Testing the Xvive A58 Guitar Wireless System

[AlbertA]

Xvive A58 Guitar Wireless System – Plug & Play Wireless Freedom

Xvive's A58 Guitar Wireless System offers crystal-clear tone, ultra-low latency, and plug-and-play setup. Enjoy wireless perfection for guitar or bass!

xvive.com

Unlike Lekato, Xvive actually quotes the max input level, which is good.

These are some of the specifications advertised:

• 5ms latency
• 2.84 Vp-p (~2.24 dBu) in "Passive mode" - There's an "Active Mode" that claims 7.5 Vp-p (~10.7dBu) with a vague "volume -10dB" line (I guess a -10dB input pad)
• 5 hours of battery life
• THD: 0.1%
• 110dB SNR

Lets put it to the test.

Legend: Yellow traces are the signal at the transmitter, Purple is the signal at the receiver.

Passive Mode

I was able to input a 3Vp-p 1KHz sine (~2.7dBu) signal before it starts clipping, so within spec.

"Active" Mode

In this mode, I was able to input a 7.78 Vp-p (11dBu) 1KHz sine wave, again within spec.
And confirmed there is an input pad, which I measured to be about -8.6dB in my case

Latency

I measured around 4.8ms - so also within spec.

 

[AlbertA]

Battery Life
On a full charge, sending a 1Khz sine wave, I was able to get around 7h:05m:59s out of the system - well above the 5 hours time specified.

 

[AlbertA]

Noise And Distortion

I'm using a Motu M2 interface to get a rough measure of what the noise and distortion performance of the Xvive A58 is.
For reference, this is how the Motu performs with a loopback cable, using the unbalanced output at a level that I will use to test the A58 (i.e. below clipping in "Passive" mode)

Motu M2 - Loopback cable​

And here's using the A58 in place of the cable:

Motu M2 - Xvive A58 loopback​

So the noise floor was raised 21.3 dB, THD increased about 6dB, certainly within the quoted 0.1%
However, given the raise in noise floor I measured, I'm not sure how they claim to achieve 110dB SNR.

 

[yek]

I used their U4 IEM system. Very handy, even though it's mono.

 

[Lysander]

Great review, as always!

Looks like a pretty competent wireless for ~$150.

 

[AlbertA]

Frequency Response

As flat or better than whatever this is:

 

[Baba]

Battery Life
On a full charge, sending a 1Khz sine wave, I was able to get around 7h:05m:59s out of the system - well above the 5 hours time specified.

View attachment 50519

Wait, how the fuck does this work?

 

[ian_dissonance]

Wait, how the fuck does this work?

It looks like he left it sending a signal and checked the DAW time when the signal stopped.

 

[AlbertA]

It looks like he left it sending a signal and checked the DAW time when the signal stopped.

That’s exactly what I did.

 

[Baba]

It looks like he left it sending a signal and checked the DAW time when the signal stopped.

That’s exactly what I did.

I was guessing that, but I wasn't sure if there was some other scientific way of testing that I didn't know about.

 

[DrewJD82]

Great review!!!

I wonder if we should have a sub that just has reviews/technical info like this? Just the single reviews/info, not for discussion. I'd imagine it'd be a great resource.

 

[iaresee]

This is a bananas review. Thank you!

 

[MadMaxG79]

This is going above and beyond for a review. Thank you!

 

[Angelfire]

I just got mine. I had a Nux B-5RC but wanted to upgrade to 5.8ghz USB-C (can't stand micro usb anymore), which would be the Nux C-5RC, but I saw the Xvive A58 at extremely cheaper sale and went for it.

First thing that bothered me was that it's TS, not TRS as the Nux, don't know how that would influence it, but it was a disappointment. Latency is non-noticeable but legato playing seemed to cut a little bit. Will do more testing, didn't warm up before so my fingers were weak, but still.

Thanks a lot for this review.