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Author Topic: 2.4GHZ units  (Read 2505 times)

DavidTurner

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2.4GHZ units
« on: September 15, 2016, 02:08:21 PM »

Our Bass player wants to purchase one of the newer, cheaper units that use the 2.4GHZ band. Am I right to be concerned about possible interference from punters in the audience connecting to whatever open wifi is around? Bear in mind that we will be playing a mixture of proscenium halls, casinos, state and county fairs and multi-act festivals.

I currently have a total of 17 wireless channels (mics, instruments and IEMs) in a variety of bands starting in the low 500 MHZ up to 698 MHZ. The previous bass player was using a unit in the 900 MHZ band  and I didn't have to worry about coordination for him.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2016, 02:35:16 PM by DavidTurner »
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Jason Glass

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Re: 2.4GHZ units
« Reply #1 on: September 15, 2016, 07:34:00 PM »

Hi David,

The manufacturers will claim that Wi-Fi is not a problem. The problem is that in the real world, especially at modern festivals, there are all kinds of data flying around at 2.4 gigahertz including Wireless DMX for lighting, Bluetooth, and often times dozens and dozens of what they are now calling micro access points around the venue that allow the festival to serve content to all the mobile phone users in the audience. Each of these services are extremely low-power and often don't cause any interference to more powerful microphone or instrument systems when they are the only source of noise. However when you have all of that stuff simultaneously clamoring for the same slice of spectrum, the noise floor rises significantly.

What's worse is most of these devices use self coordinating, or frequency hopping, or other wideband transmission schemes that are completely unpredictable when attempting to coordinate your instrument Wireless Systems. This leaves you vulnerable to interference.

The bottom line is that if you are a professional playing anything beyond the level of the same bar gig or church every weekend, in the same venue or familiar venues, 2.4 GHz is not appropriate.

Sent from my mobile phone. Please excuse the inevitable spelling and grammatical errors.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2016, 07:36:33 PM by Jason Glass »
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DavidTurner

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2.4GHZ units
« Reply #2 on: September 15, 2016, 08:06:34 PM »

Thank you Jason. That is what I suspected. I am going to recommend he not purchase that unit. I may try to free up one of my uhfr units for him.

PS: You stated the situation far morr eloquently than I could have
« Last Edit: September 15, 2016, 08:13:13 PM by DavidTurner »
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Jason Glass

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Re: 2.4GHZ units
« Reply #3 on: September 15, 2016, 09:37:06 PM »

Thank you Jason. That is what I suspected. I am going to recommend he not purchase that unit. I may try to free up one of my uhfr units for him.

PS: You stated the situation far morr eloquently than I could have
Just want to clarify that this is only my humble opinion.

Also, be prepared for a legitimate defense; those units, when they work, work great! They do an amazing job for their price point, and deliver near-flat frequency and phase response in the lower audible octaves so important to bass players. They may actually exceed UHF-R on those specs.  The cost for this is usually paid in latency, which typically equates to better than a reasonable acoustic delay distance between an electric guitar player and his amp.

In other words, they do have some legit mojo. ;-)

Sent from my mobile phone. Please excuse the inevitable spelling and grammatical errors.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2016, 09:41:55 PM by Jason Glass »
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Re: 2.4GHZ units
« Reply #3 on: September 15, 2016, 09:37:06 PM »


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