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Author Topic: Line6 XD-V70 wireless mic road test  (Read 59241 times)

Simon Ryder

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Re: Line6 XD-V70 wireless mic road test
« Reply #10 on: April 05, 2011, 06:58:49 AM »

There are 12 user channels available for simultaneous use by the Line 6 2.4G digital systems.  So if you use an XD-V30 on channel one then yes you can use 11 XD-V70's on the others.  You can also mix in the Relay instrument systems as well ... for a total of twelve.

Hi Don,

Will the handset power Shure condensor apsules such as the KSM9?
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Guy Morris

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Re: Line6 XD-V70 wireless mic road test
« Reply #11 on: April 06, 2011, 07:37:45 AM »

Has anyone used the headset version yet? I'm looking for a new system set of 12  but if the headset has the same noise issue as the Lav then I would need to look at another brand of mic capsule to connect.(recommendations anyone?) I was thinking of having six of the Hand Held mics and also buying 12 beltpacks and headsets just for theater use but in the UK dealers only seem to sell the complete system of one type or the other however I notice the Line 6 website offers them as accessories. Any UK dealers who sell to specific order?

Guy
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Don Boomer

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Re: Line6 XD-V70 wireless mic road test
« Reply #12 on: April 12, 2011, 01:34:02 PM »

Hi Don,

Will the handset power Shure condensor apsules such as the KSM9?

No ... but it will power 86 & 87 capsules.
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Don Boomer
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Tamas Tako

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Re: Line6 XD-V70 wireless mic road test
« Reply #13 on: April 12, 2011, 04:42:48 PM »

No ... but it will power 86 & 87 capsules.

Hi Don,

I had the possibility to check out one XD-V70 set.
Here are my toughts:
- The original capsule sounds quite good, however I can overload the Handheld Transmitter when shout very loud into the mic. (ca 2 dB lower gain would fix it)
- The Beta 87 Shure screw on capsule has much lower signal, so the SNR will be much worser with using them. (again, the gain structure)
- The KSM 9 Shure srew on capsule is not always having perfect contact. and again has even less signal than the Beta 87.
- the whole unit has quite low output level which lead to an increased Gain on the following mic preamp/ mixing console / active splitter etc. That causes higher level input noise from these units, so having more level out of the unit would lover the overall noise, and increase the SNR!

I can check the serial nr of the unit, for your reference, becouse I think this is at least oen year old, and so there could be some update since then - wich could correct all these small "problems".

i am curious, if others also have these tougths?

Thanks,

Tamas Tako
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Luis Pinzón Arroyo

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Re: Line6 XD-V70 wireless mic road test
« Reply #14 on: May 21, 2011, 11:19:19 PM »

Is there a way to run receiver's output at line level?
And change emitter's mic input sensibility?

Thank's.
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Don Boomer

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Re: Line6 XD-V70 wireless mic road test
« Reply #15 on: May 27, 2011, 02:49:51 PM »

Is there a way to run receiver's output at line level?
And change emitter's mic input sensibility?

Thank's.

No ... the output is mic level only.  The design goal was to simply replace the "wire" that connected a mic to the mixer so the output follows the sensitivity of the mic model you select.  If you pick a hotter model like "b58" you'll get more output than if you select the Audix based model.

The "L6" model is the hottest of all the models available btw.
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Don Boomer
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Chuck Simon

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Re: Line6 XD-V70 wireless mic road test
« Reply #16 on: June 01, 2011, 11:37:01 AM »

I just tested the Heil RC-35 capsule with my new V70 in the shop.  I have to say, with my voice, so far, I prefer the Line 6 capsule!   It is the best my mediocre voice has ever sounded!  They have really outdone themselves with this one!  Now with a real singer out there in the real world it will probably be a different story and I can't wait to find out.
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Langston Holland

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Re: Line6 XD-V70 wireless mic road test
« Reply #17 on: June 09, 2011, 12:18:21 PM »

After keeping the amazing Line 6 wireless demo about 3 months longer than I'd promised, I've finally had the time to use and measure it and - amazingly - finally send it back to Craig who's been way too gracious to me.

Conclusion:

You'd be a fool not to check this system out if you're looking for wireless anywhere near its price range. This type of wireless system or something similar to it is the future. Occupy one frequency region that already has approval for use over most of the civilized world due to wifi while using data headers to differentiate between audio streams seems like the "duh" moment of what to do about diminishing white spaces. Still, this digital thing is in its infancy and not without hiccups, but if you place the receiver carefully it's quite reliable. The older school stuff seems more robust in avoiding dropouts in my experience, but it doesn't sound as good and costs more, a lot more if you're into quality.

My favorite features are (1) sound quality, (2) build quality - not Lectrosonics or the high end Shure, Sennheiser, etc., but a real step up from most of the stuff out there, (3) Shure capsule compatibility on the handheld and Shure standard TA4F connector on the beltpack, and (4) cost.

Measurements and Comments:

The (3) wireless systems I have access to are compared to the Line 6 XD-V70, we'll go from worst to best from a sound and measurement perspective. The XD-V70 is covered last. :) In each case I took the easy way out and made measurements on the beltpacks since they have wired inputs. It is assumed that the transmitter technology employed in the handhelds is the same.

Shure ULX-Pro:

This has been a tried and true piece in my rental inventory for 6 years or so. Beat, dropped and repaired once by Shure's marvelous service dept. I trust it to work and it seems quieter in use than the better sounding UHF-R, probably due to the old school companding and high input level compression that the UHF-R seems to make much less use of in the first case and eliminates in the second. Looking forward to corrections on my guesses, but the measurements point in this direction.

In each case when measuring at various input levels, I started with -50dBu and increased levels in 10dB steps through 0dBu (.775v) if the unit could handle that much level before clipping. If the unit could handle more than 0dBu, I added one more trace at the higher level. In the case of the ULX-Pro, you'll notice that Shure has a compressor that not only lowers the output up to 4dB, but reduces its bandwidth while doing so. The lower traces are the higher input levels with the increasing compression. You never notice this in use because folks are screaming at these levels and it's usually ugly anyway. Not a very flat spectrum, but fine for rock 'n roll and general use.



Now you'll note what I've come to understand as a tell-tale sign of classic wireless companding - that is you can't measure the thing with a swept sine (black trace). This type of system is reasonably expecting a fairly broadband signal and if you use a slow sine sweep (or worse, one frequency at a time via a stepped sine measurement), you'll find out in a hurry that you should NOT use such systems with percussive instruments with a lot of LF energy. Then again, you can get a who-knows-what-it's-gonna-sound-like LF expander effect with these things on a drum kit if you want. :) Ever used a ULX-Pro beltpack on a picked acoustic guitar and been amazed at the "dynamics"? Now you know why. Finally, distortion measurements are only practical on systems that can tolerate swept (or even better - stepped) sine stimuli.



Shure UHF-R:

This has been a tried and true piece in my rental inventory for 4 years or so. Also treated roughly at times, but not nearly so much given the upper scale rentals. It has proved trustworthy after an initial spate of blanking transmitter LED screens that were fixed under warranty. These things sound much better than the ULX-Pro, are built much nicer and priced accordingly.

This unit does much better with swept sines, but still has some companding going on thus still has a preference for pink noise measurements. Compression at higher input levels is eliminated - what you put in is what you get out - yea.



Swept sine vs pink noise. Yes, Ethel, you can use this on percussive instruments without much issue.



Now that we have a unit that can tolerate sine waves, we can have a look at distortion at the highest input levels. The following uses a fairly long stepped sine stimulus.



And now the main reason I dropped over 2 grand on the CLIO measurement system, a very short term gated stepped measurement - only 6.5ms down to 300Hz or so where the wavelengths get long enough that you have to open the "meter on time" enough to get at least a couple of sine periods in to make a reliable distortion measurement. These very short term sine bursts allow peak measurements of loudspeakers and amps without melting things. In the case of wireless measurements, it'll reveal which systems can pretend to be hardwired and which cannot - not that you'll ever find any real music with 6.5ms events. You _might_ find high Q issues with loudspeakers that would have been missed with a log sweep or noise based stimulus.



Lectrosonics TM400:

Ever driven or just closed the door on a Mercedes Benz and thought how different really well made stuff is? That's what my Lectrosonics TM400 wireless measurement system feels like. It also works extremely well plugged into a Neumann KMS105, which like most Neumann capacitor mics, is no piece of cake to power correctly.

Very little or no compression going on. No need for pink noise measurements with this unit.



Stepped sine distortion measurement.



Interestingly, some of the very short 6.5ms sine bursts poked their heads out of the magnitude trace as you can see here in black. Again, 6.5ms ain't nature, but the XD-V70 can handle it and does an amazing impression of a mic cable as you'll soon see.



Line 6 XD-V70:

This unit amazes, but has to be used with a bit more care to get dropout-free and clean HF performance. On the first issue, you need to keep the receiver on stage near the transmitter in my experience. On the second issue, I found by accident that of the (12) "frequencies" the unit said were available, channels 2 and 12 showed a fair amount of HF noise in the measurement traces that I initially thought was an issue with my test setup. I have no idea at this point if it's audible. Changing channels to anything but 2 or 12 fixed it. My Apple router was about 10' away and happens to use channel 2 in its transmission, but I have no idea if this has anything to do with it or not - this is new territory for me. I should have turned the router off to find out, but only thought of this just now. :)

There are (3) "environment" modes you can choose with this unit; OFF, NORM, and TALK. With OFF, it acts like a wire and neither companding or compression happen. With NORM, companding and compression don't happen, but expansion with increasing LF extension happen with increasing levels. Must be an attempt at gating noise at low levels. You can also yell and you get the voice of God effect. TALK mode is more of the same. You'll notice that the expansion circuit doesn't like swept sine measurements - again reasonable given the broadband signal expected. Personally, OFF is "norm" for me. :)

Environment OFF swept sine. Wireless bass and guitar users need not apply elsewhere.



Environment OFF gated stepped sine.



Environment NORM and TALK swept sine (expander not happy).



Environment NORM pink noise at various input levels.



Environment TALK pink noise at various input levels.



We sure torture ourselves in the quest to replace a $25 mic cable.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2012, 03:08:25 AM by Langston Holland »
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Tim McCulloch

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Re: Line6 XD-V70 wireless mic road test
« Reply #18 on: June 11, 2011, 11:42:44 AM »

Quote
We sure torture ourselves in the quest to replace a $25 mic cable.

Performers and clients torture us in the quest to replace a mic cable.  I can't count the number of times in the last 25 years I've tried to talk folks out of wireless anything after they've complained about the noise, drop outs, companding effects, etc.  They won't give it up because 'they do it on TV every day!"  Well, if a client wants those results they need to pony up the money for that quality of gear and the level of RF knowledge required to get multiple units to work in their show environment... which they frequently do not want to do.  They can't understand that their $200 Samson isn't as good as my $700 Sennheisers, which aren't as good as Senny's 3000 or 5000 series or the Lectrosonics digital hybrid series or the Shure UHF-R.

Real gear costs real money.  Getting clients to pay for the performance they desire is much more difficult than getting that performance level.

Thanks for the review, Langston.  Also, your review of the PSM900 over at www.soundforums.net is spot on, too.

Have fun, good luck.

Tim Mc
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Ryan O John

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Re: Line6 XD-V70 wireless mic road test
« Reply #19 on: August 20, 2012, 02:41:28 AM »

I actually had this out on tour with me and also a UHF-R... Both with Heil RC35 capsules, this was the 'spare.'  Reason being, neither my monitor guy nor I could hear anything strange, in fact we both loved it, but our singer was hearing a delay in his IEM when using this system versus the UHF-r.  Maybe he's crazy, but it didn't matter if it was analog monitors, a 5d, or SD7, he consistently could hear what he could only describe as an 'almost comb filtery type sound'
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Ryan John
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Re: Line6 XD-V70 wireless mic road test
« Reply #19 on: August 20, 2012, 02:41:28 AM »


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