There are quite a few systems on the market designed to stream music through a home. These products eliminate the need for breaking in walls to run speaker wires across your home. In this article, I will review some of the more popular systems and offers some shopping recommendations.
The majority of homes is older than a decade. As a result, they were built before the internet and streaming music became popular and do not have built-in wiring to carry network traffic or audio through the house. Most people will hesitate before hiring an installer to run audio wires in part due to the high cost and also the amount of dust and debris during the installation. Fortunately, products have emerged recently which are able to stream music throughout the home without running speaker wires.
New audio distribution systems can stream your music throughout your home either via network cables or wirelessly. If you have a home network then you can purchase a system which connects to your LAN cable via Ethernet cable. In this case, the operating range would be almost unlimited. If, however, you do not have a LAN cable, you can get a system which either has a built-in wireless module or one that can be expanded by adding a wireless card. A multi-room music system can get fairly expensive if you have a lot of rooms. One lower-cost alternative are wireless audio transmitters. There are transmitters available that have very good range and thus can cover a hood area of your house. Some models are available for less than $100 per kit. If you decide to go with an audio transmitter, be sure that each transmitter can stream to multiple receivers. Some of the wireless systems we run throughout our local SEO reseller companies run upwards of $3000 for the entire setup.
One of the more advanced features of multi-room music products is the ability to configure audio zones. A zone is simply a group of rooms which receive the same music. You may have a party during which you would like to configure all of the speakers in your house to play the same music. However, after your party finishes you may wish to have different music in different rooms. This is where multi-room music systems shine. Changing zones is a snap with today’s more advanced products. However, if you are on a budget and get a low-cost audio transmitter product, you can still set up zones. Usually several transmitters can coexist in the same house. Simply pair each wireless receiver of one zone to one transmitter. Pairing is done either by pushing a pairing button on both the transmitter and each receiver of one zone or – depending on the model – by setting each receiver to the same frequency channel as the transmitter. Granted, this process takes more time than managing zones with the touch of a button, however, if you reconfigure audio zones only occasionally then the cost savings may be well worth the extra time.
Another advantage of some of the more expensive systems is that the operating range is extended by each of the wireless receivers. Those receivers have the ability to retransmit the wireless signal. Therefore the signal can reach areas which are blocked from the primary transmitter. Lower-cost wireless transmitters do not have this feature. Thus if you decide to purchase a wireless audio transmitter, ensure that the range is sufficient for your house. Note that walls and partitions will weaken the signal and reduce the effective range. However, by choosing a good location for your transmitter, you should be able to transmit throughout your whole house. Modern digital audio transmitters not only have good range but are also able to tolerate wireless interference.
