Wireless Audio Video
US $99.95
Pointers For Choosing The Optimal Wireless Audio Transmitter Device For Whole-House Audio Streaming
Recently more and more wireless audio transmitter devices have appeared which promise to deliver the ultimate freedom of broadcasting music throughout the home. We will take a look at the most common technologies for wireless audio and give some guidelines for selecting the best wireless audio product.
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 bedroom. Frequently the audio source cannot be moved. Running speaker wires between rooms will be costly and consequently a lot of people are looking for other options. 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 therefore products utilizing this technology, such as infrared wireless surround sound products, are limited to a single room.
RF wireless products will send the signal as RF waves. These waves can without difficulty go through walls. RF wireless audio devices either use FM transmission or digital audio transmission. The least expensive option 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 fairly susceptible to interference from other wireless transmitters.
Products utilizing digital wireless audio transmission, such as Amphony audio transmitter products, make use of 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 extent. Digital wireless audio transmitters which send the audio uncompressed offer the highest audio fidelity.
Wireless LAN (WLAN) products are practical 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. WLAN receivers frequently do not have built-in network access. As a result, such devices often require buying separate LAN cards. These cards are then plugged into every receiver.
Powerline devices employ the power mains to distribute music and offer great range but run into trouble if there are individual mains circuits in the home in terms of crossing between circuits. Another challenge facing powerline products are strong power surges and spikes. Such surges can cause drpouts in the audio due to errors in the transmission. To safeguard against these errors, powerline products usually build a delay of several seconds into the transmission.
Now we'll give you some guidelines for shopping for a wireless system: Pick a system that supports multiple wireless receivers if you plan to stream audio to several rooms so that you don't have to buy a separate transmitter for each receiver. Products with some type of error correction will be more immune against radio interference from other wireless transmitters. 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.
Choose a transmitter that has all of the audio inputs you need, e.g. speaker inputs, RCA inputs etc. Get a wireless system where you can buy additional receivers later on. You should confirm 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. Because 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.
Check 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 provide optimum sound quality. Make sure the receivers can drive speakers with your desired Ohm rating. Choosing a product where the wireless receivers have a small footprint and easy mounting options will help during the installation. Products utilizing the less crowded 5.8 GHz frequency band will commonly have less problems with wireless interference than 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz devices.
Do you have a WIRELESS VIDEO TRANSMITTER (to TV)?
I know about WIRELESS AUDIO TRANSMITTER's (my friend owns one) and have heard about the WIRELESS VIDEO TRANSMITTER on some web-sites!
Just wanted to check if there are any of you who ACTUALLY use it and what the experience was like?
Thanks in advance!
There are a lot of them on the market now. Especially with the birth of the mp3 player. I would say they were pretty good if there is not a lot of interference around the area you are sending the signal. The most affordable one on the market right now is probably from x10. One nice feature is that it has the coaxial hook up and the RCA plugs on the receiver. I used mine primarily for sending music from my PC to my stereo in the living room.
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