Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Some Guidelines To Help Pick A Cordless Surround Sound Package

By Scott Humton


Several Guidelines To Help Pick A Cordless Surround Sound Set

Recently more and more wireless surround sound transmitter devices have emerged which claim to deliver the ultimate freedom of broadcasting music throughout the house. We will take a look at various products and technologies to find out in how far these devices are practical for whole-house audio applications and what to look out for when purchasing a wireless system. Getting audio from your living room to your bedroom can be quite a problem particularly in buildings which are not wired for audio. There are several technologies solving this problem. These include infrared wireless, RF wireless, wireless LAN (WLAN) and powerline.

If your residence 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. Frequently the audio source cannot be moved. Running speaker wires between rooms will be expensive and for that reason many people are looking for alternatives. There are a number of 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 for that reason products utilizing this technology, such as infrared wireless surround sound products, are restricted to a single room. RF wireless music devices broadcast the audio signal via radio waves. These radio wave signals can without difficulty go through walls. The signal is broadcast either by utilizing FM transmission or digital transmission. The least expensive choice is FM transmission. Products utilizing FM transmission, however, have a series of drawbacks. These include degradation of the audio quality due to static or hiss and audio distortion. In addition, FM transmitter products are also rather prone to interference from other wireless transmitters.

Products using digital wireless audio transmission, such as Amphony audio transmitter products, employ a digital protocol in which the audio is converted to a digital signal prior to transmission. Some wireless audio transmitters will use audio compression, such as Bluetooth transmitters which will reduce the audio quality to some degree. Digital wireless audio transmitters which send the audio uncompressed offer the highest audio fidelity.

Wireless LAN (WLAN) products are useful when streaming from a PC but will add some amount of latency or delay to the signal because wireless LAN was not originally designed for real-time audio streaming. Also, a number of products require to purchase separate wireless LAN modules that are plugged into every audio receiver.

Powerline products use the power mains to distribute music and provide large range but run into problems if there are individual mains circuits in the home in terms of crossing between circuits. Powerline products have another challenge in the form of power surges and spikes which can cause transmission errors. To avoid audio dropouts, these products will commonly have an audio latency of several seconds as a safeguard.

Make sure the wireless transmitter provides the audio inputs you need. You may need amplified speaker inputs, RCA audio inputs etc. Choose a system where you can add receivers later on which offer all of the required outputs, e.g. amplified speaker outputs, RCA outputs etc. Since you may want to connect the transmitter to several sources, you should pick a transmitter that can be adjusted to different signal volume levels to prevent clipping of the audio signal inside the transmitter converter stage.

Select a transmitter that has all the audio inputs you require, such as speaker inputs, line-level RCA inputs etc. Choose a system where you can add receivers later on which provide all of the required outputs, e.g. amplified speaker outputs, RCA outputs etc. If you go with a digital audio transmitter, select one with an input audio level control knob to prevent the music signal from clipping inside the transmitter audio converter. This will guarantee 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. Check that the amplified receiver can drive speakers with the preferred Ohm rating and that it is small and easily mountable for simple set up. Products 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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