A Few Helpful Hints To Help Choose A Cordless Surround Sound System Lately more and more wireless surround sound transmitter products have appeared which promise to bring the ultimate freedom of broadcasting music throughout the home. We will look at the most common technologies for wireless audio and give some guidelines for selecting the best wireless audio product.
Lately more and more wireless surround sound transmitter products have emerged which claim to deliver the ultimate freedom of broadcasting music throughout the house. We will check if these newest products are suitable for whole-house audio. Also, we will give crucial tips for choosing a wireless music system. Getting audio from your living room to your bedroom can be quite a challenge in particular in homes which are not wired for audio. There are several technologies solving this problem. These include infrared wireless, RF wireless, wireless LAN (WLAN) and powerline.
Infrared is restricted to line of sight because the audio signal is sent as lightwaves and consequently devices utilizing this technology, such as infrared wireless surround sound products, are limited to a single room.
RF wireless products will send the signal as RF waves. These waves can easily penetrate walls. RF wireless audio devices either make use of FM transmission or digital audio transmission. The least expensive choice is FM transmission. Products utilizing FM transmission, however, have a series of drawbacks. These include degradation of the audio quality due to static or hiss and audio distortion. In addition, FM transmitter products are also fairly prone to interference from other wireless transmitters.
Products which employ digital wireless audio transmission utilize a digital protocol. Such devices include transmitters from Amphony. In this protocol, before transmission the audio signal is converted to digital data. Some wireless audio transmitters will employ audio compression, such as Bluetooth transmitters which will lower the audio quality to some extent. Digital wireless audio transmitters which send the audio uncompressed offer the highest audio fidelity.
Powerline products employ the power mains to distribute audio and provide large range but run into problems if there are separate mains circuits in the house in terms of crossing between circuits. Also, these products build in a delay of several seconds to safeguard against transmission errors during power surges and spikes which prevents their use in applications where the audio from wireless loudspeakers has to be in sync with other non-wireless speakers or video.
Here are some hints for picking a wireless audio system: If you plan to stream audio into several rooms of your home, be sure to pick a system that permits streaming to multiple receivers at the same time. That way you don't have to buy a separate transmitter for each receiver that you are streaming to. Products with some type of error correction will be more immune against radio interference from other wireless transmitters. Pick a digital RF transmitter to preserve the original audio quality, preferably one with an audio latency of less than 10 ms in case of video or other time-sensitive applications.
Select a transmitter that has all the audio inputs you require, such as speaker inputs, line-level RCA inputs etc. Pick a system where you can add receivers later on which offer all of the necessary outputs, e.g. amplified speaker outputs, RCA outputs etc. Choose a transmitter that can adjust the audio volume of the input stage. This will give you the flexibility to connect the transmitter to any kind of equipment with different signal levels. Otherwise the audio may get clipped inside the transmitter converter stage or the dynamic range is not fully used.
For high amplifier power efficiency and best sound quality, verify that the amplified receiver has a built-in low-distortion digital amplifier. Check that the amplified receiver is able to drive speakers with the preferred Ohm rating and that it is small and easily mountable for easy set up. Products using the less crowded 5.8 GHz frequency band will typically have less problems with wireless interference than 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz products.
Lately more and more wireless surround sound transmitter products have emerged which claim to deliver the ultimate freedom of broadcasting music throughout the house. We will check if these newest products are suitable for whole-house audio. Also, we will give crucial tips for choosing a wireless music system. Getting audio from your living room to your bedroom can be quite a challenge in particular in homes which are not wired for audio. There are several technologies solving this problem. These include infrared wireless, RF wireless, wireless LAN (WLAN) and powerline.
Infrared is restricted to line of sight because the audio signal is sent as lightwaves and consequently devices utilizing this technology, such as infrared wireless surround sound products, are limited to a single room.
RF wireless products will send the signal as RF waves. These waves can easily penetrate walls. RF wireless audio devices either make use of FM transmission or digital audio transmission. The least expensive choice is FM transmission. Products utilizing FM transmission, however, have a series of drawbacks. These include degradation of the audio quality due to static or hiss and audio distortion. In addition, FM transmitter products are also fairly prone to interference from other wireless transmitters.
Products which employ digital wireless audio transmission utilize a digital protocol. Such devices include transmitters from Amphony. In this protocol, before transmission the audio signal is converted to digital data. Some wireless audio transmitters will employ audio compression, such as Bluetooth transmitters which will lower the audio quality to some extent. Digital wireless audio transmitters which send the audio uncompressed offer the highest audio fidelity.
Powerline products employ the power mains to distribute audio and provide large range but run into problems if there are separate mains circuits in the house in terms of crossing between circuits. Also, these products build in a delay of several seconds to safeguard against transmission errors during power surges and spikes which prevents their use in applications where the audio from wireless loudspeakers has to be in sync with other non-wireless speakers or video.
Here are some hints for picking a wireless audio system: If you plan to stream audio into several rooms of your home, be sure to pick a system that permits streaming to multiple receivers at the same time. That way you don't have to buy a separate transmitter for each receiver that you are streaming to. Products with some type of error correction will be more immune against radio interference from other wireless transmitters. Pick a digital RF transmitter to preserve the original audio quality, preferably one with an audio latency of less than 10 ms in case of video or other time-sensitive applications.
Select a transmitter that has all the audio inputs you require, such as speaker inputs, line-level RCA inputs etc. Pick a system where you can add receivers later on which offer all of the necessary outputs, e.g. amplified speaker outputs, RCA outputs etc. Choose a transmitter that can adjust the audio volume of the input stage. This will give you the flexibility to connect the transmitter to any kind of equipment with different signal levels. Otherwise the audio may get clipped inside the transmitter converter stage or the dynamic range is not fully used.
For high amplifier power efficiency and best sound quality, verify that the amplified receiver has a built-in low-distortion digital amplifier. Check that the amplified receiver is able to drive speakers with the preferred Ohm rating and that it is small and easily mountable for easy set up. Products using the less crowded 5.8 GHz frequency band will typically have less problems with wireless interference than 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz products.
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