Asks: 'I've recently been looking at getting some wireless headphones of the RF rather than infra-red variety. After for a it struck me that I don't actually want a whole new set of headphones. I already have a nice pair of headphones as well as earphones. What I really want is an RF transmitter and a small clip on receiver that I can plug my existing headphones/earphones into. The problem is, I can't find anyone selling what I am describing, even don't quite have what I'm looking for. Does anyone know/have experience of such a product?' 'I see several advantages to this:.
Adaptability: I can then use earphones/headphones as appropriate for the activity, or possibly use it as an RF link between hardware in different rooms. Replacability: If I damage the headphones I only have to replace them, not the whole headphone/receiver unit; this bit will hopefully lead to. Lower costs Has anyone seen something like this, before?' Of course it will work. I've done this before. Get yourself one of those cheap FM transmitters that transmits in the normal 88-107Mhz band (it's low power). I think radioshack even carries them (or they used to.) Searching google works too.
Then get a cheap AM/FM 'walkman'. I have a freebee from some tradeshow that's only about 1/2' thick, 1-1/2' square, with a belt clip. They guy is going to be a few feet from the transmitter. All sources of interference except from his computer will be a non-issue. I just bought this same transmitter(moving across country, rental truck, want CD's, you get the idea) and it really does work great.as long as it was motionless with respect to the reciever.
The Jensen Wireless Headphone System's 900 MHz signals travel with use through walls, floors, ceilings and other obstacles, delivering high'quality stereo.
![Manual Manual](http://www.thesource.ca/medias/20170403153849-3319785-A.jpg-mediaConversion-640-x-480-0?context=bWFzdGVyfGltYWdlc3wyNDI1NXxpbWFnZS9qcGVnfGltYWdlcy9oNTkvaDNmLzg5NjI1MjkwMzQyNzAuanBnfGFjMDY5NDUzNmQ1MzA5YmU4MDNhOTcwZjEzNTc4Y2I5Nzk2NTNlOTkxZTM2ZjBkOTQ3ZGZlNTQ3NzM1YTJjMmM)
I stuck it on my Rio mp3 player, and carried it about with my stereo tuned in, and as I moved I heard static. When I stopped, it was fine. It easily worked across the room, but quality declined when too close too the monitor, or behind the computer(was thinkin it might be easy way to get mp3's to stereo without cord). It seems like the old&cheap recharables I threw in it lasted 8 hours, but I wasn't keeping track. I suppose now I need to figure out how to power it without the batterys, to make it really useful out of the car.
I'm using, as I type this, JVC 900Mhz Wireless Headphones. Right this moment, Bon Jovi's 'Wild In The Streets' is blasting over them.
I get mild interferance (that I can fine-tune out usualy) from our 900Mhz cordless phone when it's in use, that's about it. There's a couple spots in the house that I get some odd interferance that will clear up just by moving my head, I've been unable to pinpoint what it is, but it doesn't really affect me. These things are not IR, they go through walls, I can walk clear out to our mailbox and still have a signal. Mind you, this is going through a combination of several wooden and concrete walls. I see no reason that this 'won't work'. Certainly the sound quality isn't exactly recording-studio-standards, but it's more than enough for any consumer application. And it's far better than what you're going to pull out of an FM.radio.
This is a pretty good project for a beginner geek. Should take a couple hours, including travel time. radioshack.com carries all of the wires, resistors, transistors, and breadboards that you'll need for this. Basically you're going to build a little repeater/amplifier. Just take the stereo jack (also at Radio Shack) and wire it up to a variable resistor (for tuning the frequency) and a standard transmitter chip. Choose a well-known architecture, and you can install debian.org on it, good to go. Fun little project, and a good way to get your feet wet.
Having used this quite a bit I can say that even though it is a pretty good deal it is still far from perfect. This Jensen unit works fairly well but as it is analog it is suspect to the limitations of analog technology, ie. You will hear static moving around the house and yard. If they had made this digital it would be near perfect. One of my goals was to provide a wireless link for three persons to listen simultaneously up to a distance of about 100-150feet and this did work quite well.
Having people be able to use their own headphones was big plus and actually a requirement. It did take me quite a few days to find this baby so I would not flame the original poster too much. I just wish that people would just use usenet for things it is best suited for and bother slashdot with something more geeky.(ie. Digital spread spectrum version of this would be geeky enough.). Building a radio emitter is not very difficult (I remember having an electronic kit when I was young with 60+ different circuits you could build, and one of them was a radio emitter). Ideally you'd choose it not to interfere with your local channels, or some neighbours could become upset if your power is too high. Then, on the receiving end, a small walkman is all you need.
Plug your headphones or earphones, and there you go! Of course, the quality of the transmission will vary depending on the quality of the hardware and which frequency you choose (near or far from some other channel).
Firstly, you should be able to buy a pair of cheap RF headphones and rewire them yourself. You can even keep the original RF headphones about your neck, with a jack installed to plug your preferred headphones into. Yes, it will look a bit weird. Alternatively, there are all kinds of devices for remote audio that are meant to be hooked to a stereo. Is it really such a big deal to get an RCA to 1/8' phono plug adapter for these and replace the AC adapter with a battery pack? Admittedly, either is a little bulky, but certainly not too much to bring about with you in your home or workspace. An FM tranmission is at an effective quality of 22kHz Not necessarily - the FM broadcast band layout gives each channel 200kHz of bandwidth (which is why all FM broadcast stations have center frequencies ending in an odd digit).
Nyquist's theorem says you only need 2x bandwidth to represent a given frequency. If you're operating under Part 15, then how much AF spectrum you represent with this is up to you.
The more you use, the better the signal/noise ratio you need (Shannon's law), however representing 1kHz of AF with 4.5kHz of RF is already overkill. You are comparing analog to digital bandwidth. Two different things. As per Nyquist's theorem 44ksamples/sec digital can acurately reproduce a 22kHz analog signal and no more.
So in theory a 44kHz mp3 is about equivalent to a 22kHz analog signal. In reality you can't get quite that good, but it dosen't matter as few can hear much past 18kHz anyway. As discussed elsewhere an FM transmission has an audio bandwidth of about 17-18kHz, so yes in theory a 44kHz mp3 will be better. Although mp3's sound crappy so you probably won't notice.
Nor can most cheap headphones acurately reproduce higher frequencies. So really you have bigger things to worry about then the few kHz of bandwidth you might lose by broadcasting on FM. Things such as the weak transmit power.
I have four wireless headphones that I use for movie parties in lu of an expensive stereo system. A few things to consider: unless it's in the 900mhz or 2.4ghz range, the static interference will be so annoying that it will defeat the purpose. So, making your own is pretty much out of the question. I am not aware of a versitile stereo relay device that is capable of doing what you ask. I HIGHLY recommend the Sennheiser products.
Don't get the RS-65 though, get the RS-85 from online dealers such as etronics.com. The units is so damn awesome.
The electronics filter out static interference and unlike most wireless headphones, Sennheiser's are capable or reproducing the full 20hz to 22khz spectrum. You won't find that in a Sony product. They have velvet ear cushions, lithum ion batteries, strong bass synthesis, excellent range, and you can buy additional receiver units so you and your friends can all watch a movie at your own personal viewing volume. It's amazing the things you never hear in a movie with traditional stereo systems. At $185, they are a bit pricey but I think it's one of the best entertainment investments I've made. Well, ignoring cost, maybe you should look at pro audio in-ear wireless monitor systems.
They typically operate over VHF or even UHF frequencies, are channel selectable, and the receiver consists of a walkman-sized beltpack. Too bad they run $400-$1000 new from nadywireless.com, samsontech.com or shure.com but who knows what you can drum up on Ebay! Yes, this is professional audio gear, and it LOOKS expensive. As long as you take care of it, it should last you the rest of your life, or 2 road tours, whichever comes first. I went through a bunch of 'propriatary' headphones for watching tv.
After problems with batteries, interference and the expense (if you step on the headphone, you need to buy a new transmitter). I decided to go with a real FM Broadcast band transmitter. I got me a Ramsey ramseyelectronics.com FM 25 kit (it has to be a kit, FCC rules) and have been loving life since.
Some of the bennifits include:. You can use any headphones that receive FM. I can use a little pocket radio around the yard playing CNN. Much more development effort and cost reduction goes into a mass market item than the big clunky 'wireless' headphones. It's 'open source' (grin) It took about 4 hours to build the kit and was not difficult (all components are through hole).
At $130, it's not cheap initally, but you will wind up saving money in the long run. This is definately the way to go. Alternatively, you might get away with some low power VHF ham gear if there's nobody in the area to hunt you down and yell at you - but at 30mW, your broadcast range won't be very high either. The kit is going to be much cheaper than that anyhow, unless you have the gear already. You WILL lose some fidelity over the wired headphones though, don't kid yourself. Most people will never notice the difference. Mildly off topic, don't ever read anything on how to detect errors in compression.
I used to work with MPEG codecs and I can't watch most of the movies on the net. I can imagine what learning to detect mp3 artifacts does:). The only thing that would be better is if you designed or bought a small digital transmitter and decoder with a 16bit x 44.1kHz bandwidth. These units might exist out there if you look, but every single one of the stand-alone FM units (aside from quality kit like the Ramsey unit) blow chunks because of frequency drift or intermittant static. The other problem is batteries go dead, I listen to music all day when I'm at work.
FWIW my solution at work is to stream to my notebook and then listen off it. It's something like $80 at Best Buy.
It can use standard earphones, but comes with it's own. Works fairly well, but the incoming signal strength needs to be set right so it doesn't clip the audio. It's not particularly strong - it won't penetrate the steel subflooring where I work so I have to turn it off when I change floors and I sometimes have to 'reorient the antenna' when there is a lot of metal between me and the transmitter.:( It uses rechargable batteries (included) and has a built in recharger.
Charges usually last 10-12 hours. In Wired parlance, it delivers economy level performance, but I've yet to find a product one functional tier higher. Perhaps one of the other responses might enlighten.
Actually, I've also been thinking of doing something similar. The trick is, I want to make a baby transmitter on a belt clip that can plug into a Discman/Walkman/Mp3 player/radio. This would transmit to earbuds powered by a watch battery with only a tiny antennae sticking out. This is the beauty: no wires, and completely concealable (think toque). Does anyone think this is possible? Have any advice?
So far the only thing keeping me from building it is the smallness required to effectively work inside an earbud. Ok I've seen way to many of these posts dogging anything less that 900MHz or 2.4GHz. First to clarify why we like higher frequencies better.
High Q circuits or the relationship between the cuttoff and ideal resonance gives us less interference with larger bandwidths at higher frequencies with less power lost. This is great for the ever shrinking world of electronics were we want less power loss cause we like batteries to last longer, smaller wavelengths shorter antennas/permeates through more structures easier. This however does not mean that circuits with a lower Q value like those you would find with the same bandwidth at a lower frequency lack any ability to reproduce the audible spectrum.
Granted it does require more electronics to filter out things like harmonics and possible outside interference but that doesn't mean it will sound any worse that a 2.4GHz products. It is simply cheaper to make consumer goods like this and assume it is of a quality that is acceptable enough to be sold at a particular price point. What I would recommend is you find a product that you can test out before purchasing or has a liberal enough return policy that you could use the product and decide if it works for you because a poorly designed 2.4GH product could sound far worse that a well designed 87-108MH product. To examine what I'm talking about here further just search for resonant circuits on google.
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Please if you're running the latest version of your browser and you still see this message. If you see this message, your web browser doesn't support JavaScript or JavaScript is disabled. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings so Newegg.com can function correctly. Have the dancing outside! These speakers are wireless!
A 900MHz transmitter sends audio signals out, up to 50 meters/150 feet away from the source with low loss, attenuation or distortion for clear and detail sound. Hook up to your computer to stream in music from far away and hear it anywhere in the house – or outside the house.
These stylish portable speakers come with a remote, so you can fine tune without having to play with the unit itself. Have time for fun with your guests, not a bunch of buttons.
Weather-resistant, waterproof and UV-resistant, this set of speakers with remote brings virtually interference-free stereo audio to your multimedia system! Bring your music poolside, or up in the bedroom, without running wire everywhere in the house. Talk about Freedom! You are free to have your music all over the house!. 900MHz Digital Wireless Technology The Cables Unlimited SPK-VELO-003 utilizes 900MHz wireless technology with phase loop lock circuitry for a long transmission range, crystal clear voice.
Weather-Resistant and Waterproof Design With the weather-resistance and waterproof design, the high-quality Cables Unlimited SPK-VELO-003 can be used in any dry or wet area. Enjoy the complete freedom of taking your music or other audio almost anywhere. Remote Control The wireless remote control ensures easy control of the Cables Unlimited SPK-VELO-003 wireless speakers. Pros: I purchased these wireless speakers about 3 years ago for use with my Uniden Public Safety Scanner. I connected the wireless speaker receiver to my Uniden scanner so that I could listen to my scanner while I was away from it. That being with one speaker setup outside on my porch for me to listen while I am outside in my yard & the other speaker setup inside a bedroom closest to my kitchen. Off an on since the beginning of time I have had some minor interferences going through my speakers like music playing faintly in the background that is not my music & some radio stations going through these speakers from other people around my home that must own & use these same exact wireless speakers.
I have recently had about 3 or 4 new neighbors within the last year & a half move onto my road which is only less than a half a mile long. One of my new neighbors just moved in recently. Anyway, that is I think causing a problem now with these specific wireless speakers that I have hooked up to my scanner. These new neighbors or someone around me owns these same wireless speakers & I am sure of that because I was out in my yard today & I heard a talk radio station coming through my outdoor wireless speaker clearly. I could not figure out why I was hearing someone else's wireless radio transmission coming through my speaker all of the sudden. I went inside to see if my public safety scanner was somehow sending a radio station through on one of the many frequencies that I have programmed on it.
That was not the case at all as I found out. My wireless speaker receiver was not lighting up Blue like it does when there is sound signals on my scanner going through for me to listen to. That is when I realized that the only way this was possible for me to be hearing this talk radio station coming through my outdoor wireless speaker was because someone close to my house has or owns these same exact wireless speakers now that I own too & have owned for 3 years.
Very annoying this is to me now because I cannot even listen to what is going on on my scanner when I am home because my speakers here are now receiving somebody else's wireless sound transmissions without fail. Cons: The receiver to these wireless speaker does have 2 channels on the back 1 & 2 for switching but is only a very temporary fix to & for problem of the wrong transmission signals that come through these speakers being my other neighbors radios, radio stations etc. Who own & use these same exact model of wireless speakers apparently as I am 85% sure on this. I am no longer happy with these wireless speakers & will be searching for better ones that don't have or allow this annoying messed issue like I am experiencing now! Other Thoughts: Please do think before you buy these wireless speakers or this may happen to you as well like it is to me especially if you live in a neighborhood where there are lots of homes & people.
It is terribly annoying & frustrating believe me. I will be getting rid of these soon & buying another brand of wireless speakers. If I run into the same problem with them after I buy, than I will simply return to where I purchased them right away without fail & try out more brands of wireless speakers until I no longer run into this problem like I am having with these Audio Unlimited speakers. Pros: I bought two pairs of these speakers and have two inside (man cave) and two outside around deck area. All plugged in to the tv in the man cave. Speakers outside are approximately 75 feet from tv and work great.
When I get static, bad quality.I change the batteries in the ourside speakers. Very impressive averall. Cons: Unable to adjust base, treble etc. A little bulky (two are mounted on a wall, two are mounted on posts outside around deck). Other Thoughts: Great buy for the price.
Had mine for over a year and never had a problem with any of the four speakers. Pros: Great clarity with NO interference. I have the two speakers set 40 feet from the transmitter and outside. The transmitter sits in my kitchen. Had it playing in 5 minutes from opening. Loving playing pandora radio outside.
I look forward to getting to the deck everyday now. Cons: Remote isn't that great.can't turn on speakers with it unless it is within the 5 min standby period and doesn't work past 10 feet.
No bass and treble settings Other Thoughts: The shipping was simply amazing. It was free and I got the product in one day! You can't beat that. Thanks Newegg and UPS.
If you are looking for something to 'feel' the bass and anger your neighbors than these speakers aren't for you. They are perfect for listening to music with clarity and just enough bass.
Great for parties or just chillin with a beer. Pros: Does their job of wireless sound and quality of sound is good. Easy installation with either battery or dc adapter for speakers and transmitter (we did speakers because we mounted below ceiling. Cons: Has interference with cell phones which leads to my dominoes in to other problems. My coworkers have to shut them off to stop the inferference.
The remote included will turn the speakers off and adjust volume, but it will only bring the speakers out of sleep, not turn them on from a hard shut off. Since the speakers are mounted in a recessed ceiling, I have to stand a chair on our table to turn them back on one by one by pressing the button on the speakers. Other Thoughts: They do their job but I feel as the engineering design is poor. If the remote can turn them off, it should be able to turn them on, especially being wireless speakers, I mean the entire point of wireless is mounting in remote locations. The following guidelines apply to all product categories unless otherwise indicated within specific categories. New: This means the product will ship as received by the manufacturer, sealed, with all advertised components, and with the manufacturer warranty.
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