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Music Without Cables? – A Close Look At Wireless Audio Transmitter Products
Avoiding the big mess of cables has lead to a variety of wireless audio transmitter devices over the years which promise to untie your home audio equipment. We will take a look at latest products to find out if they can deliver on their claim to eliminate the cable clutter and we’ll investigate how changing technology has influenced performance of these products.
Wireless transmission of music has started with the launch of commercial radio broadcasts several decades ago. FM radio is still popular until now though some modern technologies such as satellite radio and digital radio formats such as HD radio and DAB radio have begun to substitute traditional FM radio. Today’s wireless consumer products such as wireless speaker kits, baby monitors, Bluetooth audio transmitters and wireless microphones cut the cord.
One of the main use for wireless audio is distributing music throughout the home and installing speakers without running speaker cables which is a large problem in homes that are not wired for audio. We will take a look at the advantages and drawbacks of today’s wireless audio technologies.
FM transmitters are employing the most traditional technology in which audio is broadcast by changing the frequency of a radio-frequency carrier. This technique is known as frequency modulation or FM for short. The biggest advantage of FM transmitters is their simpleness and thus cost as well as range. Most of today’s wireless consumer products utilize FM transmission. FM, however, has serious disadvantages compared with newer technologies.
FM transmissions will pick up noise which is noticeable as a background hiss depending on the position of the wireless receiver. FM radio waves are often reflected by walls and obstacles. This will cause several components to cancel each other out as a result causing a varying signal quality in different locations. This phenomenon is called multipath fading. Some wireless FM transmitters use two antennae in an effort to cope with this phenomenon (diversity receivers). Another problem is that FM radios easily pick up interference from competing wireless transmitters.
Another technology which has gained popularity lately is called Bluetooth. Bluetooth was originally designed to connect computer peripheral devices wirelessly. Bluetooth will convert he audio into a digital format. This data is then broadcast via the Bluetooth wireless protocol. Bluetooth is relatively robust in terms of interference and is well standardized. Bluetooth, on the other hand, has some problems in regard to wireless audio since it was not designed for wireless audio originally. Bluetooth merely offers a range of 30 ft or less and will compress the audio since it does not offer enough space to broadcast an uncompressed CD-quality signal. This compression will result in a loss of audio quality depending on the degree of compression. Bluetooth will cause a delay or latency to the audio signal which is a drawback for surround sound and video applications because the wireless loudspeakers will be out of sync with the remaining loudspeakers and video.
Satellite radio and digital terrestrial radio technologies offer high range but use extensive audio compression leading to degradation of the audio signal and have an audio delay of several seconds.
Another technology transmits the audio signal without compression digitally. This technology is used in wireless audio transmitters from Amphony. The signal will retain the original quality by avoiding audio compression. This technology offers an audio latency of less than 1 ms. Therefore these transmitters can be used for wireless speaker kits in a home theater system and other real-time applications.
To be robust against interference from other wireless products, this technology utilizes forward error correction. This mechanism can fix errors during the transmission. The Amphony transmitters operate at 5.8 GHz. This frequency space is less crowded than the 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz bands as a result leading to a further improvement of performance. In contrast to Bluetooth, any number of wireless receivers can operate from a single wireless audio transmitter which is a consideration when sending audio to numerous rooms within a house.
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