Several Recommendations To Help Select A Cordless Surround Sound System
The newest range of wireless surround sound transmitter devices claims streaming of music throughout the home without limits. We will take a look at the most popular technologies for wireless audio and give some tips for picking the best wireless audio product.
Infrared is restricted to line of sight since the audio signal is sent as lightwaves and consequently devices using this technology, such as infrared wireless surround sound products, are limited to a single room.
RF wireless audio devices send the music signal via radio waves. These radio wave signals can without problems go through walls. The signal is sent either by using FM transmission or digital transmission. FM transmitters are the cheapest option. They offer 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, prior to transmission the audio signal is converted to digital data. Some wireless audio transmitters will utilize audio compression, such as Bluetooth transmitters which will lower the audio quality to some extent. Digital wireless audio transmitters which broadcast the audio uncompressed offer the highest audio fidelity.
Products which employ digital wireless audio transmission use a digital protocol. Such products include transmitters from Amphony. In this protocol, prior to transmission the audio signal is converted to digital data. This conversion and transmission in the digital domain will ensure that the original audio quality is preserved. However, this is only the case of the data is sent uncompressed. Some wireless audio transmitters will apply some form of audio compression. Such products include Bluetooth audio transmitters. Audio compression will degrade the quality of the audio to some degree.
Products using wireless LAN are practical when streaming audio from a PC. Their downside is that they normally have some fairly high latency, i.e. the signal will be delayed by some amount since wireless LAN was not particularly designed for real-time audio streaming. Also, some products require to purchase separate wireless LAN modules that are plugged into each audio receiver.
Powerline products employ the power mains to distribute audio and offer great range but run into problems if there are individual mains circuits in the home in terms of crossing between circuits. Another problem facing 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 normally build a delay of several seconds into the transmission. Now we'll give you some recommendations for shopping for a wireless system: Select a system that supports multiple 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. Choosing a product with some form of error correction will help mitigate against strong RF interference. Such interference can be caused by other wireless transmitters. Select a digital RF audio transmitter to ensure that the audio quality is preserved. Make sure the audio latency is smaller than 10 ms if you have a real-time application such as video.
Choose a transmitter that has all the audio inputs you need, such as speaker inputs, line-level RCA inputs etc. Make sure that you can buy additional receivers later on as you expand your system. Check that you can get receivers with speaker outputs for connecting regular loudspeakers as well as receivers with line-level RCA outputs. Select a transmitter that can adjust the audio volume of the input stage. This will give you the flexibility to connect the transmitter to any type of equipment with different signal levels. Otherwise the audio may get clipped inside the transmitter converter stage or the dynamic range is not fully utilized.
For high amplifier power efficiency and greatest sound quality, confirm that the amplified receiver has a built-in low-distortion digital amplifier. Make sure the receivers can drive speakers with your desired Ohm rating. Choosing a product where the wireless receivers have a small footprint and easy mounting options will help during the installation. Devices using the less crowded 5.8 GHz frequency band will generally have less problems with wireless interference than 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz devices.
The newest range of wireless surround sound transmitter devices claims streaming of music throughout the home without limits. We will take a look at the most popular technologies for wireless audio and give some tips for picking the best wireless audio product.
Infrared is restricted to line of sight since the audio signal is sent as lightwaves and consequently devices using this technology, such as infrared wireless surround sound products, are limited to a single room.
RF wireless audio devices send the music signal via radio waves. These radio wave signals can without problems go through walls. The signal is sent either by using FM transmission or digital transmission. FM transmitters are the cheapest option. They offer 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, prior to transmission the audio signal is converted to digital data. Some wireless audio transmitters will utilize audio compression, such as Bluetooth transmitters which will lower the audio quality to some extent. Digital wireless audio transmitters which broadcast the audio uncompressed offer the highest audio fidelity.
Products which employ digital wireless audio transmission use a digital protocol. Such products include transmitters from Amphony. In this protocol, prior to transmission the audio signal is converted to digital data. This conversion and transmission in the digital domain will ensure that the original audio quality is preserved. However, this is only the case of the data is sent uncompressed. Some wireless audio transmitters will apply some form of audio compression. Such products include Bluetooth audio transmitters. Audio compression will degrade the quality of the audio to some degree.
Products using wireless LAN are practical when streaming audio from a PC. Their downside is that they normally have some fairly high latency, i.e. the signal will be delayed by some amount since wireless LAN was not particularly designed for real-time audio streaming. Also, some products require to purchase separate wireless LAN modules that are plugged into each audio receiver.
Powerline products employ the power mains to distribute audio and offer great range but run into problems if there are individual mains circuits in the home in terms of crossing between circuits. Another problem facing 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 normally build a delay of several seconds into the transmission. Now we'll give you some recommendations for shopping for a wireless system: Select a system that supports multiple 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. Choosing a product with some form of error correction will help mitigate against strong RF interference. Such interference can be caused by other wireless transmitters. Select a digital RF audio transmitter to ensure that the audio quality is preserved. Make sure the audio latency is smaller than 10 ms if you have a real-time application such as video.
Choose a transmitter that has all the audio inputs you need, such as speaker inputs, line-level RCA inputs etc. Make sure that you can buy additional receivers later on as you expand your system. Check that you can get receivers with speaker outputs for connecting regular loudspeakers as well as receivers with line-level RCA outputs. Select a transmitter that can adjust the audio volume of the input stage. This will give you the flexibility to connect the transmitter to any type of equipment with different signal levels. Otherwise the audio may get clipped inside the transmitter converter stage or the dynamic range is not fully utilized.
For high amplifier power efficiency and greatest sound quality, confirm that the amplified receiver has a built-in low-distortion digital amplifier. Make sure the receivers can drive speakers with your desired Ohm rating. Choosing a product where the wireless receivers have a small footprint and easy mounting options will help during the installation. Devices using the less crowded 5.8 GHz frequency band will generally have less problems with wireless interference than 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz devices.
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