A new trend is the appearance of an increasing number of home theater systems with wireless surround sound speakers or separate wireless speaker kits. As multi-channel audio still is a fairly new phenomenon, older homes are not prewired for surround sound, especially with the most recent trend of 7.1 surround systems. As such a wireless option appears to seem like the logical choice. But are these wireless surround sound systems reliable enough for real-world applications and do they get rid of the dreaded cable clutter?
Looking at available wireless speaker kits, you will notice that most of them, such as the products from Rocketfish or LG will connect two speakers to a wireless receiver unit. As a result, such systems, while eliminating the speaker cable from the front of the room to the rear, do not really eliminate speaker cable but only reduce it. As such products with separate wireless receivers for each speakers, such as the product from Amphony, offer a much cleaner solution since each receiver can be attached directly to the speaker of choice.
Will the wireless have any effect on performance? Audio quality is a main concern. In picking a wireless system, one should choose a system where (a) the transmission itself does not pick up any noise or degradation in order to maintain the audio quality and (b) the wireless amplifier itself should be a high-quality amplifier with minimal distortion. Also, the size of the wireless speaker amplifier is a consideration as the receiver should be invisible.
In a surround sound application, such as a home theater setting, the audio from each speaker naturally should be in sync with the video and also with the audio of the other speakers. Some wireless speaker kits, such as the product from Rocketfish, will introduce a significant delay to the signal. Therefore when choosing a wireless speaker kit, it is important to look closely at how much latency the wireless unit will introduce. The Amphony product adds a little less than 1 ms delay which should be sufficiently low for pretty much any application.
One of the main issues with wireless devices of any sort is interference from other devices. As more and more consumer devices go wireless, the available frequency space becomes more and more limited. Especially the 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz bands are exceptionally crowded, due to WiFi hot spots, cell phones with Bluetooth etc. Picking a system that avoids these frequency bands may be the logical choice, such as systems working at 5.8 GHz.
Aside from wireless surround sound in a home theater environment, another useful application for wireless systems is streaming audio between different rooms of the home where wiring would be difficult to install or for outdoor applications. Just imagine being able to set up your speakers in your backyard in a matter of minutes. The possibilities are endless.
Author Resource:
Gunter Fellbaum has been developing audio and electronic products for over 10 years. Get additional information about wireless surround sound and digital wireless speakers from Amphony's website.
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