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Ideas For Choosing The Optimal Wireless Audio Transmitter Device For Whole-Home Audio Streaming
An increasing number of wireless audio transmitter products promise the ultimate freedom in streaming audio all over the house. We will look at different products and technologies to find out in how far these devices are useful for whole-house audio applications and what to look out for when purchasing a wireless system.
Running music in your home can be a daunting undertaking. Numerous buildings are not wired for multi-room audio and getting the music from your living room to your bedroom can be quite a challenge. Devices which solve this challenge are usually based on the following technologies: infrared wireless, RF wireless, wireless LAN or powerline.
Infrared is limited to line of sight since the audio signal is sent as lightwaves and as a result products using this technology, such as infrared wireless surround sound products, are limited to a single room.
RF wireless music products send the audio signal via radio waves. These radio wave signals can easily go through walls. The signal is sent either by utilizing FM transmission or digital transmission. FM transmitters are the least expensive alternative. They offer decent range but the music signal is prone to audio distortion and hiss and is very susceptible to interference from other wireless transmitters.
Products which use digital wireless audio transmission use a digital protocol. Such devices include transmitters from Amphony. In this protocol, before transmission the audio signal is converted to digital data. This method ensures that the audio quality is fully maintained. 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 useful 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 ordinarily require buying a separate LAN card to be plugged into each receiver.
Powerline devices employ the power mains to distribute audio and provide great range but run into trouble 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.
Here are some suggestions 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 extra transmitters when you start adding receivers in several rooms of your house. 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 audio transmitter to guarantee that the audio quality is preserved. Make sure the audio delay is less than 10 ms if you have a real-time application such as video.
Make sure the wireless transmitter offers 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 select a transmitter that can be adjusted to different signal volume levels to prevent clipping of the audio signal inside the transmitter converter stage.
Make sure 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 maximum sound quality. Verify that the amplified receiver can drive speakers with the desired Ohm rating and that it is small and easily mountable for easy installation. Devices using the less crowded 5.8 GHz frequency band will generally have less trouble with wireless interference than 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz devices.
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