 |
 Dayton SA1000 1000W Subwoofer Amplifier Home Audio 4ohm $425.95 Time Remaining: 27d 1h 25m Buy It Now for only: $425.95 |
Suggestions For Choosing The Optimal Wireless Audio Transmitter Device For Whole-Home Audio Streaming
Recently more and more wireless audio transmitter products have emerged which claim to bring the ultimate freedom of broadcasting music throughout the house. We will look at the most common technologies for wireless audio and give some guidelines for picking the best wireless audio product.
If your home is not wired for audio then you face quite a problem when you want to get your music from your living room to your bed room. Often the audio source cannot be moved. Running speaker wires between rooms will be expensive and as a result many people are looking for other options. The following technologies are utilized by products solving this problem: infrared, RF, wireless LAN and powerline.
Infrared products send the audio as lightwaves. Light can't go through walls. For that reason devices using infrared, such as wireless surround sound kits, are limited to a single room.
RF wireless products send the music 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 offer good range but the music signal is prone to audio distortion and static and is very susceptible to interference from other wireless transmitters.
Products which employ digital wireless audio transmission utilize a digital protocol. Such products include transmitters from Amphony. In this protocol, prior to transmission the audio signal is converted to digital data. This method ensures that the audio quality is completely preserved. Some transmitters employ some type of audio compression, such as Bluetooth transmitters, which will degrade the audio to some degree. Transmitters which broadcast the audio data uncompressed will attain the highest fidelity.
WLAN products are convenient 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 frequently do not have built-in network access. As a result, such products often require buying separate LAN cards. These cards are then plugged into every receiver.
Powerline devices use the power mains as a medium to broadcast the audio. These products usually provide excellent range. On the other hand, they face trouble if there are a number of separate mains circuits in the house. In this situation the signal will have trouble crossing between these circuits. Another problem facing powerline products are strong power surges and spikes. Such surges can cause drpouts in the audio due to errors in the transmission. To safeguard against these errors, powerline products usually build a delay of several seconds into the transmission.
Now we'll give you some recommendations for shopping for a wireless system: Pick a system that supports numerous wireless receivers if you plan to stream audio to several rooms so that you don't have to purchase a separate transmitter for each receiver. Some products have some sort of error correction built in which will help guard against dropouts in case of strong wireless interference. Pick a digital RF audio transmitter to make sure 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. Pick a system where you can add receivers later on which offer all of the required outputs, e.g. amplified speaker outputs, RCA outputs etc. Pick a transmitter that can regulate 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 used.
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 offer optimum sound quality. Check that the amplified receiver can drive speakers with the desired Ohm rating and that it is small and easily mountable for simple installation. Products utilizing the less crowded 5.8 GHz frequency band will commonly have less problems with wireless interference than 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz devices.
Home Maintenance : How to Use a Volt-Ohm Meter Safely