A Glimpse At Some Of The Coolest Wireless Audio Devices

Posted by tomgreen on August 13, 2010

Newest wireless audio gadgets such as iPods, wireless headphones and cell phones support latest wireless protocols. These protocols are supposed to cut the cord and provide perfect high-fidelity audio. We will examine some of the newest devices to find out which applications they work for.

A number of products are available with wireless already built in while others, particularly streaming audio products, frequently have optional wireless capability. Modern cell phones and MP3 players already come with support for wireless. iPhones and touch-screen iPods, as an example, have Bluetooth and WiFi.

Bluetooth is a fairly low-cost option but has some drawbacks which are often ignored.

1) Short range

Bluetooth usually merely offers a 30 foot range. This is enough for single-room applications. On the other hand, this limiting factor does not allow multi-room streaming utilizing Bluetooth.

2) Inadequate data transmission capacity

Bluetooth will utilize audio compression because it does not reliably offer a high-enough data rate for uncompressed audio. This is less critical though for compressed audio such as MP3 audio but excludes Bluetooth from use in high-quality audio applications.

3) Audio latency

The audio will experience a delay of no less than 10 ms for the most part because of the audio compression which is a dilemma for real-time audio applications but less serious for MP3 players.

4) Lacking multi-headphone support

Bluetooth is relatively limited in terms of supporting streaming to multiple headphones. Streaming to numerous headphones is practical for several people wanting to listen to the same transmitter. This is less of a dilemma for MP3 player applications.

Uncompressed audio streaming is supported by WiFi. WiFi is a very widespread protocol. However, WiFi also has drawbacks in regard to simultaneous transmission to several receivers. Because of the relatively high power consumption it is rarely utilized in wireless headphones though. WiFi is convenient for streaming audio from a PC however since nearly all PCs have WiFi access.

Wireless speakers and wireless amplifier products for home theater speakers typically use their own proprietary protocol. Entry-level wireless headphones and speakers typically still use FM transmission which offers low cost but is prone to noise and audio degradation.

More recent wireless audio protocols are based on digital transmission. This eliminates audio degradation. A number of protocols also incorporate error correction to deal with interference from other wireless devices.

Newest-generation wireless amplifiers permit streaming to an infinite number of receivers and support uncompressed audio transmission.

Some of these protocols support low-latency audio transmission which ensures that the audio of all speakers will be in sync in a multi-channel application. Wireless audio transmitter devices generally operate at 2.4 GHz or sometimes in the less crowded 5.8 GHz frequency band such as Amphony’s wireless audio products.

Wireless amplifiers offer different levels of audio quality, output power and standby power. Digital Class-D amplifiers offer high power efficiency of no less than 80%. They also have low standby power, normally less than 5 Watts. This reduces heat and keeps them cool during operation. Some digital amplifiers, however, have fairly high harmonic distortion. Audiophile wireless amplifiers offer an audio distortion of 0.05% or less.

Share and Enjoy: