Pointers For Picking The Optimal Wireless Audio Transmitter Product For Whole-House Audio Streaming

The latest range of wireless audio transmitter devices promises streaming of music throughout the home without limits. We will take a look at various products and technologies to find out in how far these devices are effective for whole-house audio uses and what to look out for when buying a wireless system.

If your house 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 therefore many people are searching for other options. Products which solve this problem are usually based on the following technologies: infrared wireless, RF wireless, wireless LAN or powerline.

Infrared wireless audio products are restricted to line-of-sight applications, i.e. only operate within a single room because the signal is sent as infrared light which cannot go through walls. This technology is frequently found in wireless speaker kit products.

RF wireless products send the music as RF waves – either by utilizing FM transmission or digital transmission – and can therefore easily transmit through walls. FM transmission is economical but quite prone to noise, audio distortion and susceptible to interference.

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 prior to transmission. Some wireless audio transmitters will employ audio compression, such as Bluetooth transmitters which will decrease the audio quality to some degree. Digital wireless audio transmitters which broadcast the audio uncompressed provide the highest audio fidelity.

Products utilizing wireless LAN are useful when streaming audio from a PC. Their drawback is that they usually have some fairly high latency, i.e. the signal will be delayed by some amount since wireless LAN was not specifically designed for real-time audio streaming. WLAN receivers ordinarily require purchasing a separate LAN card to be plugged into every receiver.

Powerline products send the audio via the power mains and offer large range. They run into trouble in houses where there are individual mains circuits in terms of being able to cross over into another circuit. Another problem facing powerline products are strong power surges and spikes. Such surges can bring about drpouts in the audio due to errors in the transmission. To safeguard against these errors, powerline products typically build a delay of several seconds into the transmission.

Now we’ll give you some suggestions for shopping for a wireless system: Go for a system that supports multiple wireless receivers if you plan to stream audio to a number of rooms so that you don’t have to purchase a separate transmitter for each receiver. Products with some sort of error correction will be more immune against radio interference from other wireless transmitters. Select a digital RF audio transmitter to guarantee that the audio quality is maintained. Make sure the audio latency is smaller than 10 ms if you have a real-time application such as video.

Select 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. Verify 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 avoid the audio signal from clipping inside the transmitter audio converter. This will guarantee optimum dynamic range regardless of the signal level of your equipment.

Make sure that the system offers amplified receivers with a digital amplifier to guarantee high power efficiency. This will help keep the receiver cool during operation. In addition, make sure the amplifier provides low audio distortion. This is important for good sound quality. Make sure the receivers can drive speakers with your preferred Ohm rating. Picking a product where the wireless receivers have a small footprint and easy mounting options will help during the installation. Products which work in the 5.8 GHz frequency band will have less problems with wireless interference than devices utilizing the crowded 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz frequency band.