wireless range. Handheld, guitar, lapel, headset; there’s a system for most applications. They all share the same RX212 receiver unit. So effectively XD-V is no different to any other wireless system, like a Shure SLX, except in one key respect: XD-V works in the 2.4GHz range, not UHF.

As you’re probably aware, 2.4GHz is a popular frequency. Wi-fi and Bluetooth use 2.4GHz, so in other words, unless you’re reading this article in The Kimberley, you’re bathing in it – your cordless phones, wireless router, wireless mouse etc, are all operating on the same frequency range. The reason why 2.4GHz is so popular, is because it doesn’t require a license. And from an audio perspective that’s great news: you have a system that will operate anywhere in the world – no need to worry about finding a slice of available UHF spectrum or experiencing random interference. Brilliant! So why then doesn’t every wireless mic or in-ear system use 2.4GHz then?

To operate in the 2.4GHz range you need to work digitally – unlike UHF which works with analogue signals. So, to be ‘heard’ in the crush of this wireless digital blizzard we’re engulfed in, you need some fairly serious error correction – packets of data will be dropped hither and thither so you need to employ methods whereby your receiver takes a look at the data stream from a variety of ‘angles’ and grabs the one with the most integrity [check out the Digital Diversity box item]. All this cross-checking takes time. And this traditionally has been the main killer: latency. Line6 quotes a latency figure of 4ms. This is loads better than earlier 2.4GHz wireless systems by the likes of Sabine, but many in the pro sphere would contend that the 4ms figure is ‘still too high’. For most small to medium applications, though, it’s perfectly acceptable.

The other reason why pro and semi-pro systems by Shure, Sennheiser etc still stick with UHF is its ability to accommodate dozens of systems for large-scale shows. Sure, the ARIAs or a big Broadway show will have someone looking after wireless spectrum as a full time job, but at least they’re guaranteed of high-quality audio that’ll happily travel 100 metres or more.

Line6 says the XD-V maxes out at 12 ‘channels’ in a single system, and quotes a reliable 100-metre maximum transmission distance. The great feature of 2.4GHz is that as you keep adding systems, you won’t need to go searching for (a sometimes increasingly scarce) frequency slot, it’ll just spark up. But this isn’t to say that you’re not crowding an already crowded frequency range even further, and often the ‘quid pro quo’ is decreased range.

As an example, we used half a dozen XD-V systems on the AudioTechnology World stage at Integrate a few months ago, and (in an environment seething with RF) we never had a drop out – effectively we were flying below (well, actually, above) the RF radar. Mind you, we had the transmitters and receivers less than 20 metres apart and we weren’t approaching the 12-channel limit – but the setup didn’t miss a beat in the three days of use.