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New Wireless Player In The Game

pbass62

Supporting Member
Sep 24, 2007
1,069
415
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Iron Station NC
Fishman AirLock GT Wireless system is a new player in the game.
I have one on order from Sweetwater and after research it looks very promising. I presently own a Sennheiser G3 system that I have absolutely no complains with and has never let me down.

Here is an great video with Larry Fishman about the research and development.


Here is the link from Fishman specs etc.

From the Specs and R&D I think Fishman will do well with this
 
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It ain’t cheap, and it’s 2.4G.
It WILL have problems at some point if being used in urban areas - ie clubs and bars, etc.
The Senn G3 system is probably NOT 2.4G. I can’t confirm as the model is not identified.
Yes, I use a Senn G4 for my bass wireless. Solid as a rock.

The Fishman looks interesting, but I would stay away from anything 2.4G for stage use!
My $0.02
 
The Fishman looks interesting, but I would stay away from anything 2.4G for stage use!
My $0.02

That was my first thought too. However, watching the video with the interview with the Fishman guy swayed me a little bit. Apparently they abandoned their 5.8 product before it was released. There were some non technical factors, but they seem pretty confident in the 2.4G technology they've developed. They claim it can monitor 40 separate channels and switch transparently between them when needed.

But, the price is a little too scary for me to make the plunge just yet.
 
That was my first thought too. However, watching the video with the interview with the Fishman guy swayed me a little bit. Apparently they abandoned their 5.8 product before it was released. There were some non technical factors, but they seem pretty confident in the 2.4G technology they've developed. They claim it can monitor 40 separate channels and switch transparently between them when needed.

But, the price is a little too scary for me to make the plunge just yet.
Interesting, cuz there aren't 40 separate channels in the FCC 2.4G band. There's 14 and only 12 are allowed in the US.
Not sure how they are getting around it, so I guess I'll have to watch the vid.. :)
If it's "autosensing" like my old G3 unit, then it will channel-hop based on best open channel, so it's constantly scanning.
That had zero impact on performance on my unit.

1754505008393.png
 
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It ain’t cheap, and it’s 2.4G.
It WILL have problems at some point if being used in urban areas - ie clubs and bars, etc.
The Senn G3 system is probably NOT 2.4G. I can’t confirm as the model is not identified.
Yes, I use a Senn G4 for my bass wireless. Solid as a rock.

The Fishman looks interesting, but I would stay away from anything 2.4G for stage use!
My $0.02

My G3 and your G4 are pretty much equal.
Mine operates in legal 500 mghz uhf band
Yes it is solid as a rock.
Mr Fishman has claimed his systems technology works fantastic in a heavily crowded 2.4 environment

I’ll honestly run it through the milll
My church is Heavy WiFi routers environment and other 2.4 gear
 
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I tried a similar 2.4G gadget. As s0c9 implies, it was less than reliable. On a whim, I purchased a used Audio-Technica ATW-1501System 10 (I thought it was UHF, but I was wrong – its 2.4G). I've probably done 100 gigs with it and never had a single issue or dropout. It just works.
 
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I had a Sony DWZ 2.4 system years ago and it started getting issues at this same church . Curiosity has me more than anything, purchasing this system and giving it a real world again hi 2.4 polluted mega church environment. Lekado and other amazonian $49 systems massively failed here.

My Sennheiser UHF system works flawlessly. I use a backbeat transducer attached to my strap so lightning the footprint with a smaller transmitter.
Again the fishman will be put through the wringer.
 
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Interesting, cuz there aren't 40 separate channels in the FCC 2.4G band. There's 14 and only 12 are allowed in the US.
Not sure how they are getting around it, so I guess I'll have to watch the vid.. :)
If it's "autosensing" like my old G3 unit, then it will channel-hop based on best open channel, so it's constantly scanning.
That had zero impact on performance on my unit.
Yeah, I may be using the wrong terminology. You will likely understand more about what he's saying in the video than I could.

Sweetwater has a shorter interview with him that touches on some of the same things:
 
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Here is Fishmans information on their use of 2.4 GHZ .

Is it marketing hype, I will honestly find out.

AIRLOCK WIRELESS GT INTERFERENCE SETTINGS​


Previous
SEE USER GUIDES

INTERFERENCE SETTINGS



WIFI AND MICROWAVES

Despite the reviews, 2.4GHz is a legit radio frequency for digital wireless audio. In fact, we use it for Bluetooth audio streaming. We use it for WiFi. Even your microwave oven sizzles your food at 2.45GHz.

What we’ve tested with our competition though, is that it generally works, in ideal conditions, in your home, usually. But when it comes down to it we’re all still a little weary of staking our reputation on these systems. 500 cell phones pile into your gig and things start to get hairy. You want to stream from your mobile phone and you start sweating. The venue’s kitchen kicks on their microwaves and you’re reaching for your cable again. So we blame 2.4GHz when we should be blaming the wireless designers.

AirLock takes a revolutionary approach to providing low-latency audio transmission with a focus on eliminating drop-outs as a priority. And we know you won’t be able to ask everyone to leave their cell phones outside – you need the vids! So the radio system is designed to use two channels at once (aka “diversity”) and operates over 40 channels in the 2.4GHz space. And – per FCC law – we have to constantly monitor free channels and hop over if an ambulance drives by, or one of our pesky competitors refuses to obey the rules and squats on the channel they made you pre-set at the

beginning of the night.

Not only that, but AirLock can do this while 8 sets of transmitters and receivers are together on stage. The other major products don’t do this – just sayin’. Remember, they made you choose channels during the chaos of setup?

To achieve all of this and still provide you with stellar audio quality, it takes just 3.3ms. Is that the lowest latency on the market? Nope. But is it only 1ms longer than the shortest one that for the longest time has been known to experience the most drop-outs and is that worth it, we think so.



INTERFERENCE SWITCH

But you’re still nervous about 2.4GHz. We get it. So we put you in control. We created the “Interference” setting to better inform the radio algorithm about the wifidensity you’re dealing with. It’s kind of like if you were getting one bar on your mobile phone and nothing was loading and thought, “if I could do something about this, even if it took a little longer to buffer, I’d try it.” Well, sort of like that.

Normally, run in the Low setting using the “Interference” switch on the transmitter. But when the place gets packed and you’ve gotta nail this set, you can select a Medium or High setting. And at the sacrifice of a little latency, you can have drop-out-free audio. In fact, we extensively tested a host of competitors in a room full of WiFi routers, cellphones, laptops, a microwave (for real), and more and our High setting was flawless, and that’s only 4.9ms latency, kids.

FEATURED ON THIS PRODUCT​

 
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It's still not clear to me what they mean by channels, in the Sweetwater vid he says 148 channels (2:15 in vid).
There's only 12 channels in the 2.4G band in the US, each set 5Mhz apart, with Chan 1, 6 and 11 being non-overlapping. I have to guess that they are using the full FCC Allocated 2.4G 80 MHz bandwidth (2400-2480 MHz) and dividing it by 148, so each of their channels is ~ 0.54 MHz wide. That seems pretty narrow, but..
1. I'd bet they've done the research/testing and
2. I don't know enough to know whether that type of channel splitting is legal (or not).

For $319 @ Sweetwater, it might work really well when compared to the $49 Chinese "stuff" from Amazon. :)
To be clear - I have nothing against the product, nor have I used it.
Just sharing my $0.02 skepticism based on experience 15+ yrs of 2.4G in live audio.
YMMV

Interested to read @pbass62 's review!
 
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Well I purchased for curiosity sake a Lekado system on sale off Amazon 5.6mghz.
I plugged it in before sound check and within 15 seconds getting serious dropouts.
It worked fine at home though.
It’s on the return list😉

The Fishman system is supposed to be delivered Wednesday
 
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Well I purchased for curiosity sake a Lekado system on sale off Amazon 5.6mghz.
I plugged it in before sound check and within 15 seconds getting serious dropouts.
It worked fine at home though.
It’s on the return list😉

The Fishman system is supposed to be delivered Wednesday
Shocker.

I did the same with the KZ branded IEMs a few months back, and one of them was DOA, and the other sounded terrible. Definitely planning to steer clear of any fake Chinese inferior products sold on Amazon in the future. It's a waste of time and money, and supports multiple inhumane businesses.
 
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It ain’t cheap, and it’s 2.4G.
It WILL have problems at some point if being used in urban areas - ie clubs and bars, etc.
The Senn G3 system is probably NOT 2.4G. I can’t confirm as the model is not identified.
Yes, I use a Senn G4 for my bass wireless. Solid as a rock.

The Fishman looks interesting, but I would stay away from anything 2.4G for stage use!
My $0.02
Also a Sennheiser G4 user. I played wired until a few years ago. I can't believe how good the wireless sounds. Bet you can't tell the difference from wired. I also have only used Sennheiser in-ear systems since '07/'08, and they are stellar...well worth the money.
 
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I promised I would give a honest follow up with the Fishman Air Lock Wireless system that was just released. Came to the house this past Wednesday

My Sunday morning setup was Rcvr into my Nanocortex and Transmitter into my Alembic Rogue 5 for practice. Absolutely no hiccups and this gymatorium is loaded with digital/wifi sound gear ,lighting and routers.

I walked to the back as you can see distance by picture no dropout but as you would expect nice natural slap back. ( I doubt I would ever need that distance);) in church.

The ultimate test was when the house was full with added cell phones etc. I kept a cable on hot standby by the way. I then ran the transmitter into the parallel output of my Backbeat G2 transducer.
1st 1/2 of service went well and then came back after sermon for 2nd 1/2, go to tune silently and get no signal response at 1st.
This system goes into a sleep mode (power saver)if no signal sensed (if I would have read manual I would have known) that's on me:rolleyes:.
She woke up after me giving a couple of notes and snd 1/2 went flawless.

I talked to our FOH after and he said no issues and was pleased with the sound/signal.

Im going to let one of our acoustic players try it out in practice and see how it sounds with his Breedlove acoustic next Sunday.

I honestly think it's a keeper. Any RF device can have its bad day in court. As I said previously I own a UHF ch Sennheiser G3 conventional body pack system that has zero issues. I have owned previous 2.4 ( Sony DWZ)and Line 6 that this church atmosphere caused dropouts and several other UHF systems that due to the FCC had to sell overseas.

Im going to give it one more Sunday but I love the compactness and the sound so far.
 

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I’m very happy with my Lekato JW-06 which is a 5.8ghz wireless system which is fairly unique in that it has its own charging cradle which can wirelessly re-charge both transmitter and receiver and also charge other devices like your cell phone or tablet using a cable. Joyo offer an identical version as well. Excellent fairly low cost wireless system.
 
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I’m very happy with my Lekato JW-06 which is a 5.8ghz wireless system which is fairly unique in that it has its own charging cradle which can wirelessly re-charge both transmitter and receiver and also charge other devices like your cell phone or tablet using a cable. Joyo offer an identical version as well. Excellent fairly low cost wireless system.
Glad the Lekato works for you I couldn’t get 15seconds without dropout on my 5.6 Lekato.
I was able to return it.
This church can be an RF nightmare.
It’s
 

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