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Ideas For Selecting The Optimal Wireless Audio Transmitter Device For Whole-Home Audio Streaming
An increasing number of wireless audio transmitter devices promise the ultimate freedom in streaming audio all over the house. We will take a look at the most widespread technologies for wireless audio and give some tips for choosing the best wireless audio product.
Running audio in your home can be a daunting job. A lot of buildings are not wired for multi-room audio and getting the music from your living room to your bed room can be quite a problem. Devices which resolve this problem are mostly based on the following technologies: infrared wireless, RF wireless, wireless LAN or powerline.
Infrared wireless audio products are restricted to line-of-sight applications, i.e. only function within a single room since the signal is sent as infrared light which cannot go through walls. This technology is often found in wireless speaker kit products.
RF wireless products will broadcast the signal as RF waves. These waves can without difficulty go through walls. RF wireless audio products either use FM transmission or digital audio transmission. The least expensive option is FM transmission. Products utilizing FM transmission, however, have a number 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 use digital wireless audio transmission use a digital protocol. Such products include transmitters from Amphony. In this protocol, before transmission the audio signal is converted to digital data. This conversion and transmission in the digital domain will guarantee 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 form of audio compression. Such products include Bluetooth audio transmitters. Audio compression will degrade the quality of the audio to some extent.
WLAN products are practical for broadcasting audio from a PC. However, wireless LAN was never designed for real-time audio streaming. As a consequence, products using WLAN will introduce some amount of delay to the signal. WLAN receivers often do not have built-in network access. As a result, such products often require purchasing separate LAN cards. These cards are then plugged into each receiver.
Powerline products utilize the power mains to distribute music and provide great 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 a number of 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.
Now we'll give you some pointers for shopping for a wireless system: Go for 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. Some devices have some sort of error correction built in which will help guard against dropouts in case of strong wireless interference. Pick a digital RF transmitter to maintain the original audio quality, ideally one with an audio latency of less than 10 ms in case of video or other time-sensitive applications.
Choose a transmitter that has all of the audio inputs you need, e.g. speaker inputs, RCA inputs etc. Make sure that you can purchase individual 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. 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 guarantee optimum dynamic range regardless of the signal level of your equipment.
Ensure 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 optimum sound quality. Pick a system which provides 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. Devices which work in the 5.8 GHz frequency band will have less trouble with wireless interference than devices utilizing the crowded 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz frequency band.
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