An EMG-friendly wireless system?? FINALLY!!

I received my Nux B-5RC as a gift for my 28th anniversary, and I gotta say: 1) I LOVE this system, and 2) it’s about damn time there is a company making an affordable wireless system that is designed to work with active pickups! I've been a cable guy for the past 29+ years after I had finally given up on my tone-sucking antiquated wireless systems from the late 80s. And as a die-hard EMG user, I always had to run an adaptor between the wireless and the guitar to tame the EMG's hot signal.

And here we are, almost 30 years later and the Nux B5RC is by far the cleanest, crispest-sounding wireless I've ever played through! In fact, it sounds as good as any high-end straight cable that I've ever played through, including: Planet Waves American Stage cables (my #1 Go-To!), Monster and Mogami. The B5RC system worked great at both gigs this past weekend, the first of which was on a big outdoor stage, and the second in an intimate club setting. The B5RC performed flawlessly the first night, and I was able to put its range and line-of-sight transmission to the test by jogging out to the soundboard during our closer, "Wasted Years." The B5RC worked great with zero drop-outs and no detectable high frequency loss the entire gig!

I had a tiny bit of intermittency trouble the second night, but it wasn't due to the B5RC—the culprit was my Washburn N4's shoddy barrel jack that wasn't securely holding the Nux Tx (Transmitter) flush to the guitar. Go figure, as it worked perfectly with the N4 the night before. My "snap, crackle, pop" moment onstage was brief, though, as I only had to rotate it in the jack until I found the "sweet spot" making proper contact. But that one time was enough to convince me to swap out my standard crap jack with a Pure Tone PTT5 this weekend, and the PTT5 in fact holds the Nux flush and secure and WITHOUT a single snap, crackle or pop to be heard even when rotating it 360° in the jack! Mission accomplished--thanks, Pure Tone!!

So, make sure you're using good output jacks with solid contacts to avoid any jiggly-jack intermittency issues like mine. And one other thing about the B5RC and barrel jacks in general is something that Nux's Tech Support wrote me when I first reported my barrel jack concerns. In their response to what the cause could be they wrote: "..the transmitter has entered (false) charging mode, the problem usually happens with guitars that equipped with active pickups…the problem is that the barrel jack also serves as a charging port. Solution: add a TRS to TS adapter in between your guitar and the Transmitter." I have tried this workaround, and while it does work to keep the B5RC Tx unit from entering into a "Pseudo-Charging" mode, the B5RC + Adaptor together look goofy sticking out of the output jack IMO. That's why I want to try the Pure Tone barrel jack first to avoid having to go the TRS-to-TS adaptor route.

In conclusion, another thing about this system that I have to rave about is the ingenious Charging Case that once it’s fully charged, acts as a standalone charger that can recharge the B5RC's Tx and Rx components up to 3 times! So during the show breaks, I'd just pop the Tx and Rx back in the case and hit the Charging Button so as to keep them fully juiced until the next set. Brilliant! FYI: Nux Tech Sup. Informed me that when you’re charging the case with the Tx and Rx components inserted, the charger is only charging the CASE and not the Tx/Rx components—once the case is charged, then you tap the Charging Button on the case to charge the components. And yes, the charger’s USB Y-cable can also be plugged directly into the Tx/Rx units to charge them simultaneously without the case.

Thank you, Cherub Tech/Nux, for finally delivering the Active PU-friendly wireless system of my dreams!!

From Gear Setup