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An increasing number of wireless audio transmitter devices promise the ultimate freedom in streaming music all over the home. We will check if these newest devices are suitable for whole-house audio. Also, we will give important guidelines for choosing a wireless music system.

Running music in your house can be a intimidating task. A lot of houses are not wired for multi-room audio and getting the music from your living room to your bed room can be quite a challenge. Products which solve this problem are usually based on the following technologies: infrared wireless, RF wireless, wireless LAN or powerline.

Infrared products broadcast the audio as lightwaves. Light can’t go through walls. For that reason products using infrared, such as wireless surround sound kits, are restricted to a single room.

RF wireless products will broadcast the signal as RF waves. These waves can easily go through walls. RF wireless audio devices either make use of FM transmission or digital audio transmission. FM transmitters are the cheapest option. They offer decent range but the music signal is prone to audio distortion and noise and is very susceptible to interference from other wireless transmitters.

Products using digital wireless audio transmission, such as Amphony audio transmitter products, use a digital protocol in which the audio is converted to a digital signal before transmission. Some wireless audio transmitters will employ audio compression, such as Bluetooth transmitters which will reduce the audio quality to some extent. Digital wireless audio transmitters which send the audio uncompressed provide the highest audio fidelity.

Products utilizing wireless LAN are practical when streaming audio from a PC. Their disadvantage is that they normally have some fairly high latency, i.e. the signal will be delayed by some amount since wireless LAN was not particularly designed for real-time audio streaming. WLAN receivers typically require buying a separate LAN card to be plugged into each receiver.

Powerline products utilize the power mains to distribute music and provide large range but run into problems if there are separate mains circuits in the home in terms of crossing between circuits. Another challenge confronting powerline products are strong power surges and spikes. Such surges can bring about drpouts in the audio due to errors in the transmission. To safeguard against these errors, powerline products usually build a delay of several seconds into the transmission.

Now we’ll give you some pointers for shopping for a wireless system: Select a system that supports numerous wireless receivers if you plan to stream audio to several rooms so that you don’t have to buy a separate transmitter for each receiver. Products with some form of error correction will be more immune against radio interference from other wireless transmitters. Digital RF audio transmitters will be able to maintain the original audio quality. If you have time-critical applications where sync of the audio is important then you should get a transmitter with a low audio latency. An audio latency of smaller than 10 ms would be suitable for most scenarios.

Select a transmitter that has all of the audio inputs you need, e.g. speaker inputs, RCA inputs etc. Choose a system where you can add receivers later on which provide all of the necessary outputs, e.g. amplified speaker outputs, RCA outputs etc. Pick a transmitter that can adjust the audio volume of the input stage. This will give you the flexibility to connect the transmitter to any type of equipment with different signal levels. Otherwise the audio may get clipped inside the transmitter converter stage or the dynamic range is not fully utilized.

Verify that the amplified wireless receivers contain built-in digital amplifiers with low distortion figures. This will keep the receiver cool due to high amplifier power efficiency and provide maximum sound quality. Make sure the receivers can drive speakers with your preferred Ohm rating. Choosing a product where the wireless receivers have a small footprint and easy mounting options will help during the set up. Products utilizing the less crowded 5.8 GHz frequency band will generally have less problems with wireless interference than 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz products.

Online radio such as AOL Radio, Slacker, Pandora and Last.fm have gained attractiveness recently. Additionally, several wireless devices like cell phones support these platforms. I will look at the impact of online radio on conventional radio broadcasters to see if this means the end of local radio stations.

I appears that local radio stations are on their way to become extinct. They are being threatened by the development of online and satellite radio. These competing services typically offer hundreds of music and entertainment channels. A number of the channels are even commercial-free. There is nearly an indefinite number of online radio stations available.

Many online radio providers such as Pandora are now available on mobile devices such as mobile phones and other wireless audio products via suitable apps. This adds mobility to online radio which has still been the trump card of local radio stations.

AOL Radio which boasts 200 plus music channels of 25 genres uses CBS radio as its underlying platform. It also offers access to 150 national CBS radio stations. The underlying platform “play.it” also has a feature that allows listeners to make their own radio stations by entering preferred albums, artists etc. The individual tracks of each music channel are also available for storage on an iPod through 3rd-party software such as iGetMusic.

Other online music services have followed suit and are offering similar customized music. Pandora and Last.fm permit listeners to enter the name of an artist and then play music by randomly selecting titles by these artist as well as other titles which are similar in genre or character. Other services, on the other hand, fail to offer fully customized music channels.

Is the extinction of local radio near? The increase of competition from satellite and online radio has started to take away listeners from local radio stations. Traditional radio appears to have a awkward time to stop this trend. Particularly niche broadcasters have found online radio very practical. The main reason is the low broadcasting expense of online radio in comparison with terrestrial radio. An additional cause is the difficulty acquiring frequency space licenses from the FCC. On the other hand, rising royalty charges have made the life of online broadcasters more difficult lately.

As the variety of stations is a benefit to listeners, it is at the same time diluting market share and online radio broadcasters are finding it difficult to attract a moderately big number of listeners and be lucrative. However, online radio has less pressure to insert commercials which has made the content more appealing to listeners.

Local programming such as news and local events, however, will remain one of the big advantages of local radio. So far the poor audio quality of FM radio has been a big downside. However, latest digital radio broadcasts are set to improve the audio quality. One of these technologies is HD radio. Content and mobility will be essential in deciding the fate of online and local radio. Online radio provides a huge number of alternatives while local radio excels by providing local content. Both online and local broadcasts offer great mobility. For that reason it is hard to predict a clear winner in this radio battle.