Wireless microphone setups, at first glance, appear to be 3 things: prohibitively expensive, annoyingly complex to set up, and difficult to use for beginners.
The Phenyx Pro PTU-2U is here to change that.
Let’s see what’s in the box, to start:
A manual, two microphones, the rack receiver unit, 4 antennae, power supply, 1/4″ audio cable and 1/4 – 1/8″ adapter, stick-on rubber feet, and two rubber rings that took me a minute to figure out (they go around the mics to keep them from rolling on flat surfaces).
After hooking the unit up to power and inserting batteries (2xAA per mic) into the wireless handheld mics, I was expecting to have to do some finagling to get them to connect. I was delightfully wrong – the mics connected instantly, and I was off to the races. To the average user, this is going to be one of the PTU’s strengths – worrying about bandwidth, channels, and mucking about with trying to connect are not conducive to rocking out. My experience with them was instant plug-and-play, and even when I intentionally messed up the connection, the process for reconnecting them was smooth as butter and easy as pie.
At this price point, I tend to expect things to feel cheap – this is not the case with these. The mics feel heavy duty, with very little plastic or other cheap materials on them, and as I suspect they will wind up in a lot of karaoke rigs getting dropped by drunk patrons spilling beer and the like on them, I feel good about their chances of long-term survival.
The screens on the mics are easy to read, and it’s very clear if they’re on/connected or muted, which helps to avoid the age-old problem of “is this thing on?” looking back and forth at the bottom of the mic. You’ve seen this at more than one wedding, I’m sure. Nothing kills the mood of a father’s emotional toast worse than this.
The range on the mics is impressive, to say the least. I was able to get a clear, strong signal from down the block in my test. Your mileage will vary of course, depending on a great number of factors, but in my suburban neighborhood, I was able to have a signal walking out of my garage and down the street a ways.
So if you’re looking for a wireless mic setup for your rig, but you don’t want to spend a fortune, deal with something complicated, and have a hard time connecting, then I suggest you take a good look at the Phenyx Pro PTU-2U (also available as a single unit version, the PTU-1U) because it might be everything you need at a fraction of the price.
Hear it in action in this silly video I made:
