Line 6 XD-V70

RevView: It’s kind of ironic that I am doing so many reviews of wireless and wireless related gear recently because for a long time I avoided using any wireless at all.

Like many of us working bandleader types, a lot of my gigs back in Cali meant bringing in a PA and running it and wireless was a hassle I just did not need. Plus, most of the “musician grade” stuff sounded flat out crappy.

In the past few years, the MI level wireless has gotten better but since moving to Las Vegas, trying to squeeze my wireless into the venue’s already crowded spectrum made it just not worth the effort.

Which left me with a significant problem. Look at whatever you think is the biggest conflict on the planet--the one that will never be solved. Now double the intensity. It does not matter which war or uprising you picked because you can double the tension and it is nothing next to the response you will get if you tell a lead singer he or she has to use a wired mic.

So. There ya go...

All of that may explain why I have been such a fan of the Line 6 wireless stuff. It is dead simple, it sounds really good and it does not play in the same sandbox as most the other wireless stuff out there so it does not get stepped on. For a couple of years, the last generation of Line 6 wireless mics was my secret weapon. No singer I ever used it with ever complained. Fellow sound guys turned up their noses but all of them had to admit that despite its lack of pedigree, it worked well and sounded good. I have been looking forward to the new XD series since I first heard about it.

For this review, we used the flagship Line 6 XD-V70 system.

The mic has a rugged construction without making a lot of noise when pulling it in and out of the clip. It has push button mute and select switches for changing to the 12 available channels with a hi power and low power mode to save battery life and a name function to name the microphone if you like it all done on the transmitter.

The receiver features audio, battery, and RF LED indicators on the front with antenna, 9 volt power supply, and unbalanced 1/4 inch and XLR outs on the back. It also does a channel scan. Both the receiver and mic are metal with a polycarbonate antenna housing that looks like it is up for some abuse.

This system adds a few things that the last version did not have. It uses the 2.4gHz ISM band and four frequencies per channel instead of the 900 mHz ISM band and two frequencies per channel making it much more reliable. Plus, in addition to the much beefier construction, they have implemented “mic modeling.” Now, there is no company out there that knows digital modeling of music gear better than Line 6. I am an enthusiastic user of a bunch of their gear. But I have never been a fan of the modeling concept in mics. My dislike is tempered however by their honesty in explaining what is going on with the modeling.

A mic is more than just its signature sound. When an audio pro chooses a mic for a specific application, he or she is also thinking about how much sound and at what frequencies the mic pics up from sources around it. This is called “off-axis response” and it is a huge part of picking the right mic for the job. And Line 6 comes right out and says that the XD mic has a cardioid pickup pattern and that the modeling is all about the way the end product sounds and not about pickup pattern.

Look at it like this. If you have a well-stocked mic locker and you want an Audix OM5 on the lead vocal, you just grab the OM5. But if you are like most musicians who own just a few or even one mic, this opens up a lot of possibilities. And the models do sound very much like what you would expect from the mic being modeled.

But wait. There’s more.

The smarter than the average bear Line 6 design team made the XD-V70 with the same kind of connection used between the mic and the transmitter on the industry-standard wireless mics. Which means that you can switch out the capsule for one of your choosing. Want a Beta 58 or an SM87? Put the Shure capsule on the Line 6 transmitter and you are ready to rock. For some of the gigs on this review we used the XD-V70 as is and for some we used it with a Heil RC30 or RC22 capsule. This is a best of both worlds thing. The familiar sound and response of a “pedigreed” mic without the noise and companding of typical wireless. And the XD system is so inexpensive compared to other pro wireless units that you can buy the XD and probably two capsules from other companies and spend the same amount or less than you would with a pro-grade UHF wireless system. (See sidebar for the down low on the whole UHF/wireless mics/Google/FCC mess that pro audio is dealing with right now.)

On to the gig.

Classic rock cover band on a big loud stage. When the monitor guy heard the word “wireless” the tension in the air got pretty thick. But we plugged it in, set the mic and receiver to the same channel and... nothing. No sound--as in none of the low-level static that we are used to on a wireless mic channel. The monitor guy was sure he was in for the typical wireless nightmare until he spoke into it and the wedge about tore his head off. The XD-V70 is very quiet, adding virtually nothing to the noise-floor of the overall mix.

OK, it was quiet. Now it was time to walk the stage and find and mark the dead spots in the RF coverage so that the singer could avoid them. Except there weren’t any. No dropouts. None.

So, how did it sound? We were pretty happy with the sound of the mic out of the box but just for grins put on a capsule for a mic we also had a wired version of and A/B’d the wired versus the wireless. And the XD-V70 actually sounded better--cleaner and with a more present high-end--than the wired mic.

We could get way into the technology and why the Line 6 digital wireless works so well but the bottom line is this. Line 6 knew they had a great product last time around and with the XD they are intent on capturing the attention of notoriously hard to please touring pro audio guys. They made it bullet proof, great sounding and simple to operate in their quest to do that but the system is still priced at a musician-friendly level.

How good is it? Well, I just sold three other wireless mics from big name mfgs on eBay. I am replacing all three with XD-V70s