Lately more and more wireless home audio kits have emerged which claim to bring the ultimate freedom of broadcasting music throughout the house. We will look at the most popular technologies for wireless audio and give some suggestions for choosing the best wireless audio product.
Running audio in your house can be a intimidating undertaking. Numerous homes are not wired for multi-room audio and getting the music from your living room to your bed room can be quite a challenge. There are several technologies solving this problem. These include infrared wireless, RF wireless, wireless LAN (WLAN) and powerline.
Infrared wireless audio products are limited to line-of-sight applications, i.e. only work within a single room since the signal is sent as infrared light which can't penetrate walls. This technology is frequently found in wireless speaker kit products.
RF wireless products send the audio as RF waves - either by using FM transmission or digital transmission - and can therefore easily transmit through walls. FM transmitters are the least expensive alternative. They provide decent range but the audio signal is prone to audio distortion and static and is extremely susceptible to interference from other wireless transmitters.
Products which use digital wireless audio transmission employ a digital protocol. Such products include transmitters from Amphony. In this protocol, before transmission the audio signal is converted to digital data. This method guarantees that the audio quality is fully maintained. Some transmitters employ some form of audio compression, such as Bluetooth transmitters, which will degrade the audio to some extent. Transmitters which broadcast the audio data uncompressed will attain the maximum fidelity.
WLAN products are practical for broadcasting audio from a PC. However, wireless LAN was never designed for real-time audio streaming. As a result, products utilizing WLAN will introduce some amount of delay to the signal. WLAN receivers ordinarily require purchasing a separate LAN card to be plugged into each receiver.
Powerline products employ the power mains to distribute audio and provide great range but run into problems if there are individual 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 speakers has to be in sync with other non-wireless speakers or video.
Now we'll give you some suggestions for shopping for a wireless system: Go for a system that supports numerous wireless receivers if you plan to stream audio to a number of rooms so that you don't have to purchase a separate transmitter for every receiver. Selecting a product with some form of error correction will help mitigate against strong RF interference. Such interference can be brought on by other wireless transmitters. Digital RF audio transmitters will be able to preserve the original audio quality. If you have time-critical applications where sync of the audio is crucial then you should get a transmitter with a low audio latency. An audio latency of smaller than 10 ms would be suitable for most scenarios.
Make sure the wireless transmitter provides the audio inputs you need. You may need amplified speaker inputs, RCA audio inputs etc. Get a wireless system where you can purchase additional receivers later on. You should verify that you can get receivers for all the different applications you have. Such receivers may include amplified receivers for passive speakers or line-level receivers for active speakers. Given that you may want to connect the transmitter to several sources, you should choose a transmitter that can be adjusted to different signal volume levels to prevent clipping of the audio signal inside the transmitter converter stage.
For high amplifier power efficiency and greatest sound quality, confirm that the amplified receiver has a built-in low-distortion digital amplifier. Verify that the amplified receiver can drive speakers with the preferred Ohm rating and that it is small and easily mountable for simple installation. 5.8 GHz wireless devices usually have less trouble with interference from other wireless transmitters than products operating at 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz.
Running audio in your house can be a intimidating undertaking. Numerous homes are not wired for multi-room audio and getting the music from your living room to your bed room can be quite a challenge. There are several technologies solving this problem. These include infrared wireless, RF wireless, wireless LAN (WLAN) and powerline.
Infrared wireless audio products are limited to line-of-sight applications, i.e. only work within a single room since the signal is sent as infrared light which can't penetrate walls. This technology is frequently found in wireless speaker kit products.
RF wireless products send the audio as RF waves - either by using FM transmission or digital transmission - and can therefore easily transmit through walls. FM transmitters are the least expensive alternative. They provide decent range but the audio signal is prone to audio distortion and static and is extremely susceptible to interference from other wireless transmitters.
Products which use digital wireless audio transmission employ a digital protocol. Such products include transmitters from Amphony. In this protocol, before transmission the audio signal is converted to digital data. This method guarantees that the audio quality is fully maintained. Some transmitters employ some form of audio compression, such as Bluetooth transmitters, which will degrade the audio to some extent. Transmitters which broadcast the audio data uncompressed will attain the maximum fidelity.
WLAN products are practical for broadcasting audio from a PC. However, wireless LAN was never designed for real-time audio streaming. As a result, products utilizing WLAN will introduce some amount of delay to the signal. WLAN receivers ordinarily require purchasing a separate LAN card to be plugged into each receiver.
Powerline products employ the power mains to distribute audio and provide great range but run into problems if there are individual 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 speakers has to be in sync with other non-wireless speakers or video.
Now we'll give you some suggestions for shopping for a wireless system: Go for a system that supports numerous wireless receivers if you plan to stream audio to a number of rooms so that you don't have to purchase a separate transmitter for every receiver. Selecting a product with some form of error correction will help mitigate against strong RF interference. Such interference can be brought on by other wireless transmitters. Digital RF audio transmitters will be able to preserve the original audio quality. If you have time-critical applications where sync of the audio is crucial then you should get a transmitter with a low audio latency. An audio latency of smaller than 10 ms would be suitable for most scenarios.
Make sure the wireless transmitter provides the audio inputs you need. You may need amplified speaker inputs, RCA audio inputs etc. Get a wireless system where you can purchase additional receivers later on. You should verify that you can get receivers for all the different applications you have. Such receivers may include amplified receivers for passive speakers or line-level receivers for active speakers. Given that you may want to connect the transmitter to several sources, you should choose a transmitter that can be adjusted to different signal volume levels to prevent clipping of the audio signal inside the transmitter converter stage.
For high amplifier power efficiency and greatest sound quality, confirm that the amplified receiver has a built-in low-distortion digital amplifier. Verify that the amplified receiver can drive speakers with the preferred Ohm rating and that it is small and easily mountable for simple installation. 5.8 GHz wireless devices usually have less trouble with interference from other wireless transmitters than products operating at 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz.
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You can get further details concerning wireless audio receivers as well as other wireless audio product models from Amphony's web page.
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