Line 6 G30 Wireless System Review

I finally capitulated, after 20 years of thinking about going wireless (and actually anecdotally I realised that I have actually been using the same lead since 1993, through 1000's of gigs!). So, I decided to take the plunge. As I run sound at certain gigs at the moment, being able to get around the venue easily at soundcheck sound was a requirement, as tangled leads made things very difficult and of course the lead was never really long enought. So I thought and pondered over the move for a long time, baring in mind that I love my 'umbilical' cord. I did a lot of research about the all issues etc, but the Line 6 seemed to keep popping up as a decent and cost effective solution.I was still not totally convinced, but I decided to go with the Line 6 G30,  I didn't feel I needed all the advanced features of the other two units, plus it was purchased as a trial to see if I could adapt to wireless and it wasn't the end of the earth as an outlay, and had a good resale on E-bay!Well, I am really really impressed, the first and REALLY noticeable difference is the sound….why is this? Well, there is no cable effect, the effect of resistance and capacitance present in all cables, which results in signal lose. You are able to hear pretty much exactly what your guitar sounds like, I mean really sounds like! You'll probably find that this sounds perceptively louder than normal, although the biggest surprise is how bright it sounds, you realise the amount of high frequency drop off you get with a cable (brings back those lectures on the effects on frequency by capacitors and resistors!). To counter this, Line 6 have added in a 'cable' effect switch, where you can mimic the effects of a cable, by adding in certain lengths to your signal path and thus dropping of some of those HF components. Turning it off does give you an almost crystalline clean sound, might be nice for a bit of funk!!

  • Latency, I can't notice any
  • Range, seems to be able 30 feet (100 metres) or so, I have been able to go a little bit further without any drop out, but I haven't had the need to go any further than that!
  • Battery life, well Line 6 state you can get about 8 hours from one set of AA batteries, I have to say that sounds about right, I am getting about three gigs and a bit of rehearsal out of a set, which is quite impressive. Stock up on some rechargeables!

I think I might say (having vocally said that I never would) that I am loving the freedom of the wireless, I still have a cable close by, but it is nice to have the freedom, it is nice to be able to go out front in certain shows and hear what it sounds like, it is also nice to be able to 'pose'!!EnjoyPeaceNeil