Cool new product

[BillESC]

Phonic America has released a new universal wireless system designed for speakers.

The WMSYS-3 is a mono system



And the WMSYS-4 is a stereo system



The receivers are slightly larger than a pack of playing cards and both transmitters and receivers come with power supplies. No batteries required.

We've used the systems several times and not experienced any problems even when transmitting through walls.

Each system features 16 selectable UHF frequencies.

[dvsDave]

sounds cool. If you've used it and would like to write a longer review of what your impressions are thus far, I'd be happy to publish it on our front content page. Just PM it a review to me if you want to do that.

-David

[Thomas]

Or, you could get some wireless guitar systems, from, say, shure or sennheiser, plug the transmitter into your mix out, with an AC adapter for power, and put the receiver by the speaker- sorted! :-)

you have to run power anyway, so you could make some nice thick mults with power and sound in them!- you only need 6 cores, and 7 core is readily available these days...

[avkid]

Originally Posted by Thomas

Or, you could get some wireless guitar systems, from, say, shure or sennheiser, plug the transmitter into your mix out, with an AC adapter for power

Too bad they don't make a transmitter with an AC or DC power supply. Adding one would void the warranty.
Using old units for an experiment might be interesting though.

[pacman]

Music Sciences http://musicsciences.com/ has a similar device that operates in the 5.8 GHz band with uncompressed digital audio. Looks like it costs about $500, so it is a good bit more expensive than the Phonic unit. Interestingly, they are also set to release a wireless digital snake with up to 64 channels in June. It will operate above 10Ghz.

[audioslavematt]

I'm not sure I would trust a wireless snake, regardless of where it operates. You have to run power out front anyway, might as well run the snake as well. Ethernet makes it easier than lugging along 64 channels of copper.

[mbenonis]

I wouldn't trust any wireless product going for $500. Plus, their "feature list" seems a bit sketchy - it claims to be a digital product yet have "zero latency" - these are mutually exclusive terms. Plus, the 5.8 GHz band is going to be much more spotty and have more interference than the UHF broadcast bands.

[stantonsound]

I would love to see a wireless snake. I have had so many of the old style destroyed in clubs and outdoor concerts that the money would be worth it. The digital are just as bad....when the one cat 5 cable gets ruined, the whole show goes down. I have tried yellowjackets, etc... but I think people actually try to destroy the snakes.

I have used the sennheiser wireless monitor system/wireless mic system combination in reverse to send the signals to speakers. It was mostly an experiment, but it worked pretty well. It was a wedding that wanted speakers in every room of a 1800's hotel/inn. We put 9 JBL eon's, spread out throughout the inn, all on the same channel with a transmitter at the board. We had an AC transmitter (from the monitor system) at the board and a receiver (from 9 wireless mic's) at each eon. It was so much easier than running xlr all over the inn, as we were not allowed to put tape on the floors.

The quality was pretty good, but it cost the customer a pretty penny. I don't think that they really cared. I am glad that it worked as there really was no plan "B".

[Foxinabox10]

What stops you from using a digital snake with a wireless router and print server?

[BenFranske]

Regular digital (Ethernet) snakes don't work well with wireless Ethernet technologies because they require more bandwidth and less latency than most wireless Ethernet can provide. If you wanted to lay out some real money you could use a point-to-point laser (as opposed to RF) wireless Ethernet system and probably get it to work (as long as there wasn't too much haze in the air) though this probably costs more than people would like.

As far as protecting snakes from damage... It's a lot easier to protect a CAT5 cable then a regualr snake cable, plus they're inexpensive enough to be replaced on a regular basis. If I were doing an outside show I would probably just cut a narrow slit in the ground and bury the CAT5 to protect it. If one cable can bring your show down you have a problem, most digital snakes offer redundancy through a second cable, plus if it's Ethernet you can use switches at both ends for even more redundancy.