NUX B-8 promises a professional wireless guitar system with automatic pairing, clever transmitter charging, and a multi-functional pedal unit that elevates it beyond a traditional wireless. But is it good?
What is NUX B-8?
The NUX B-8 set comprises a receiver/tuner/boost, a transmitter that charges by placing it atop the receiver, and a cable for connecting your instrument to the transmitter.
Besides wirelessly receiving signal from your instrument, the pedal functions as a tuner or a boost, configurable in the settings.
On the sides, you’ll find inputs, outputs, and an effects loop for send and return. On the back, there’s a power input, ground/lift switch, XLR out, and USB-C input for updates and uploading boot-up GIF animations (yes, you read that right).
You can use the DI Out simultaneously with other outputs and If you prefer to keep the receiver’s screen visible, you can chagre the transmitter via the USB-C output on the back of the pedal
According to NUX the B-8 is compatible with electric guitars, basses, acoustic guitars, ukuleles, and keyboards.
Transmitter
Something you should know about the transmitter: unlike the receiver, which is made out of metal, the transmitter is made from plastic. It makes the unit nice and super light (just 63 grams) to attach to your guitar strap.
While the plastic case feels solid and well made, if you’re prone to dropping stuff, this is something you might want to consider.
The transmitter attaches to your instrument with a high-quality cable the B-8 ships with, and once everything’s in place, you don’t really notice the whole thing, which I really enjoyed when playing live.
For true tone purists there’s even a switch to simulate the sound of a long cable run. (demonstration of the tonal differences in the video above)
There’s also a button to mute the transmitter, which I found useful as I was unplugging my active bass for the longer breaks in our live set to save some battery on my bass.
Wireless Connection
Powering the unit and connecting to the transmitter takes just few seconds and once it’s done, I really like what’s going on the screen: Not only you can see the signal strength between the transmitter and the receiver, but you can also see the charge level of the transmitter’s battery, which is super helpful.
Side note: I have a slight OCD about batteries running out during the live set and being able to see the charge level of the receiver helped to deal with that.
The buttons and the selector knob feel solid, and the overall impression of the unit is that it’s made for serious hobbyists/semi-professional guitarists, which is what you would expect with 299€ price tag.
If we dive into the menu, there’s few useful things you might want to adjust:
- You have two options for the home screen.
- You can adjust the brightness of the screen.
- You can upload your own boot-up picture. It’s silly, but I’m sure some people will absolutely love it.
- Language options.
- TX/RX allows you to find the perfect balance between the signal stability and the latency the unit introduces. By decreasing the latency you make the signal more prone to interference but there’s less latency.
- On the Tuner page you’ll find three different options for your tuner display.
(As a happy user of the NUX clip-on tuner and I like that the B-8’s tuner options are pretty much the same as on this little thing)
- The tuner also allows you to choose whether you want to hear your guitar while you’re tuning in the bypass mode options.
- In the switch option menu, you can configure whether to engage the boost or the tuner when you hit the footswitch.
- And if If you want to adjust the boost level, there’s a separate page to adjust that, up to 12db.
USING THE B-8 Live
The wireless connection was great, it paired quickly and walking around with my bass around the church, I experienced no dropouts or any other issues. As I mentioned earlier, I love that I don’t have to guess whether the signal is good or am I about to run out of battery on the transmitter: you can see both on the screen.
The tuner is really fast and really good, which allowed me to tune even between songs. As I mentioned earlier, the transmitter is super light and you forget that it’s there.
IS THE NUX B-8 Good?
Overall, I was very impressed with the unit, but I do also have few questions:
1. If my transmitter breaks, how easy it is to get a new one? According to the manual, you can pair different transmitters with the main unit, so they must have thought about this question as well.
2. The same question applies to the cable between transmitter and instrument: If I break it, is it easy to replace?
3. I struggle to come up with use cases for the effects loop. I guess you could mute a lot of pedals with the B-8’s mute switch, but that’s the only use case I could come up with.
Update: According to a helpful comment from @MikeMorrisBass on YouTube: *The FX loop is used in case you want to use effects in the chain AND also use the DI. Bass to in, FX out to your signal chain to FX in, then you go to FOH*
4. The last question is mainly aimed at NUX: could the B-8 also function as an IR loader? You can upload stuff into it, so why not also make it the center of your rig? I suspect this is something that might happen, because I find it hard to believe they added USB-C to this thing just to upload images to it.
I also feel adding an IR loader would also make the effects loop thing way more useful
If you want to have an easy-to-use wireless solution that works great and is designed by people who clearly know what they’re doing, the B-8 is a very solid choice that doesn’t break the bank.
If you want to get your NUX B-8 and support what I do, you can use the affiliate link below:
►►Get The NUX B-8 Here (affiliate): https://thmn.to/thoprod/583717?offid=1&affid=394
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