Friday, November 1, 2013

Simply How Much Noise Do Wifi Speakers Produce?

By Linda Cullmann


It is easy to be perplexed by the terminology that wireless speaker manufacturers use to explain the performance of their products. I am going to clarify the meaning of one usually used specification: "signal-to-noise ratio" to help you make an informed decision when getting a new a set of cordless loudspeakers.

When trying to find a set of wireless loudspeakers, you firstly are going to check the price, wattage amid other fundamental criteria. However, after this initial choice, you will still have numerous models to choose from. Now you will focus more on a number of of the technical specs, like signal-to-noise ratio as well as harmonic distortion. An important criterion of cordless speakers is the signal-to-noise ratio. To put it simply, the signal-to-noise ratio explains how much hum or hiss the speakers will add to the audio signal. This ratio is customarily shown in decibel or "db" for short.

You can do a simple assessment of the wireless loudspeaker hiss by short circuiting the transmitter input, setting the speaker volume to maximum and listening to the speaker. Usually you will hear two components. The first is hissing. In addition, you will frequently hear a hum at 50 or 60 Hz. Both of these are components which are produced by the cordless speaker itself. Be certain that the gain of each couple of wireless loudspeakers is set to the same level. Otherwise you will not be able to objectively compare the amount of static between several models. The general rule is: the smaller the level of noise that you hear the higher the noise performance.

If you prefer a set of wireless loudspeakers with a small level of hissing, you can look at the signal-to-noise ratio number of the data sheet. Most producers are going to display this number. cordless speakers with a high signal-to-noise ratio will output a small amount of hiss. One of the reasons why wireless speakers make noise is the fact that they utilize components including transistors as well as resistors that by nature generate noise. Since the built-in power amp overall noise performance is mostly determined by the performance of elements situated at the amp input, producers are going to attempt to choose low-noise components whilst developing the amplifier input stage of their cordless speakers.

A further cause of static is the cordless audio broadcast itself. Usually models that utilize FM style transmission at 900 MHz will have a comparatively high amount of noise. The level of static is also dependent upon the level of wireless interference from other transmitters. Newer types are going to generally employ digital music broadcast 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 parts that are used as well as the resolution of the cordless protocol.

Most of today's wireless speaker use amplifiers which are based on a digital switching topology. These amplifiers are named "class-D" or "class-T" amps. Switching amplifiers incorporate a power stage that is constantly switched at a frequency of approximately 400 kHz. This switching noise may cause some level of loudspeaker distortion but is usually not included in the signal-to-noise ratio which merely considers noise between 20 Hz and 20 kHz.

The most common technique for measuring the signal-to-noise ratio is to pair the wireless loudspeaker to a gain which allows the maximum output swing. After that a test signal is input into the transmitter. The frequency of this signal is usually 1 kHz. The amplitude of this tone is 60 dB underneath the full scale signal. Next, only the noise between 20 Hz and 20 kHz is considered. The noise at other frequencies is eliminated by a filter. Next the amount of the noise energy in relation to the full-scale output wattage is calculated and expressed in db.

Time and again the signal-to-noise ratio is shown in a more subjective way as "dbA" or "A weighted". This technique attempts to evaluate in how far the wireless loudspeaker noise is perceived by human hearing which is most perceptive to signals at frequencies at 1 kHz. An A-weighted signal-to-noise ratio weighs the noise floor according to the human hearing and is typically higher than the unweighted signal-to-noise ratio.




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