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Recently more and more manufacturers have started to offer home theater systems with wireless speakers or wireless wireless surround sound speaker kits. From a homeowners standpoint, eliminating long speaker cable runs is certainly a big plus. Multi-channel surround sound is a fairly new phenomenon and as such many older houses are not wired for rear speakers, not to mention 7.1 systems. As such a wireless solution might be the logical conclusion. But how reliable are these wireless surround sound products in a real-world scenario and do these options really eliminate 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. But how well do these wireless kits work in a real-world scenario? One of the biggest concerns should be interference from other wireless devices. In the US, wireless devices are restricted to a limited number of frequency bands. Especially the 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz frequency band are increasingly crowded by WiFi, Bluetooth and an array of other devices making interference more of a concern. Picking a system working at an alternate frequency band such as the 5.8 GHz band would naturally reduce the impact from competing devices. While wireless speakers and wireless surround sound speaker kits are suited for use in a home theater setting, their use is not limited to that application. In particular setting up speakers in another room often poses a challenge in terms of running speaker wires or using speakers outdoors. Just imagine being able to set up a speaker in your backyard in minutes. The possibilities are endless.
Article Source: http://www.onlinearticlessite.com
Gunter Fellbaum has been designing audio and electronic products for over 10 years. Get additional information about digital wireless surround sound and wireless speakers from Amphony's website.
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