ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Fast chargers are everywhere, and that’s exactly why guitar wireless systems get accidentally killed. We talk through the Sonic Sphere Neal Wireless System from CFG and start with the unglamorous detail that saves your gear: power. The manual calls for a standard 5V 1A USB source (5 watts max), and using high-voltage fast chargers can fry the batteries. If you’ve got a drawer full of phone bricks and you’ve been treating them like they’re interchangeable, this is the kind of tip that keeps your wireless working for the long haul.
From there, we keep it practical and hands-on: how the transmitter and receiver flip out, plug in, and sync instantly by matching colors. We explain how easy channel changes are (one button press on the transmitter) and why that matters when you’re troubleshooting interference quickly. We also cover fit and usability for real guitars, including angled input jacks, and a simple battery-care habit that helps lithium batteries last longer when you’re not using the system regularly.
Then we get to the question everyone cares about: tone. We run an A/B comparison of cable versus wireless using the same settings across clean, crunch, and high gain. We also dig into a huge pain point for many players, active pickups and hot outputs, and how the built-in 10 dB pad can keep your signal from overdriving the wireless front end while staying consistent across different guitars.
If you’ve been looking for an affordable, easy-to-use guitar wireless system that works with active pickups and doesn’t add a bunch of setup hassle, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a bandmate who keeps losing cables, and leave a review with your verdict: cable or wireless for your next show?
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Steve
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SHOW NOTES 🔗
TRANSCRIPT 🔗
00:00:35.990 --> 00:00:41.590
All right, today what I want to do is talk to you a little bit about the Sonic Sphere Neal Wireless System from CFG.
00:00:41.670 --> 00:00:48.630
And I want to just prep it by talking about the simplicity of what you can do and some things that you can do to make sure that you don't damage the unit.
00:00:48.790 --> 00:00:56.230
And then what we're going to do is we're going to move it and we're going to actually listen to how it sounds versus a cable and see if we can if we can hear some differences there.
00:00:56.790 --> 00:01:02.390
So this is what I almost missed, as most people I don't really meet read the manual, and thank goodness I did on this.
00:01:02.550 --> 00:01:14.390
So the first thing I wanted to explain to you about this is that if you read the first page, it says power only, use a standard five volt one amp, five watt max USB power source.
00:01:14.629 --> 00:01:18.950
Using high voltage fast charges can fry the batteries.
00:01:19.670 --> 00:01:27.590
So if you're like me and you've got, you know, you know, new phones or whatever it might be, and you're using those high-speed chargers, you don't want to use that with this.
00:01:27.990 --> 00:01:28.870
Very important.
00:01:29.349 --> 00:01:29.670
Okay.
00:01:29.909 --> 00:01:31.270
So they do give you a cable.
00:01:31.349 --> 00:01:40.950
I've got another, I've got my phone here that I'm uh recording video with too, but they give you a cable here that has, you know, a dual end on one side and a mono or a single end on the other side.
00:01:42.230 --> 00:01:43.829
And uh it works great.
00:01:43.990 --> 00:01:49.109
So that's you know, it goes into the case, which I don't even know where my case is.
00:01:49.990 --> 00:01:55.350
Yeah, I'm not sure what I do with my case, but it comes with a case and you you can just keep it in there and and you're good to go.
00:01:55.590 --> 00:01:58.790
Um but you don't want to use those chargers.
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It would suck if you went out and bought this thing, which it isn't you know overly expensive, which is awesome too, but you don't want to fry the battery in it because you didn't read that.
00:02:07.109 --> 00:02:08.069
So make sure you know that.
00:02:08.150 --> 00:02:10.790
The next thing I want to do is just show you how this works.
00:02:10.949 --> 00:02:12.790
So they're super simple, okay?
00:02:13.030 --> 00:02:22.389
Flips out, plug it into your amp, plug it into your guitar, or plug it into your pedal, your your first pedal in the chain, and then plug it into your guitar, and you're ready to go.
00:02:22.629 --> 00:02:24.710
So there's a transmitter and a receiver.
00:02:24.790 --> 00:02:30.310
So we turn them on, and as soon as we turn them on, we see they've got they synchronize to the same color.
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Okay.
00:02:31.350 --> 00:02:32.949
So now they're on the same channel.
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So if you wanted to change the channel, all you need to do is on the transmitter, okay, you just hit the button and they both change the color.
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You see?
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That's all you do to change the channel.
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It's super easy.
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There's there's nothing to it.
00:02:49.509 --> 00:02:55.270
The other thing that's really cool about this is that it has a 10 dB pad built in.
00:02:55.509 --> 00:03:08.069
So if you've got a particular guitar that's hotter, you know, the pickups are hotter than another one, or maybe you use active pickups like I do, which is the reason why I got this in the first place, is I use a lot of EMG pickups in most of my guitars.
00:03:08.229 --> 00:03:13.349
And with wirelesses, traditionally, they don't play well with active pickups.
00:03:13.430 --> 00:03:17.349
So they cut out or they don't work at all, you know, different kinds of things like that.
00:03:17.430 --> 00:03:19.830
And then sometimes there's there's nothing you can do about it.
00:03:19.909 --> 00:03:29.670
Sometimes you can buy like, you know, a particular cable or something that, you know, there's a there's little workarounds that you can sometimes do, but these work right out of the box with active pickups, which is why I got them.
00:03:29.830 --> 00:03:30.150
Okay.
00:03:30.710 --> 00:03:37.590
But in the process, you might find that you're overdriving your signal a little bit running into this wireless system.
00:03:37.750 --> 00:03:44.390
So what you can do is you can just hold this on the transmitter, you hold this instead of you know switching the channels, which you can do, obviously.
00:03:45.189 --> 00:03:56.629
Okay, but you can hold this for a couple of seconds, and then what happens is there's a blue light that comes on on both of them that shows it's in the 10 dB pad setting.
00:03:56.870 --> 00:04:00.390
And if you want to turn it off, you just hold that again and it turns off.
00:04:00.950 --> 00:04:02.950
So there's nothing to it, it's super simple.
00:04:03.189 --> 00:04:06.710
These fit into any standard size, you know, input jack.
00:04:06.789 --> 00:04:13.990
I use a lot of Ibenz gems, and if you know anything about those, um they're kind of awkward, they come in at an angle like this, which is a little bit different.
00:04:14.150 --> 00:04:15.670
They work just fine in there too.
00:04:15.750 --> 00:04:17.189
So that's what I like about them.
00:04:17.350 --> 00:04:23.189
So I just wanted to point those couple things out that they're very easy to use, they're very simple to sync to each other.
00:04:23.350 --> 00:04:30.389
They've got the 10 dB pad, but also knowing that when you do get it, don't plug it into a high-speed charger.
00:04:30.550 --> 00:04:35.029
The second thing I guess I could tell you on here, which is kind of important, is it says battery love.
00:04:35.189 --> 00:04:38.069
Lithium batteries hate being totally empty.
00:04:38.310 --> 00:04:41.670
Charge them every couple of months if you aren't using them regularly.
00:04:41.830 --> 00:04:51.189
So, just another tip that's really all I found out of there that you really need to be aware of, um, other than the obvious, you know, you know, don't put them in the pool or something like that.
00:04:51.350 --> 00:04:53.590
Um, but the rest of it is pretty straightforward.
00:04:53.669 --> 00:04:54.389
So they're very easy.
00:04:54.549 --> 00:05:04.070
So the next thing I want to do is I just want to compare these against using a cable so we can decide how it sounds using the wireless versus using a cable.
00:05:04.149 --> 00:05:11.029
And we'll do that on a clean channel, we'll do it on a crunch channel, and we'll do it on a high gain channel and see what we've got there.
00:05:11.190 --> 00:05:20.710
And then eventually I'm gonna make a video too of just how they sound moving around the distance that we can go with these as well, but I'll do that when I'm when I'm doing a live show.
00:05:20.870 --> 00:05:22.710
Um anyway, we'll start there.
00:05:23.029 --> 00:05:28.710
All right, so next up, what we're gonna do is we're gonna check the cabled tone versus the wireless tone.
00:05:28.870 --> 00:05:31.429
Right now I've got a cable plugged in, okay?
00:05:31.669 --> 00:05:35.750
So what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna show you what my three channels sound like standard.
00:05:36.070 --> 00:05:39.669
I'm not gonna change anything about my settings, I'm just gonna go clean.
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Just do some standard strummy stuff.
00:05:49.750 --> 00:05:52.549
So that's what my clean would sound like with the cable.
00:06:02.389 --> 00:06:05.350
Okay, and here is with the wireless unit in.
00:06:05.429 --> 00:06:07.590
So I'm just gonna start with a clean.
00:06:09.909 --> 00:06:15.269
Now I don't have the 10 dB uh cut on, it's just just standard right now.
00:06:30.950 --> 00:06:33.350
With a cable, this is my crunch channel.
00:06:49.830 --> 00:06:50.149
Okay.
00:06:50.950 --> 00:06:52.870
Okay, and here's the crunch channel.
00:07:10.149 --> 00:07:12.149
And here's my high gain channel.
00:07:16.070 --> 00:07:17.190
Again, using the cable.
00:07:36.149 --> 00:07:38.629
And here's the high game channel.
00:08:00.549 --> 00:08:05.750
So that shows us the similarities and or differences between the tones.
00:08:05.909 --> 00:08:08.470
Um, now I have used this a couple of times live so far.
00:08:08.549 --> 00:08:13.110
I didn't get any footage of that, unfortunately, but um I will on the next show that I'm playing.
00:08:13.269 --> 00:08:17.909
Um, so you can see what it looks like and and how it works on stage, that sort of thing.
00:08:17.990 --> 00:08:21.750
But I'm just telling you, it's a really, really great inexpensive unit.
00:08:21.830 --> 00:08:24.310
It's very reliable, it's very easy to use.
00:08:24.549 --> 00:08:38.789
So if you are looking for a wireless unit and um, you know, you have pickups of different dynamic range or active versus pack of passive pickups, that sort of thing, this is just a really great, um, easy, inexpensive wireless system.