Saturday 7 December 2013

Tips For Purchasing Wireless Surround Loudspeakers

By Martina Swagger


Multi-channel audio has become mainstream and manufacturers have created many types of basic and more sophisticated technologies including wireless surround sound speakers, virtual surround sound to simplify the setup of home theater kits. I will take a look at some of the most recent technologies that were developed to make setting up home theater systems a breeze. I will highlight what to look out for when making your buying decision.

Historically, setting up a TV would be speedy since they would already have built-in stereo speakers. This, on the other hand, has all changed with multi-channel audio. Nowadays external speakers are used to create a surround sound effect. In case of 5.1 surround, 6 speakers are utilized: center, left and right front, left and right rear and a subwoofer. Newer 7.1 systems require a total amount of 8 speakers by adding 2 additional side speakers.

Therefore the installation of home theater products has turn out to be a relatively difficult process. Numerous homes are not pre-wired for surround sound. In addition, long speaker wires are often unattractive. Several technologies have appeared to simplify this process.

This technology minimizes the quantity of needed speakers and avoids long speaker wires but every human will process sound slightly differently because of the form of the ear. Because the signal processing is based on a standard human ear model, virtual surround will not work equally well for everyone depending on how much the viewer differs from the standard model.

One more approach for avoiding long speaker cord runs is to employ wireless surround sound kits or wireless speakers. A wireless kit includes a transmitter and one or a number of wireless amplifiers. The transmitter connects to the source. The wireless amplifiers connect to the remote loudspeakers. Usually the transmitter component will come with amplified loudspeaker inputs and line-level inputs. This offers freedom to connect to any type of source. A transmitter volume control helps maximize the dynamic range and eliminates clipping of the sound inside the transmitter.

As a few wireless speaker devices come with a wireless amplifier that connects to two speakers, other products offer separate wireless amplifiers for each loudspeaker. The most basic wireless systems employ FM transmission. FM transmission is susceptible to noise and sound distortion. More advanced devices utilize digital audio transmission to perfectly maintain the original audio. To be certain that all speakers are in sync in a multi-channel application, make certain that you select a wireless system which has an audio latency of just a few milliseconds at most. A large latency would lead to an echo effect. This effect would degrade the surround effect. Many wireless gadgets operate in the 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz frequency bands. A number of products utilize the less crowded 5.8 GHz frequency band and as a result have less competition from other wireless products.

Another option are side-reflecting speakers. These products are also called sound bars. The sound that would normally be sent by the remote speakers is instead sent by speakers at the front. These front loudspeakers broadcast the sound at an angle. Then the audio is reflected by the side and rear walls and appears to be originating from besides or behind the viewer. This method works best in a square room with minimal interior design and obstacles. It will not work well in a lot of real-world scenarios with different room shapes however.




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