Latest-generation wireless audio products such as iPods, iPhones and wireless surround sound products promise to cut the cord while delivering crystal-clear audio. We will look at some of the most recent products to find out which applications they work for.
These products fall into 2 categories. The first type of products already has wireless built in. Second-category products, such as some streaming audio products, have optional wireless capability. Typically they have a slot to add a wireless LAN card. Newer cell phones and MP3 players already come with support for wireless. iPhones and touch-screen iPods, for example, have Bluetooth and WiFi.
Bluetooth is fairly common as a low-cost wireless solution. However, Bluetooth does have some drawbacks. These weaknesses are often overlooked but will have an impact on high-quality audio applications.
1) Limited operating range
Bluetooth devices typically only have a 30-foot range which limits Bluetooth to single-room applications.
2) Audio compression due to limited data rate
Bluetooth reliably supports data transmission rates of around 1 Mbps only which is not enough for uncompressed CD-quality audio. Therefore Bluetooth applies audio compression. 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 at least 10 ms mostly due to the audio compression which is a problem for real-time audio applications but less critical for MP3 players.
4) No multiple headphone support
Bluetooth does not support any number 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.
Uncompressed audio streaming is supported by WiFi. WiFi is a very common protocol. However, WiFi also has limitations in regard to simultaneous transmission to several receivers. Due to the high availability, WiFi is convenient for streaming audio from a PC. However, WiFi products have fairly high power consumption. For this reason wireless headphones typically do not use this technology.
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 distortion.
Newer wireless audio protocols eliminate audio degradation by using digital transmission. These often also have mechanisms such as forward error correction to cope with interference from other wireless devices.
Latest-generation wireless amplifiers employ uncompressed audio transmission. New protocols also allow streaming to an unlimited number of receivers. This allows whole-house audio distribution. 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. Typically newer generation wireless audio transmitters will operate at 2.4 GHz. Some transmitters, such as Amphony’s line of products, operate at the less crowded 5.8 GHz frequency band.
Wireless amplifiers offer different levels of audio quality, output power and standby power. Wireless Class-D amplifiers normally have standby power of 5 Watts or less and a power efficiency of greater than 80% but sometimes high audio distortion. Picking a low-distortion amplifier is key. Good-quality wireless amplifiers have audio distortion of less than 0.05%.
You can find additional information about wireless amplifier products at Amphony’s website.