Ed Sheeran's 'The Loop' Stadium Tour Runs on Sennheiser Spectera

Ed Sheeran opened his stadium tour The Loop in Auckland on 16 January 2026, continued in Australia and planned further legs in South America and the United States later in the year. All of his vocal microphones and guitars run on Sennheiser's Spectera wideband wireless system, managed by monitor engineer and RF technician Dave White.

From Digital 6000 to Spectera

White has worked with Sheeran since 2014. In those years the crew went through several Sennheiser generations: first the 2000 series, then Digital 9000, then Digital 6000 on the Mathematics tour. That tour's main rig combined 16 Digital 6000 channels with 16 in-ear channels on the 2000 series. White does not swap equipment mid-cycle, so the move to Spectera happened at the start of 2026 after a period of comparing in-ear sound and tuning the handhelds and guitar packs.

The stage design was a key reason: Sheeran moves from the main stage to a B stage, and White wanted coverage without switching between separate in-ear systems.

The setup

• three Spectera Base Stations on three RF carriers, one kept as a full backup;
• 11 DAD antennas, connected through media converters, covering stage left, stage right, the B stage and the area behind a 50 by 18-metre video wall;
• the MM 445 capsule on Sheeran's vocal microphone;
• WebUI for watching battery, RF and level data during the show.

White said finding three 6 or 8 MHz gaps in the spectrum now takes him about seven minutes instead of around half an hour. Because each bodypack both sends and receives, the Irish band Beoga, who join the show, need about half the usual number of packs. Their bodhrán player sends drum triggers through a bodypack to an offstage sampler.

Rain and reliability

The tour began in heavy rain in Auckland. White reported that none of the handhelds or bodypacks failed, although five guitars stopped working from water ingress. FOH engineer Simon Kemp said the crew had emptied water out of a guitar and microphone with no loss of signal. He also noted the show has no playback or auto-tune. Sennheiser added that White has been beta testing the new Spectera handheld on the tour.