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Barry,
Fantastic info. thanks for your time
Gregg
Barry Mann wrote:
In , on 01/14/05
at 04:41 PM, gregg said:
I have a living room that's decorated 18th century. Well all except
for the component sound system, and 3 foot speakers ;^) The sound
system is giving out and it's time to buy a new one.
My first thought was to buy a small unit and hide it in a cabinet.
Something like the Cambridge 740 or the Bose Wave radio.
But then I saw that one can buy transmitters/receivers that take the
speaker signal and transmit to speakers in another room. It woud be
much easier for me to hide speakers than a whole system.
But my question is:
Do these wireless systems degrade the sound quality a lot? I'm not an
audiophile and I don't need a primo system. But it would be nice if
the sound was decent.
Wireless does not have to damage the sound, but current implementations
do. Mostly, it's a price issue. One must have a transmitter, a receiver
and amplifier for each speaker, plus the speakers. Most current
wireless systems are in the two to three hundred dollar range. This
price level of speaker, without the additional wireless components and
amplifiers, is not usually considered "quality" by those who prefer
component systems. Wireless speakers should be priced appropriately
than a similarly performing wired speaker. Priced properly, wireless
could be a fine option.
Wireless doesn't eliminate all the wires, however, because you'll still
need wires to carry power to the speakers. Battery powered speakers are
certainly possible, but the operating costs will be high both
monetarily and in management time (someone will have to replace or
recharge batteries regularly -- probably daily).
We are beginning to see equipment that uses ethernet technology (wired
and wireless) to distribute audio. This technology will eliminate some
of the wires with very little loss of quality -- and many will argue
that there is no practical loss of quality.
Hiding wires is not always so difficult. If the room has an unfinished
basement or crawl space below, running wires is usually not much of a
problem. Hollow trim can be added or existing trim can be hollowed to
accept wires. A professional consultation may be a great help. If
you've recently done some renovation, the project trades people
(general contractor, electrician, air-conditioning, plumber, etc.) will
have valuable insight about were to run wires.
Unless you have a need to create an equipment display, the actual
equipment can be hidden in a cabinet, closet, or moved to a different
floor. Only the speakers must be in the room. With a little
imagination, speakers can be made to disappear. We sometimes work with
designers, and they can be a pain because they are very visual and have
no respect for physical reality. I can remember one job where a very
fussy designer jumped all over us claiming that we were holding up the
job because we hadn't installed the speakers. I simply pointed out that
we had installed them several days prior. This was a former 1920's
firehouse, much of the original styling was intact, and we made four
36x12x18 inch speakers disappear in the livingroom to the point where
the designer didn't notice them -- and he knew in advance where we were
placing them. Actually, we didn't go to any special trouble to hide
them (they were unobstructed and in plain sight), we simply took
advantage of shadows, light, and color -- the speakers became part of
the room.
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spam:
wordgame:123(abc):14 9 20 5 2 9 18 4 at 22 15 9 3 5 14 5 20 dot 3 15
13 (Barry Mann)
[sorry about the puzzle, spammers are ruining my mailbox]
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--
Saville
Replicas of 15th-19th century nautical navigational instruments:
http://home.comcast.net/~saville/backstaffhome.html
Restoration of my 82 year old Herreshoff S-Boat sailboat:
http://home.comcast.net/~saville/SBOATrestore.htm
Steambending FAQ with photos:
http://home.comcast.net/~saville/Steambend.htm
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