Tips For Picking The Perfect Wireless Audio Transmitter Product For Whole-Home Audio Streaming

The latest series of wireless audio transmitter products promises streaming of music throughout the home without limits. We will take a look at the most popular technologies for wireless audio and give some tips for selecting the best wireless audio product.

Running music in your house can be a daunting chore. A lot of homes are not wired for multi-room audio and getting the music from your living room to your bed room can be quite a problem. Products which solve this challenge are commonly based on the following technologies: infrared wireless, RF wireless, wireless LAN or powerline.

Infrared wireless audio devices are restricted to line-of-sight applications, i.e. only function within a single room since the signal is broadcast as infrared light which cannot penetrate walls. This technology is often found in wireless speaker kit products.

RF wireless products will send the signal as RF waves. These waves can without problems go through walls. RF wireless audio products either make use of FM transmission or digital audio transmission. FM transmission is economical but quite prone to hiss, audio distortion and susceptible to interference.

Products using digital wireless audio transmission, such as Amphony audio transmitter products, employ a digital protocol in which the audio is converted to a digital signal prior to transmission. This method ensures that the audio quality is fully maintained. Some transmitters utilize some sort of audio compression, such as Bluetooth transmitters, which will degrade the audio to some extent. Transmitters which send the audio data uncompressed will attain the maximum fidelity.

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. WLAN receivers often do not have built-in network access. As a result, such products often require purchasing separate LAN cards. These cards are then plugged into each receiver.

Powerline products broadcast the audio by means of the power mains and offer great range. They run into problems in homes where there are separate mains circuits in terms of being able to cross over into another circuit. 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 normally have an audio latency of several seconds as a safeguard.

Here are some guidelines for choosing the perfect wireless audio system: Try to find a system that can run several wireless receivers from a single transmitter. Ideally an unlimited number of receivers should be supported. That way you don’t need to buy additional transmitters when you start adding receivers in several rooms of your home. 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 maintained. Make sure the audio latency is smaller 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. Pick a system where you can add receivers later on which provide all of the necessary outputs, e.g. amplified speaker outputs, RCA outputs etc. Given that 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 system offers amplified receivers with a digital amplifier to guarantee high power efficiency. This will help keep the receiver cool during operation. Also, make sure the amplifier offers low audio distortion. This is important for good sound quality. Select 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 installation. 5.8 GHz wireless devices usually have less trouble with interference from other wireless transmitters than devices working at 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz.