New Wireless Mic System
While our church only lost one wireless microphone system to the 700Mhz deal last year, we have had several other wireless mic system problems and failures this year. I’ve put off replacing them as long as I can. It’s time to put an upgrade plan in place.
I first heard about the new line a digital systems from Line 6 last year and was very intrigued, so I made it my first replacement choice. We’ve had the mic for a couple of months, and so far I’ve been very pleased with it. Since these are digital systems, they operate in a completely different frequency range than analog wireless systems, and should therefore never run into the interference or other issues as with the FCC’s sell-off of the 700Mhz band.
You can use as many as 12 systems at a time, and the antennas can be linked for as many as six units. So with 12 systems in use, you could get by with only two of those units having antennas sticking up. For us that’s nice, because our receivers are lined up in front of us with the all those antennas slightly blocking our view of the stage.
The Line 6 mics follow the Shure standard for lapel and headset plugs, which again is good for us as we already have a couple of lapels that can be used with it. The mic capsule is also replaceable with Shure standard capsules, including Heil. Another feature is the mic modeling capability that allows the mic to simulate the sound of several popular wired microphones. So far, I am preferring the Line 6 model itself over any of the others. It has a nice, clear, bright sound to it.
My only complaints at this point is the battery compartment feels a little cheaply made. I’m concerned about it breaking off after extended use. I’m also a little puzzled as to why the mic modeling has to be changed on the mic itself, rather than the receiver. It seems to me, more often than not, the person experimenting with mic models will be the audio tech, and making those changes from the receiver instead of the mic would be much more convenient.
All in all, for the money ~$400, I think we will be very happy with this mic for a while. Mike Sessler has some additional info on them here and here.
from my notebook 