Among all the DJ gear, a weak mic is probably one that can be detected very easily. As such, it makes sense to look for quality even when you are on a budget.
When buying a wireless microphone for your DJ acts, there are some important factors you need to consider before making the purchase. This short guide will tell you what are the important things to look out for and which brands are best value for the money.
What to consider
Here are what a DJ should consider when thinking about a wireless mic. It is not always not sound quality, although that is very important. Venue considerations are especially important. For example, when a venue has multiple events, a mic with limited channels might encounter as other events might be using the sames channels.
- Sound quality: let’s get this out of the way. It is intuitive and something everyone who wants a mic will think about
- Range and drop outs: For wireless mics, the drop out (which means some signal was not transmitted and resulted in lost of a few notes) range is important. Some mics experience drop outs when you are 10 steps away from the receiver while for others, it can be blocks away. That is how much difference the range can be between budget and expensive mics!
- No of channels: this is in relation to what I have wrote earlier. Most of the cheaper DJ wireless microphones have limited channels and that might run into problems in different venues.
- Model: Be very careful about which model you pick from a particular brand. For mics, there are big differences between the model type and numbers and you need to pay attention to the one that you really want.
DJ wireless mic review
Here is where I recommend the best wireless mic for the money.
Shure 58: This is a model that have extensively reviewed in our other articles: best recording mic and best mic for live vocal performance. It sounds fantastic and costs less than $100. Its best feature is the ability to screen out lots background noise to focus only on voices that are directly speaking into it. It also has a built in pop filter that makes recording more hassle free. Finally, it has multiple channels to work with so you can have more choices in case the venue has different events going on at once.
Note that there is a Shure 58s and Shure 58lc. For the former, it has an off and on switch. For DJing, you will this switch to easily turn the mic on and off, depending on your performance. For recording, the Shure 58lc is fine since the mic need not be switch off.
Line 6 XD V70 wireless mic: A step up from the Shure 58’s mic. It sounds as good as any wired mic without any drop out happening. That is really hard to achieve but XD v70 has done it. The range it has is also quite incredible as it can detect the signal even blocks away. Added to that a long battery life and an excellent support community and you have a winner. With such a quality wireless mic, expect to pay more than the $100 that the Shure 58 is commanding. That might seem expensive if you compare the price against other higher range mics, it is actually reasonable. Some might even call it cheap!
Sennheiser EW 135 G3 review: If you have the budget, then check out the Sennheiser EW 135 g3. With a price tag of around $600, it is definitely is not cheap but the quality is outstanding. Even though the Shure 58 is good but when you listen to the 135, you can notice the difference immediately. For the professionals, you might need to use a lot of eq to get to the sound that you like as the higher frequencies isn’t that good on the Sure 58. The Sennheiser EW 135 has no such problems and you need very little eq effort to get to right sound.
Conclusion
Getting a good wireless mic can make a lot of difference to your DJing effort. However, budget is an issue as there is a limit on how good a mic you can get for less than $100. In this range, Shure 58 is the best value for money. For any budget that is closer to $400 to $500, then the Sennheiser EW 135 and the Line 6 XD V70 wireless mic are very good candidates.
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