Thursday, November 14, 2013

Do Cordless Surround Sound Loudspeakers Function Reliably?

By Martina Swagger


Multi-channel audio has become mainstream and vendors have created many types of basic and more sophisticated technologies like wireless surround speakers, virtual surround sound to simplify the installation of home theater systems. I will take a look at some of the products and technologies that have appeared and give some advice about picking appropriate components for a hassle-free setup. While previously setting up a TV has been rather easy, the emergence of multi-channel sound has made installing home theater systems much more difficult by requiring a number of external speakers to create surround sound. In case of 5.1 surround, 6 speakers are used: center, left and right front, left and right rear and a subwoofer. More recent 7.1 systems need a total amount of 8 speakers by adding 2 additional side speakers.

Consequently the setup of home theater products has turn out to be a fairly complex procedure. Many homes are not pre-wired for surround sound. Also, long speaker cables are often unattractive. A number of technologies have appeared to simplify this procedure.

For that reason, home theater setups have turn out to be fairly difficult. Running cables to remote speakers also is often undesirable due to aesthetic reasons. Some technologies have emerged to simplify this procedure. The first method is called virtual surround sound. This technique will take the audio components which would ordinarily be sent by the remote loudspeakers. It then utilizes signal processing to those components and inserts special cues and phase delays. Next these components are mixed with the front speaker sound. The signal processing is engineered according to how the human hearing determines the location of a sound. The sound signal is then broadcast through the front speakers. The signal processing has an effect that will trick the listener into presuming that the audio is originating from a different location.

The first approach is called virtual surround sound. This option will take the audio components which would typically be sent by the remote loudspeakers. It then utilizes signal processing to those components and inserts special cues and phase delays. Next these components are mixed with the front speaker sound. As the signal processing is based on how the human hearing detects the origin of audio, the sound components which underwent signal processing can be mixed with the front speaker components and sent by the front speakers. The signal processing has an effect that will trick the listener into presuming that the sound is originating from an alternate location.

This technology reduces the quantity of needed speakers and avoids long speaker cords but every person will process sound somewhat differently due to 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 each person depending on how much the viewer differs from the standard model. Wireless surround sound devices are one more method for simplifying home speaker setups and usually come with a transmitter module that connects to the source and wireless amplifiers which will connect to the remote speakers. Customarily the transmitter part will come with amplified speaker inputs and line-level inputs. This provides flexibility to connect to each type of source. A transmitter volume control helps maximize the dynamic range and eliminates clipping of the audio within the transmitter.

A number of wireless speaker products are designed to connect 2 speakers per wireless amplifier. A better solution would provide a wireless amplifier for every remote speaker to eliminate the wire runs between each of the 2 remote loudspeakers. Entry-level wireless kits use FM broadcast or audio compression which will deteriorate the audio quality to some extent. More advanced wireless devices use uncompressed digital audio transmission. Be certain that you pick a wireless system with a low audio latency, at most several milliseconds. This will make certain that the sound from all speakers, including the non-wireless speakers, is in sync. Low latency is also vital for good sync with the video. A large latency would lead to an echo effect. This effect would deteriorate the surround effect. A number of wireless devices operate at 5.8 GHz which offers the advantage of less competition from other wireless products than products utilizing the crowded 900 MHz or 2.4 GHz frequency band.

Another solution are side-reflecting loudspeakers. These products are also called sound bars. There are extra speakers positioned at the front which broadcast the sound for the remote loudspeakers from the front at an angle. The sound is then reflected by walls and seems to be originating from besides or behind the viewer. This option works best in a square room with minimal interior design and obstacles. It will not function well in many real-world scenarios with diverse room shapes however.




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