Sunday, January 5, 2014

Various Secrets To Help Decide On A Wireless Surround Sound System

By Scott Humton


Several Secrets To Help Pick A Wireless Surround Sound Set

If your residence is not wired for audio then you face quite a challenge 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 costly and as a result a lot of people are searching for other options. There are several technologies solving this problem. These include infrared wireless, RF wireless, wireless LAN (WLAN) and powerline.

Getting audio from your living room to your bedroom can be quite a problem especially in houses which are not wired for audio. Devices which solve this problem are usually based on the following technologies: infrared wireless, RF wireless, wireless LAN or powerline.

RF wireless products broadcast the audio as RF waves - either by utilizing FM transmission or digital transmission - and can as a result without difficulty transmit through walls. The least expensive choice is FM transmission. Products using 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 which utilize digital wireless audio transmission utilize a digital protocol. Such devices include transmitters from Amphony. In this protocol, prior to transmission the audio signal is converted to digital data. This method guarantees that the audio quality is completely preserved. Some transmitters employ some sort of audio compression, such as Bluetooth transmitters, which will degrade the audio to some extent. Transmitters which broadcast the audio data uncompressed will attain the highest fidelity.

Powerline products use the power mains as a medium to broadcast the music. These products normally provide excellent range. On the other hand, they face trouble if there are several separate mains circuits in the house. In this situation the signal will have trouble crossing between these circuits. Powerline products have another problem in the form of power surges and spikes which can cause transmission errors. To prevent audio dropouts, these products will generally have an audio latency of several seconds as a safeguard.

Powerline products utilize the power mains as a medium to send the music. These products normally provide excellent range. On the other hand, they face problems if there are several separate mains circuits in the home. In this situation the signal will have trouble crossing between these circuits. Also, these products build in a delay of several 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.

Make sure the wireless transmitter provides the audio inputs you need. You may need amplified speaker inputs, RCA audio inputs etc. Make sure that you can buy separate receivers later on as you expand your system. Check that you can get receivers with speaker outputs for connecting regular loudspeakers as well as receivers with line-level RCA outputs. 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.

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. Check that you can get receivers with speaker outputs for connecting regular loudspeakers as well as receivers with line-level RCA outputs. 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. Verify that the amplified wireless receivers contain built-in digital amplifiers with low distortion figures. This will keep the receiver cool due to high amplifier power efficiency and provide maximum sound quality. Check that the amplified receiver can drive speakers with the desired Ohm rating and that it is small and easily mountable for easy set up. Devices using the less crowded 5.8 GHz frequency band will normally have less problems with wireless interference than 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz products.




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