[pne]

I know, wireless headphones suck. But I really need a pair because I am staying in a dorm and want to play my electric guitar. I have a few decent cans but the big issue is the wire. It gets in the way of the guitar, gets tangled up with the guitar cord, etc. It's fustrating as heck so I would really like to find a wireless solution. The problem is also latency.. I can't have a 0.5 second delay because it would throw off my playing. Any suggestions? Is wireless technology "there" yet? Or am I hoping for the impossible?

 

[classakg]

Not sure if you have heard about the Sennheiser MX W1, (Iem's) they are made with a transmission system with low latency.  

 

[FZyphal]

A fellow musician here ... I can speak from experience, and tell you that the Sennheiser MX W1, or any of the Sennheiser wireless headphones, will not work for you.  Anyone with a set of those can test the lag by simply turning up the speakers on your source (TV, stereo, whatever) and listen to both at the same time ... you can hear the delay, and professional musicians can not tolerate that.  I'm thinking of trying the "Sleek Audio" ones, as I've heard from so called "audiophiles" that the latency is better, but they use the same "Kleer Wireless" system that the Sennheisers use, so I don't know.  The only advise I can give you is, the Shure PSM200 system works with no latency, and is usable on stage (I use it), but I'm very unhappy with the compression (dynamic range) ... it sounds horrible, but it's better than hearing your own voice come back to you a fraction of a second later.  I use "Line 6" wireless guitar systems, and they are incredible ... no latency, no compression, no difference between the wireless and my favorite cable, but unfortunately, they don't make in ear monitors yet.
 
 ... addendum:  In my research, I just found this on another forum, no personal experience, but it sounds like anything with Kleer Wireless is not going to work ...
 
"I just got a set of Sleek Audio sa6 with the Kleer wireless system. The Kleer system is billed as low latency, but I guess that's a relative term as I'm getting at least 200ms of delay. That's much faster than the bluetooth sets, and the bluetooth sounds terrible - think 32kbps mp3"

 

[Gwarmi]

Could not audition them at the 2011 Hi Fi Show but Sennheiser were dishing out big claims.
 
Sennheiser RS180
 

 

[FZyphal]

Gwarmi said "Could not audition them at the 2011 Hi Fi Show but Sennheiser were dishing out big claims.  Sennheiser RS180"
 
I've heard them ... they sound great, clear, quiet, lots of punch, and if you are using them to listen to your stereo, I've never heard better ... but the latency is unacceptable for the musician who started this thread.

 

[Gwarmi]

Dang, why didn't Sennheiser have them ready to go, I will never know.
 
Good to hear because the RS100 sucked big time, I returned mine with
good reason. It was static machine of poor quality!
 
 

 

[FZyphal]

Quote:

Dang, why didn't Sennheiser have them ready to go, I will never know.
 
Good to hear because the RS100 sucked big time, I returned mine with
good reason. It was static machine of poor quality!
 
 

Well, I didn't mean to bad-mouth the RS180, and I don't think the RS100 used "Kleer Wireless" ... it actually sounds pretty damned good ... but the slight latency makes it unusable for a musician who is trying to hear his own voice or instrument fed back into his ear.

 

[blahblah232]

I have the Sennheiser RS180.
 
I measured the latency at approximately 35 milliseconds.
 
I used audacity to record simultaneous signals from the headphones and from wired speakers. Visually, it looks like around 35 ms.

 

[ats433]

I saw that the most recent post on this thread is almost a year old. Has anyone found a decent low-latency headphone (aside from Sennheiser RS180) in the meantime?

 

[wildwest100]

I was looking for a similar info, and have a pair of Sennheiser HDR-65 which are old, analogue and no latency and use them for guitar practise just fine. I think everything you buy now is digital and uses analogue to digital converters and back again and that is what causes the delay and nuisance. I just cannot find any decent ones now for sale. There are some things made by creative and called 'EMU' pipeline. They are digital and you can hook up wired headphones to them to make a wireless headphone setup, but the volume is not really quite loud enough and you would probably need a small pre-amp. They do work though and are digital and the latency is really low. Hope this helps.........

 

[babylon5]

Me too, I am looking for new low latency digital wireless headset but my search is futile. 
The only low latency digital headset I have, was build by a company that is now a history with a low latency of 40mS. 
 
Blue tooth claim to have a APTX low latency technology but until now I cannot find low latency blue tooth headset and transmitter. The problem with blue tooth technology is both the the transmitter and the receiver(Headset or wireless speaker) has to be of low latency type. Otherwise you get delay up to 250mS which is big no for the music instrumentation playback.

 

[babylon5]

Hi, may I ask what is the playing time of the RS180. I am not sure ...but I heard that with Kleer technology, the power consumption is quite high and is also susceptible to RF interference from WI-FI and other 2.4Ghz user.

 

[hinspect]

"Bluedio H" bluetooth headphones claim a latency of 40mS sold at Amazon for around $35.00

 

[babylon5]

This particularly Bludio H headset may not be BT low latency headset .
 
Also 40mS latency seemed strange because  BT low latency is  officially 32mS .
 
In addition if you have the BT low latency headset, you will need also a BT low latency  transmitter for the low latency to work.
 
The BT in our current mobile phone are not equip with low latency type so it is pointless to buy headset with BT low latency . ....Market not ready for low latency BT headset....my 2 cents.

 

[hinspect]

I am not claiming the 40mS on the Bluedio but it is there on the description at the Amazon website. I was not concerned about phone, I wanted a set with low latency for watching TV. Have Koss PRO4AAA wired but too much cord and wanted the great sound without the delay. Is even 40mS acceptable or would that get on a person's nerves as well? I thought about purchasing them and then sending them back after the trial but ended up not wanting to go through the hassle. I ended up ordering Harmon Kardon BT phones with aptx encoding since my Samsung Tab S 10.5 tablet has it. Even without aptx they are supposed to have short lag time. I will post my findings when I get them in and test them. This forum has been more informative than anything else I have seen online!