Several Tips To Help Choose A Wireless Surround Sound Product
Posted by Kay Stanford Jr Kastum at 4:57 AMThe latest series of wireless surround sound transmitter devices claims streaming of music throughout the home without limits. We will research if these newest devices are suitable for whole-house audio. Also, we will give vital guidelines for choosing a wireless music system.
Running audio in your home can be a intimidating job. Many houses are not wired for multi-room audio and getting the music from your living room to your bedroom can be quite a problem. There are several technologies solving this problem. These include infrared wireless, RF wireless, wireless LAN (WLAN) and powerline.
Infrared wireless audio devices are restricted to line-of-sight applications, i.e. only operate within a single room since the signal is sent as infrared light which can't go through walls. This technology is frequently found in wireless speaker kit products.
RF wireless products broadcast the music as RF waves - either by using FM transmission or digital transmission - and can consequently easily transmit through walls. FM transmitters are the cheapest option. They provide good range but the music signal is prone to audio distortion and static and is extremely susceptible to interference from other wireless transmitters.
Digital wireless audio transmitter products, such as products from Amphony, make use of a digital protocol. The audio is first converted to digital data before being transmitted. This conversion and transmission in the digital domain will ensure that the original audio quality is preserved. On the other hand, this is only the case of the data is sent uncompressed. Some wireless audio transmitters will apply some type of audio compression. Such products include Bluetooth audio transmitters. Audio compression will degrade the quality of the audio to some degree.
Products utilizing wireless LAN are useful when streaming audio from a PC. Their drawback is that they normally have some fairly high latency, i.e. the signal will be delayed by some amount since wireless LAN was not specifically designed for real-time audio streaming. WLAN receivers frequently do not have built-in network access. As a result, such products frequently require purchasing separate LAN cards. These cards are then plugged into each receiver.
Powerline products broadcast the audio via the power mains and offer great range. They run into problems in houses where there are separate mains circuits in terms of being able to cross over into another circuit. Another challenge confronting powerline products are strong power surges and spikes. Such surges can bring about dropouts in the audio due to errors in the transmission. To safeguard against these errors, powerline products typically build a delay of several seconds into the transmission.
Here are some recommendations for picking a wireless audio system: If you plan to stream audio into several rooms of your house, be sure to select a system that allows streaming to multiple receivers at the same time. That way you don't have to purchase a separate transmitter for each receiver that you are streaming to. Choosing a product with some sort of error correction will help mitigate against strong RF interference. Such interference can be brought on by other wireless transmitters. Choose a digital RF audio transmitter to make sure that the audio quality is maintained. Make sure the audio delay is smaller than 10 ms if you have a real-time application such as video.
Make sure the wireless transmitter provides the audio inputs you require. You may need amplified speaker inputs, RCA audio inputs etc. Make sure that you can buy additional receivers later on as you expand your system. Verify that you can get receivers with speaker outputs for connecting regular loudspeakers as well as receivers with line-level RCA outputs. Because you may want to connect the transmitter to several sources, you should pick a transmitter that can be adjusted to different signal volume levels to prevent clipping of the audio signal inside the transmitter converter stage.
Verify that the amplified wireless receivers have built-in digital amplifiers with low distortion figures. This will keep the receiver cool due to high amplifier power efficiency and provide maximum sound quality. Select a system that offers receivers that can drive speakers with the desired Ohm rating. Make sure the receivers have a small form factor and are easily mountable. This will help during the set up. Products which function in the 5.8 GHz frequency band will have less problems with wireless interference than products utilizing the crowded 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz frequency band.
Running audio in your home can be a intimidating job. Many houses are not wired for multi-room audio and getting the music from your living room to your bedroom can be quite a problem. There are several technologies solving this problem. These include infrared wireless, RF wireless, wireless LAN (WLAN) and powerline.
Infrared wireless audio devices are restricted to line-of-sight applications, i.e. only operate within a single room since the signal is sent as infrared light which can't go through walls. This technology is frequently found in wireless speaker kit products.
RF wireless products broadcast the music as RF waves - either by using FM transmission or digital transmission - and can consequently easily transmit through walls. FM transmitters are the cheapest option. They provide good range but the music signal is prone to audio distortion and static and is extremely susceptible to interference from other wireless transmitters.
Digital wireless audio transmitter products, such as products from Amphony, make use of a digital protocol. The audio is first converted to digital data before being transmitted. This conversion and transmission in the digital domain will ensure that the original audio quality is preserved. On the other hand, this is only the case of the data is sent uncompressed. Some wireless audio transmitters will apply some type of audio compression. Such products include Bluetooth audio transmitters. Audio compression will degrade the quality of the audio to some degree.
Products utilizing wireless LAN are useful when streaming audio from a PC. Their drawback is that they normally have some fairly high latency, i.e. the signal will be delayed by some amount since wireless LAN was not specifically designed for real-time audio streaming. WLAN receivers frequently do not have built-in network access. As a result, such products frequently require purchasing separate LAN cards. These cards are then plugged into each receiver.
Powerline products broadcast the audio via the power mains and offer great range. They run into problems in houses where there are separate mains circuits in terms of being able to cross over into another circuit. Another challenge confronting powerline products are strong power surges and spikes. Such surges can bring about dropouts in the audio due to errors in the transmission. To safeguard against these errors, powerline products typically build a delay of several seconds into the transmission.
Here are some recommendations for picking a wireless audio system: If you plan to stream audio into several rooms of your house, be sure to select a system that allows streaming to multiple receivers at the same time. That way you don't have to purchase a separate transmitter for each receiver that you are streaming to. Choosing a product with some sort of error correction will help mitigate against strong RF interference. Such interference can be brought on by other wireless transmitters. Choose a digital RF audio transmitter to make sure that the audio quality is maintained. Make sure the audio delay is smaller than 10 ms if you have a real-time application such as video.
Make sure the wireless transmitter provides the audio inputs you require. You may need amplified speaker inputs, RCA audio inputs etc. Make sure that you can buy additional receivers later on as you expand your system. Verify that you can get receivers with speaker outputs for connecting regular loudspeakers as well as receivers with line-level RCA outputs. Because you may want to connect the transmitter to several sources, you should pick a transmitter that can be adjusted to different signal volume levels to prevent clipping of the audio signal inside the transmitter converter stage.
Verify that the amplified wireless receivers have built-in digital amplifiers with low distortion figures. This will keep the receiver cool due to high amplifier power efficiency and provide maximum sound quality. Select a system that offers receivers that can drive speakers with the desired Ohm rating. Make sure the receivers have a small form factor and are easily mountable. This will help during the set up. Products which function in the 5.8 GHz frequency band will have less problems with wireless interference than products utilizing the crowded 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz frequency band.
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Get more info about wireless surround sound products and wireless speaker products at Amphony's website.