Guidelines For Sending Music All Through Your House

Guidelines For Sending Music All Through Your House

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An increasing number of wireless audio transmitter devices promise the ultimate freedom in streaming audio all over the home. We will look at the most common technologies for wireless audio and give some advice for picking the best wireless audio product.

Infrared products broadcast the audio as lightwaves. Light can't penetrate walls. Therefore devices utilizing infrared, such as wireless surround sound kits, are limited to a single room.

RF wireless audio devices send the music signal via radio waves. These radio wave signals can without difficulty go through walls. The signal is broadcast either by using FM transmission or digital transmission. FM transmitters are the least expensive option. They offer good range but the audio signal is prone to audio distortion and hiss and is extremely susceptible to interference from other wireless transmitters.

Products using digital wireless audio transmission, such as Amphony audio transmitter products, utilize a digital protocol in which the audio is converted to a digital signal before transmission. This method ensures that the audio quality is fully preserved. Some transmitters employ some sort of audio compression, such as Bluetooth transmitters, which will degrade the audio to some degree. Transmitters which broadcast the audio data uncompressed will achieve the highest fidelity.

WLAN products are practical for broadcasting audio from a PC. However, wireless LAN was never designed for real-time audio streaming. As a result, products using WLAN will introduce some amount of delay to the signal. WLAN receivers usually require buying a separate LAN card to be plugged into every receiver.

Powerline products utilize the power mains as a medium to send the music. These products normally offer excellent range. However, they face problems if there are several separate mains circuits in the home. In this case the signal will have problems crossing between these circuits. Powerline products have another problem 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.

Here are some suggestions for picking a wireless audio system: If you plan to stream audio into numerous rooms of your house, be sure to select a system that allows streaming to several receivers at the same time. That way you dont have to purchase a separate transmitter for every receiver that you are streaming to. 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 preserve 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 suitable for most scenarios.

Pick a transmitter that has all of the audio inputs you require, e.g. speaker inputs, RCA inputs etc. Make sure that you can purchase additional receivers later on as you expand your system. Ensure 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 prevent the music signal from clipping inside the transmitter audio converter. This will ensure optimum dynamic range regardless of the signal level of your equipment.

Make sure that the system offers amplified receivers with a digital amplifier to ensure high power efficiency. This will help keep the receiver cool during operation. Also, make sure the amplifier provides low audio distortion. This is important for good sound quality. Check that the amplified receiver is able to drive speakers with the desired Ohm rating and that it is small and easily mountable for simple installation. 5.8 GHz wireless devices typically have less problems with interference from other wireless transmitters than devices operating at 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz.

About the Author:
You can find additional information about wireless audio transmitters at Amphony's website.



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