42 www.juliusmedia.com CX72

GEARBOX

single channel receiver, but Shure has just released the dual and four channel units that can even output audio over Dante, enabling an entirely digital signal path from mic capsule to console (and even to the PA if your amps are suitably geared up). Latency from sound going into the mic capsule to appearing on the analogue output is <2.9ms. Tested on a beltpack, it’s more like 2.7ms.

The receiver uses twin dipole antennae, and can scan available airspace to lo-cate free channels. Two frequency bands are available for the Aussie market, and our test unit (group L51 – 632-696MHz) shows 66 available channels that could be used in the double brick CX bunker. This is appreciably quite a lot – the explana-tion being that digital signals can be more tightly packed into available bandwidth. (14 channels fit into a 6MHz TV channel).

hure released an entry-level digital wireless system a couple of years back – the PGX Digital. It was good, but

designed more for schools and churches than high-end stage users. ULX-D is dif-ferent, incorporating features from the ULX and Axient ranges.

Outwardly the ULX-D system looks a lot like any other radio mic system. The receiver buttons are a little bit different, there are a few extra ones, but it looks ba-sically like you’d expect it to. Same with the transmitters.

The biggest difference is the one you can’t see- the ULX-D transmits in 24 bit 48kHz digital. 120dB of dynamic range mean no compansion is required. This means 20Hz to 20kHz flat frequency re-sponse with no artifacts - a definite win for audio quality. Our test kit included a

S

Shure ULX-D Digital Wireless System

on digital radio mics…

By Jimmy Den-Ouden

Watch Video

43www.juliusmedia.comCX72

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43www.juliusmedia.com

The included antennae are good for 100m line of sight range – more than enough for most users.

The receiver has an Ethernet port, and the ULX-D can be linked into a bigger system and (in future) controlled remotely via Shure Wireless Workbench 6. There’s a front panel gain control too – with such wide dynamic range on the transmit-ter there’s no need for transmitter attenuators. You just gain up the receiver to your desired output level. Good news for anyone who’s ever worked on a hip-hop gig, where on stage levels begin high and go up from there. For less boisterous applications, the receiver can interface to third party controls via ethernet for battery monitoring and level control – eg: au-tomated boardroom systems.

Once you’ve chosen a suitable frequency on the receiver, just hit “sync” and hold the transmitter in front of the IR window on the receiver. Sync is fast and reliable, and almost feels a bit too easy. The back panel has a mic/line output switch, XLR and jack sockets and a locking DC connector.

We tried out both the handheld and beltpack transmitters. They’re sideways compatible with a bunch of different mic capsule options – our handheld had a Beta 87 head, but this can be easily changed to a 58 or Beta 58. The power switch on the handheld is sensibly located and easy to operate even without drag-queen style fingernails. Transmitters can be locked to permanent on from within the menu, which also of-fers a number of other options including TX power (20, 10 or 1mW for extreme high density usage). Navigation is via an up/down/left/right joystick inside the battery compartment.

44 www.juliusmedia.com CX72

Batteries are another nice feature of the prod-uct – it runs the same SB900 Li-Ion rechargea-bles as the PSM1000. These include the same health-monitoring chip as the Axient batteries – once the transmitter has been on a little while, it’s able to predict remain-ing runtime to within 15 minutes accuracy. Runtime on a full charge is stated at 12 hours. If through some incredible lack of planning you find yourself short on charged batter-ies, drop a pair of AAs in and run off them. The Li-Ion charging supply has dedicated contacts, so there’s no danger of melting non-chargeable batteries.

There’s an 8 bay intelligent charging station available which just takes bat-teries, or you can use the SBC200 dual charger, into which handheld and belt-

pack transmitters can also be directly docked. Up to 4 SBC200 chargers can be ganged together, and when you dock a mic into the charger it automatically switches off. This is appealing for installations where end users aren’t necessarily always trained in opera-tion of complex devices

like switches and buttons.Audio is being transmitted as digital

information, and that means it can be encrypted. ULX-D supports 256-bit AES encryption, so once a transmitter is paired with a receiver, that’s the ONLY receiver which will be able to reproduce the sam-pled audio. Enabling encryption involves switching on the feature in the receiver menu, then doing a sync to the transmit-ter. The encryption key rolls every time a sync is performed.

Encryption makes a lot of sense in sen-sitive applications such as board rooms, where use of a conventional radio mic wouldn’t be very secure unless the board-room happened to be lead lined. ULX-D is probably a cheaper (and no doubt health-ier) option. A side bonus is that any other transmitter on the same frequency will not make it past the squelch circuit on the receiver – so in the event of a frequency conflict you’ll probably get a drop-out, but there will be no break-in of extrane-ous audio.

The ULX-D is smart, and lots of things about it are right. It does its thing, and it sounds good. Given our rapidly decreas-ing available bandwidth, it makes sense to find more efficient ways of using what lit-tle is left. ULX-D is one such way. My last big surprise on the system was the price – I expected it to cost more. The dual and four way receivers will add internal power supply and dual Ethernet ports to the line-up.

GEARBOX

Brand: ShureModel: ULX-DRRP: ULXD4-L5 Single Receiver - $1629, ULXD2SM58-L5 Handheld - $849, ULXD1-L5 beltpack - $829, SBC200+PSU Charger - $349, SB900 Li-Ion Battery - $89.Product Info: www.shure.com Distributor: www.jands.com.au