Wireless Audio

[skymaXimus]

I've searched and searched, but I don't think that there is a bluetooth audio transmition system available yet. I came across this

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/ourstore...kswirauds.html
and was wondering if any of you had any experiance w/ such a device. If not, what do you think it might sound like?
Thanks!

[Gus]

What about just getting a FM transmitter? How far do you need to broadcast the audio signal?

Regards,
Gus

[MacBandit]

Well there is no way Blue-Tooth will ever stream a quality audio file it just can't be done there isn't enough bandwidth. Truthfully if you want to stream audio out of a headphone jack wirelessly to a set of speakers 802.11b isn't good enough and I haven't heard the verdict on 802.11g yet. 802.11b is good enough if you are streaming the compressed file (i.e. MP3 or wave) and then uncompressing it at the other end via a computer or some other device. To just go to a set of speakers with full range uncompressed audio requires a lot of bandwidth if you want decent audio you will have run wires at this time. I don't know about you but even FM radio sucks so I couldn't use an FM transmitter either.

[Nermal]

MacBandit, when you say 802.11b isn't enough for an audio stream, what sort of format are you talking about? An audio CD is approx 1.5 Mb/s and 802.11b is nearly 8x that. I know that there are overheads but they're not that big are they?

[skymaXimus]

Originally posted by Gus
What about just getting a FM transmitter? How far do you need to broadcast the audio signal?

Regards,
Gus

I have the irock thing that i bought for my ipod to use in the car, but where i live there are radio stations on two of the four set freq. I really haven't been that impressed w/ it.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Nermal
MacBandit, when you say 802.11b isn't enough for an audio stream, what sort of format are you talking about? An audio CD is approx 1.5 Mb/s and 802.11b is nearly 8x that. I know that there are overheads but they're not that big are they?

I'm talking about straight audio as in straight out of the back of a head phone jack no compression. Sony made a set of speakers that used 802.11b but they didn't catch on as the sound quality bit. If you want compression to say stream MP3 or AIFF(cd audio) to a set of speakers it requires the speakers have a decoding hardware built in which will increase the cost.

[filmcutter]

I've been looking for something like this myself. More in order to play music from my mac through my home system across the house (iTunes playlists, net radio, etc) via 802.11b.

The closest thing to perfect I've found is homepod from Gloolabs. Only problem is they announced at MWSF 6 months ago, and it's still not shipping. Otherwise, seems a perfect solution.

Next closest is SliMP3 - main problem there is it doesn't work with AAC. And you have to buy a seperate wireless bridge.

Third option (and cheapest) is along the lines of Terk Leapfrog which is simply a radio transmitter/receiver setup. Concerned with whether or not it will interfere with my 802.11b network.

I would love to hear any other options or feedback on these choices.

Thanks

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by filmcutter
I've been looking for something like this myself. More in order to play music from my mac through my home system across the house (iTunes playlists, net radio, etc) via 802.11b.

The closest thing to perfect I've found is homepod from Gloolabs. Only problem is they announced at MWSF 6 months ago, and it's still not shipping. Otherwise, seems a perfect solution.

Next closest is SliMP3 - main problem there is it doesn't work with AAC. And you have to buy a seperate wireless bridge.

Third option (and cheapest) is along the lines of Terk Leapfrog which is simply a radio transmitter/receiver setup. Concerned with whether or not it will interfere with my 802.11b network.

I would love to hear any other options or feedback on these choices.

Thanks

The best solution is to take an old Mac and run OSX on it and connect it to a wireless station. You can then connect to any other computer in the house wirelessly and stream iTunes to that Mac. Another way would just to get a cheap computer Mac or PC and make it into an audio/video server and store all you media on it near your stereo.

That GlooLabs thing looks like it should work but it only does MP3s. This is because as I said before to send quality audio over the air it needs to be compresssed. So they're sending MP3 files as data and then the receiving unit is playing the MP3 file.