Will AOL Radio Cause The End Of Local Stations?

AOL Radio, Pandora, Slacker and Last.fm are some of the online radio services that have become popular these last few years. Several of these are also available on portable devices such as cell phones. Does this indicate the end of conventional radio stations? I will look at the influence of online radio on the radio landscape.

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. Some of the channels are even commercial-free. The internet has enabled access to a virtually indefinite number of online radio stations.

Pandora and other online radio providers have become available on wireless audio transmitter and portable products by installing the suitable app. This increases convenience and mobility of online radio. Mobility has to this point been the main advantage of local radio.

AOL Radio uses CBS radio as its broadcasting platform. It comes with in excess of 200 music channels. In addition it offers access to more than 150 local CBS radio stations. The underlying CBS radio platform “play.it” also permits listeners to create their own customized music channels. This is done by entering the names of albums, tracks or artists. The tracks played on each music channels can also be stored on an iPod for later playback by using 3-rd party tool iGetMusic.

Pandora and other online radio services have similarly started to offer customized music. The user can enter music-related details such as artist, track or album name. These channels will then choose tracks which are similar to the information entered. Other services, however, fail to offer fully customized music channels.

Is the end of local radio near? The growth of competition from satellite and online radio has started to take away listeners from local radio stations. Traditional radio appears to have a hard time to stop this trend. Online radio has proved valuable specifically for niche broadcasters due to the inherently lower broadcasting expense in comparison with local radio stations.

The big number of accessible stations is a big advantage for online radio listeners. On the other hand, this is a problem for online broadcasters. This big number of stations is diluting the number of listeners. Consequently streaming radio broadcasters have found it difficult to be profitable. The lower cost of online radio at the same time enables making of more interesting content than local radio by serving niche markets and inserting fewer commercials.

Local programming such as news and local events, nonetheless, will remain one of the big advantages of local radio. Additionally, local radio is now improving the audio quality by using digital transmission technologies versus conventional FM broadcasts which has been a big benefit of online radio to date. It is difficult to predict a clear winner in the battle between online and local radio because both offer their own unique content and high mobility which are the crucial factors that will determine the fate of each service.

Ideas For Choosing The Perfect Wireless Audio Transmitter Device For Whole-Home Audio Streaming

Recently more and more wireless audio transmitter devices have appeared which claim to bring the ultimate freedom of broadcasting music throughout the house. We will check if these latest products are suitable for whole-house audio. Also, we will give crucial tips for choosing a wireless music system.

If your house is not wired for audio then you face quite a problem when you want to get your music from your living room to your bed room. Often the audio source cannot be moved. Running speaker wires between rooms will be costly and for that reason many people are searching for alternatives. The following technologies are used by devices solving this problem: infrared, RF, wireless LAN and powerline.

Infrared wireless audio products are restricted to line-of-sight applications, i.e. only work within a single room because the signal is sent as infrared light which can’t go through walls. This technology is frequently found in wireless speaker kit products.

RF wireless products will broadcast the signal as RF waves. These waves can without difficulty go through walls. RF wireless audio products either utilize FM transmission or digital audio transmission. FM transmission is inexpensive but quite prone to noise, audio distortion and susceptible to interference.

Products which use digital wireless audio transmission employ a digital protocol. Such products include transmitters from Amphony. In this protocol, prior to transmission the audio signal is converted to digital data. This method ensures that the audio quality is entirely maintained. Some transmitters employ some form of audio compression, such as Bluetooth transmitters, which will degrade the audio to some extent. Transmitters which send the audio data uncompressed will achieve the highest fidelity.

Wireless LAN (WLAN) products are practical when streaming from a PC but will add some amount of latency or delay to the signal because wireless LAN was not originally designed for real-time audio streaming. WLAN receivers typically require purchasing a separate LAN card to be plugged into every receiver.

Powerline products employ the power mains to distribute music and provide great range but run into trouble if there are individual mains circuits in the home in terms of crossing between circuits. Also, these products build in a delay of a number of seconds to safeguard against transmission errors during power surges and spikes which prevents their use in applications where the audio from wireless loudspeakers has to be in sync with other non-wireless speakers or video.

Here are some tips for choosing a wireless audio system: If you plan to stream audio into several rooms of your house, be certain to go for a system that permits streaming to several receivers at the same time. That way you don’t have to purchase a separate transmitter for every receiver that you are streaming to. Products with some type of error correction will be more resistant against radio interference from other wireless transmitters. Pick a digital RF transmitter to preserve the original audio quality, preferably one with an audio latency of less than 10 ms in case of video or other time-sensitive applications.

Select a transmitter that has all the audio inputs you require, such as speaker inputs, line-level RCA inputs etc. Choose a system where you can add receivers later on which provide all of the required outputs, e.g. amplified speaker outputs, RCA outputs etc. If you go with a digital audio transmitter, pick one with an input audio level control knob to avoid the music signal from clipping inside the transmitter audio converter. This will ensure optimum dynamic range regardless of the signal level of your equipment.

Check that the system provides amplified receivers with a digital amplifier to guarantee high power efficiency. This will help keep the receiver cool during operation. In addition, make sure the amplifier offers low audio distortion. This is important for good sound quality. Choose a system which offers receivers that can drive speakers with the desired Ohm rating. Make sure the receivers have a small form factor and are easily mountable. This will help during the installation. Products which operate in the 5.8 GHz frequency band will have less problems with wireless interference than devices utilizing the crowded 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz frequency band.

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.