A Glance At Some Of The Trendiest Wireless Gizmos

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

A few products come with wireless already built in while some others, particularly streaming audio products, frequently have optional wireless functionality. Modern cell phones and MP3 players already come with support for wireless. iPhones and touch-screen iPods, for instance, have Bluetooth and WiFi.

Bluetooth is a fairly low-cost solution but has some pitfalls which are often overlooked.

1) Short range

Bluetooth devices typically just have a 30-foot range which restricts Bluetooth to single-room applications.

2) Small data rate – audio compression

Bluetooth will apply audio compression because it does not reliably offer a high-enough data rate for uncompressed audio. The audio will be degraded to some degree as a consequence of the audio compression. For this reason higher-end audio equipment usually does not use Bluetooth wireless audio.

3) Audio latency

The audio will experience a delay of at least 10 ms mostly because of the audio compression which is a problem for real-time audio applications but less serious for MP3 players.

4) No support of multiple headphones

Bluetooth does not support any quantity of headphones which may be a problem if you have a larger number of people who want to listen to headphones from a single transmitter device.

WiFi is one more commonly used wireless protocol that is also suitable for audio streaming. WiFi does support uncompressed audio but will have problems broadcasting to a high number of wireless receivers at the same time. Because of the relatively high power consumption it is rarely used in wireless headphones however. WiFi is practical for streaming audio from a PC however because almost all PCs have WiFi access.

While newest-generation wireless speakers and wireless amplifier products use proprietary digital technologies, low-cost products often still depend on FM transmission which is noisy and has high audio distortion and high susceptibility to radio interference.

More advanced wireless protocols are based on digital formats which eliminate audio degradation and incorporate advanced features like error correction to deal with interference from competing wireless devices.

Sophisticated wireless amplifier devices support uncompressed digital audio streaming to maintain the original audio quality. A few of these protocols permit streaming to an infinite number of wireless amplifiers which is convenient for whole-house audio distribution.

The audio latency ranges from under 1 ms to up to 20 ms. A small latency is vital for wireless surround sound applications. Wireless audio transmitters usually 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 are available with different levels of audio quality, power consumption and standby power. Getting a high-quality low-distortion amplifier is fundamental for good sound quality. Wireless Class-D amplifiers usually have standby power of 5 Watts or less and a power efficiency of larger than 80% but sometimes high audio distortion. It is important to pick a wireless amplifier with low audio distortion. This will make sure good sound quality. High-quality amplifiers have audio distortion of 0.05% or less.