There have been wireless systems for guitar and bass guitar for many years now. With a few (extremely expensive) exceptions, they have all been analogue systems, and this type of system has a couple of distinct disadvantages.

The first is that they all employ a piece of circuitry called a ‘compander’ (short for compressor/expander) to squeeze your signal before transmission so that it will fit in a VHF or UHF band, and then expand it back again at the receiver end to try and get near what it sounded like originally. As with 300dpi to 72dpi photo’s, or wav to mp3’s, once you delete the so called “least significant” information to reduce the file size – you can’t get it back.

And the second is bandwidth. Even the more expensive models roll off the bass at around 60Hz (and bottom E on a bass guitar, for example, is 44Hz – and if you’ve a bottom B string, that’s about 31Hz). So, much of that big fat low end you have worked hard to get doesn’t even make it to the input socket of the amp! And they have to roll off at the top end around 14kHz, so the subtle, upper-end harmonics and sheen are discarded, too.

Now of course, some of that top and bottom end gets through, albeit considerably attenuated, and the brain tries to psychoacoustically make up for what is missing. But really, wouldn’t it be far better to have an un-tampered-with, full range signal to start with??

Enter the stageClix Digital Wireless System from Holland. Firstly, because it is digital, there is no compander because there is no need for one. And secondly, the bandwidth is 20Hz to 20kHz, ±1dB (that’s CD quality).

So now there’s a new, much higher standard. And a new set of rules. And at a similar price to the better analogue systems.

The system uses a frequency of 5.8 GHz for the Jack version, and 2.4 GHz for the Pack, both of which are legal to use without licences, and available worldwide. It is also a long way away from the analogue bands that have been sold off to the mobile phone companies in the Digital Television switch-over, so stageClix is entirely unaffected by what happens there – future proof! No sharing channels with radio-astronomy sites. No “UPGRADE PASS” needed! No applying to Government Departments for licences – which you still have to do with the alternative analogue Channel 38 systems now on offer – for every single gig!!