Sunday, 8 December 2013

Various Tips To Help Pick A Cordless Surround Sound Set

By Scott Humton


Various Guidelines To Help Select A Wireless Surround Sound Package

An increasing number of wireless surround sound transmitter devices claim the ultimate freedom in streaming music all over the house. We will look at the most widespread technologies for wireless audio and give some recommendations for choosing the best wireless audio product.

Infrared products send the audio as lightwaves. Light cannot go through walls. As a result products utilizing infrared, such as wireless surround sound kits, are limited to a single room.

RF wireless products broadcast the audio as RF waves - either by utilizing FM transmission or digital transmission - and can as a result without problems transmit through walls. The least expensive option is FM transmission. Products using FM transmission, however, have a series of drawbacks. These include degradation of the audio quality due to noise or hiss and audio distortion. In addition, FM transmitter products are also rather susceptible to interference from other wireless transmitters.

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. Also, some products require to buy separate wireless LAN modules that are plugged into every audio receiver.

Products utilizing wireless LAN are practical when streaming audio from a PC. Their drawback is that they generally have some fairly high latency, i.e. the signal will be delayed by some amount since wireless LAN was not particularly designed for real-time audio streaming. Also, some products require to purchase separate wireless LAN modules that are plugged into every audio receiver.

Powerline products send the audio via the power mains and provide large range. They run into trouble in homes where there are separate mains circuits in terms of being able to cross over into another circuit. Another problem confronting powerline products are strong power surges and spikes. Such surges can bring about dropouts 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 tips for shopping for a wireless system: Choose 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 every receiver. Products with some type of error correction will be more immune against radio interference from other wireless transmitters. Pick a digital RF transmitter to maintain the original audio quality, preferably one with an audio latency of less than 10 ms in case of video or other time-sensitive applications.

Pick a transmitter that has all the audio inputs you need, such as speaker inputs, line-level RCA inputs etc. Get a wireless system where you can purchase separate 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. If you go with a digital audio transmitter, choose one with an input audio level control knob to avoid the audio signal from clipping inside the transmitter audio converter. This will ensure optimum dynamic range regardless of the signal level of your equipment.

For high amplifier power efficiency and greatest sound quality, check that the amplified receiver has a built-in low-distortion digital amplifier. Choose a system which provides receivers that can drive speakers with the desired Ohm rating. Make sure the receivers have a small form factor and are easily mountable. This will help during the set up. Devices which function 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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