Saturday 16 November 2013

Various Guidelines To Help Select A Wireless Surround Sound Package

By Scott Humton


A Number Of Suggestions To Help Choose A Wireless Surround Sound Product The latest range of wireless surround sound transmitter products claims streaming of music throughout the home without limits. We will take a look at the most common technologies for wireless audio and give some tips for selecting the best wireless audio product.

Running music in your house can be a intimidating job. A lot of buildings are not wired for multi-room audio and getting the music from your living room to your bedroom can be quite a challenge. The following technologies are utilized by products solving this problem: infrared, RF, wireless LAN and powerline.

If your home is not wired for audio then you face quite a challenge when you want to get your music from your living room to your bed room. Frequently the audio source cannot be moved. Running speaker wires between rooms will be expensive and as a result many people are searching for other options. 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 since the audio signal is broadcast as lightwaves and consequently products using 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 without difficulty penetrate walls. RF wireless audio products either use FM transmission or digital audio transmission. FM transmitters are the cheapest option. They offer good range but the music signal is prone to audio distortion and hiss and is extremely susceptible to interference from other wireless transmitters.

Products which use digital wireless audio transmission employ a digital protocol. Such devices 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 completely maintained. Some transmitters employ some sort of audio compression, such as Bluetooth transmitters, which will degrade the audio to some extent. Transmitters which send the audio data uncompressed will achieve the maximum fidelity.

Products utilizing wireless LAN are practical when streaming audio from a PC. Their disadvantage 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. WLAN receivers usually require purchasing a separate LAN card to be plugged into each receiver.

Here are some tips for selecting the optimum wireless audio system: Try to find a system that can run several wireless receivers from a single transmitter. Ideally an unlimited number of receivers should be supported. That way you don't need to purchase additional transmitters when you start adding receivers in several rooms of your home. Some devices have some form of error correction built in which will help guard against dropouts in case of strong wireless interference. Digital RF audio transmitters will be able to maintain the original audio quality. If you have time-critical applications where sync of the audio is important then you should get a transmitter with a low audio latency. An audio latency of less than 10 ms would be appropriate for most scenarios.

Select a transmitter that has all the audio inputs you require, such as speaker inputs, line-level RCA inputs etc. Get a wireless system where you can purchase separate receivers later on. You should confirm 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. Pick a transmitter that can regulate the audio volume of the input stage. This will give you the versatility 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 utilized.

Pick a transmitter that has all the audio inputs you need, 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. If you go with a digital audio transmitter, pick one with an input audio level control knob to avoid the audio signal from clipping inside the transmitter audio converter. This will ensure optimum dynamic range regardless of the signal level of your equipment. For high amplifier power efficiency and greatest sound quality, confirm that the amplified receiver has a built-in low-distortion digital amplifier. Select a system that offers receivers that can drive speakers with the preferred Ohm rating. Make sure the receivers have a small form factor and are easily mountable. This will help during the set up. 5.8 GHz wireless products typically have less trouble with interference from other wireless transmitters than devices working at 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz.




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