A Look At The Wireless Performance Of Powered Wireless Speakers

By Linda Cullmann


Are you looking to acquire a brand new a set of cordless speakers for your home? You might be dazzled by the amount of alternatives you have. To make an informed choice, it is best to familiarize yourself with frequent specs. One of these specifications is called "signal-to-noise ratio" and is not often understood. I am going to help explain the meaning of this term.

While searching for a couple of cordless loudspeakers, you initially are going to check the cost, wattage among additional fundamental criteria. Nonetheless, after this initial selection, you will still have several models to choose from. Next you are going to concentrate more on some of the technical specs, such as signal-to-noise ratio and harmonic distortion. One important criterion of cordless loudspeakers is the signal-to-noise ratio. To put it simply, the signal-to-noise ratio describes how much hum or hiss the loudspeakers are going to add to the audio signal. This ratio is typically described in decibel or "db" for short.

One technique to do a straightforward assessment of the noise performance of a set of cordless loudspeakers is to short circuit the transmitter audio input and then to crank up the wireless speaker to its utmost. Then listen to the loudspeaker. The noise that you hear is generated by the cordless speaker itself. After that compare different sets of cordless loudspeakers according to the following rule: the lower the level of noise, the higher the noise performance of the cordless loudspeaker. Yet, keep in mind that you must put all sets of cordless loudspeakers to amplify by the same level to compare different models.

If you prefer a couple of cordless loudspeakers with a small amount of hissing, you can look at the signal-to-noise ratio number of the spec sheet. Most suppliers are going to show this number. wireless loudspeakers with a high signal-to-noise ratio are going to output a low level of hiss. Noise is generated due to several reasons. One reason is that modern cordless loudspeakers all employ components including transistors plus resistors. These elements will make some amount of hiss. Given that the built-in power amp overall noise performance is mostly determined by the performance of components situated at the amplifier input, makers are going to attempt to choose low-noise elements whilst designing the amp input stage of their wireless loudspeakers.

Static is also brought on by the wireless transmission. Different kinds of transmitters are available that work at different frequencies. The least expensive type of transmitters makes use of FM transmission and typically broadcasts at 900 MHz. Other wireless transmitters will interfer with FM type transmitters and result in additional noise. Thus the signal-to-noise ratio of FM type wireless speakers varies depending on the distance of the loudspeakers from the transmitter in addition to the amount of interference. To steer clear of these problems, newer transmitters make use of digital audio broadcast and usually transmit at 2.4 GHz or 5.8 GHz. The signal-to-noise ratio of digital transmitters is dependent mostly on the kind of analog-to-digital converters and other components that are used along with the resolution of the cordless protocol.

Most of today's wireless loudspeakers use power amplifiers which are digital, also known as "class-d amplifiers". Class-D amps utilize a switching stage that oscillates at a frequency in the range of 300 kHz to 1 MHz. This switching noise can cause some amount of speaker distortion yet is usually not included in the signal-to-noise ratio which only considers noise in the range of 20 Hz and 20 kHz.

The signal-to-noise ratio is measured by feeding a 1 kHz test tone 60 dB underneath the full scale and measuring the noise floor of the signal generated by the built-in amplifier. The amplification of the cordless speaker is pair such that the full output power of the built-in amplifier can be realized. After that, the noise floor between 20 Hz and 20 kHz is calculated and the ratio to the full-scale signal calculated. The noise signal at other frequencies is eliminated via a bandpass filter during this measurement.

Another convention to state the signal-to-noise ratio makes use of more subjective terms. These terms are "dBA" or "A weighted". You will spot these terms in most cordless speaker parameter sheets. In other words, this method tries to express how the noise is perceived by a human. Human hearing is most perceptive to signals around 1 kHz while signals below 50 Hz and above 14 kHz are barely noticed. The A-weighted signal-to-noise ratio is typically larger than the unweighted ratio and is shown in the majority of cordless speaker parameter sheets.




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