planned obsolesence

We recently ran short on our rental stock of Shure U4 wireless handhelds and didn't have anything in our inventory when a good customer called looking for a last minute rental.

We had to dig deep into some old equipment to meet their need, sending them out the door with a 10 year old Shure LX vhf model. I figured we could kiss this account goodbye, since the likelihood of making it thru a show with a non-frequency agile vhf unit would not have been a good bet.

Anyway the customer came back the next day raving about the quality of the mic we had rented him, claiming that it had sounded even better than the U4 units he usually rented.

We got lucky, but this really made me stop and think about the fact that poor frequency allocation and management by the FCC has made a lot of perfectly good equipment all but useless.

The old LX unit had a Beta 58 capsule (the same as the new U4 model-and the best capsule going for vocals in my opinion). It had good range, reasonable battery life, rock solid durability, and every other feature you would want in a wireless handheld.

It's a shame that there isn't a way, at reasonable cost, to breathe a little more life into such a great mic package.


Got a solution. let me know! jeff@wirelessmic.net