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[Scott Russell]

Does anyone have experience with the Phenyx systems? Particularly the PTU-5000A and the PTU-7000A?  They would be used in a small church environment with the receiver units in the balcony.

Thank you.

[Matthias McCready]

Does anyone have experience with the Phenyx systems? Particularly the PTU-5000A and the PTU-7000A?  They would be used in a small church environment with the receiver units in the balcony.

Thank you.

No.

But save your money.

My experience with wireless is you get exactly what you pay for. I have seen many churches buy whatever "wireless" is cheapest, and I have yet to see it work out well. Sometimes it doesn't work at all, sometimes is mostly works, but sounds awful and has drop out issues. Most budget systems are plagued by noise issues such as: lots of handling noise that is louder than talking, limited frequency and compression (AM radio sounding), distortion, and so much noise/hiss that trying to get it to broadcast levels (for streaming the service) is probably a lost cause.

Simply put cheap wireless doesn't save you money, it is not good stewardship of the resources you have.

The most "inexpensive" wireless I have found to be reliable is Shure's newish SLX-D (digital not analog, the old analog SLX is awful), however Shure QLX-D is a little better yet.

Note that this is about $700+ per channel of wireless; if you are cheaper than that, wired is usually a much better option.

---

Point and case you can buy a wired SM58 for $100, and it will simply work. You can spend upwards of $3,000 for a wireless channel with an SM58 capsule; one which will hopefully work as well as the wired version. Only your $3,000 version requires batteries, and is much more fragile than your $100 mic and cable.

So if several thousand for wireless isn't in the cards, may I recommend staying wired?

If the pastor really desires are wireless mic, get a single channel of something decent. Also another money saving tip, LAV/Headset mics tend to break quite easily (I have had to replace more of those than I care to remember  ) so when budget friendly is priority, steer people towards using an actual hand-held mic. As an added bonus, those usually offer superior gain before feedback compared to most LAV/Headset mics (due to the microphone pickup pattern).

[Taylor Phillips]

No experience with those particular units, but I think I would avoid them just based on the price point.  I've used some others in that price range and they seem to just be bad. Poor build quality, excess handling noise (defeats the purpose of wireless handheld), loose electronic connections after a bit of hard use.  A four-in-one unit is tempting, but at that price it's like not modular and one simple failure in the main receiver might mean losing all four channels at once.

Consumer reviews on Amazon praise the build quality of the units you mentioned, but it's hard to tell if they are objectively well constructed, or just on the better end of the price point (or if the reviews are actually legit).  More importantly, people complained about handling noise, and signal dropping out when they were well in range.

Sent from my moto g power (2021) using Tapatalk

[Tim Weaver]

No.


Simply put cheap wireless doesn't save you money, it is not good stewardship of the resources you have.

The most "inexpensive" wireless I have found to be reliable is Shure's newish SLX-D (digital not analog, the old analog SLX is awful), however Shure QLX-D is a little better yet.

Note that this is about $700+ per channel of wireless; if you are cheaper than that, wired is usually a much better option.

I would like to point out that wired is ALWAYS a better option. Even on the biggest productions in the world those high-dollar wireless mics are almost always backed up by a wired mic hiding off stage in case the wireless goes dead.

If you are out in the country there are several 2.4ghz type mics that should work well for you, but if you live in a more congested space you need to spend money on better mics. The Shure SLXD mentioned above is a good budget choice.

[Matthias McCready]

I would like to point out that wired is ALWAYS a better option. Even on the biggest productions in the world those high-dollar wireless mics are almost always backed up by a wired mic hiding off stage in case the wireless goes dead.

I can confirm this, we keep a wired backup for our Shure Axient rig. Haven't had to use it yet, but it is there.

[lindsay Dean]

I've said this before and I'll say it again except for the pastor I don't understand why on a tight budget performers that usually just stand in one place need a wireless mic system.
 it's not a good use of money,  until you get up into the decent ones shure Sennheiser Etc except for Aesthetics there's really no point on a tight budget.

[Mike Caldwell]

Don't even consider those or for that matter any four channel wireless system that only cost $200.

My experience with any wireless system like those and there are a few of them out there is they all are having issues with at least one channel that is dead. The handhelds with those systems that I have done a check one two with all have had some of the worst handling noise I've ever heard.
Any system I have worked using a system like those they always mention issues with the wireless and I say there's nothing I can do to fix them.

If needed and it will work in the given space my budget wireless choice is the Audio Technica 2000 series.

[Tim Weaver]

I've said this before and I'll say it again except for the pastor I don't understand why on a tight budget performers that usually just stand in one place need a wireless mic system.
 it's not a good use of money,  until you get up into the decent ones shure Sennheiser Etc except for Aesthetics there's really no point on a tight budget.

Wireless mics get you closer to God.

I swear I have this fight so often. I'll put a perfectly functional and great sounding gooseneck mic on a lecturn in a classroom and they complain it "picks up everything" so they want a wireless HH instead, UNTIL they find out that with a handheld they actually have to, you know, hold it and then they want a headset. So at that point we've spent 1500 bucks to get back to a mic that looks silly and still picks up everything.

[Mike Caldwell]

"so they want a wireless HH instead, UNTIL they find out that with a handheld they actually have to, you know, hold it somewhere around their mouth and then they want a headset."

I fixed that for you!!

[Thomas Le]

Never heard of this brand. Stick to established name brands ala Shure or Sennheiser or Audio Technica.

[Brian Jojade]

The 4 unit model is $199.  A shure SM58 wired mic is $100.  That alone should tell you something.

The 4 unit model is FIXED frequencies.  If those frequencies don't work in your area, you're screwed.

The adjustable frequency model is weird that the mics only get a very small range of frequencies to work with. The nice thing, I guess is that you can't tune two of them to the same frequency accidentally...  But the lack of flexibility is quite odd.

It's pretty amazing when these cheapie manufacturers copy designs of the handhelds to look SO similar to well known brands.  These certainly are copying the SHURE look.

Reviews on cheap consumer goods are always to be questioned.  It's easy to buy 'fake' reviews, and those that may be real are from users that don't know the difference between something that turns on and passes sound once during testing and something that is actually a quality piece of gear.

The general rule right now is if you don't have a budget of at least $500/channel for wireless, don't do it.  Wired will be a better choice.

[scottstephens]

Scott,

   I am a little late to the party but you've been given some good advice here. I have heard of the PTU 5000. A small local (ish) church bought that system during the pandemic. We told them not to.  But they were complaining because the cheapest systems we offer, the Audio Technica 2000 series and the Shure BLX pics were not available and were more than they wanted to spend.  Guess what? Their mic was dropping out at 30 feet. The pastor would walk to the back of the church and "poof" no audio. They called us to fix it. Our response was. pretty much  "We told you so." As soon as they could, they bought the Shure BLX unit. 
   And this was in a rural area. And I mean rural, that entire county only has 13, 000 people.  The church had maybe 40 people max and I am guessing that would be on Easter Sunday.  The "town" consisted of 2 churches, a gas/grocery store, a hardware type store and a diner. And the population is about 250 people.
   As stated here often, Buy Once Cry Once.

Scott

[Daniel Levi]

There's a church round here that has a xtuga brand 4ch wireless system, now what stood out for me was that the microphones say UHF on them but the receiver clearly has antenna for band 3/VHF.

If you do really need wireless for lower amounts of cash then you could always look at the Mipro, Trantec/TOA or JTS systems or even go second hand, the TOA stuff can be had for a good price second hand (at least over here) and is generally decently made kit, my 80's and 90's TOA VHF kit still works fine and I believe everything but the early silver units all uses tone squelch.

[ProSoundWeb Community]