Wireless speakers?

[kirkdickinson]

There is a small local church that I help out with some of their equipment. The pastor has it in his head that he needs a couple wireless speakers so he can feed the service to the church nursery and their social room. I asked him:

Why are you wanting wireless? 
My thought is to avoid wireless unless there is no other way. 
Wireless is less reliable, more susceptible to interference 
and more expensive.

He thinks there is no way to get a wire to the nursery. I think there is, but it is his church. What is out there that might do this? I think bluetooth wireless has too much latency and lacks the range needed to blast through the walls.

 

[s0c9]

can't use bluetooth, but you can use a typical iem-style xmitter and receiver setup, with receiver on speaker end. 1/8" -> XLR or 1/4"..
minimal latency.. assuming you're not 1000yds away and not having to go thru dozens of brick walls.

I still go for wired over that tho'...

 

[kirkdickinson]

I was just searching the internet and remembered a long time ago reading about a guy that set up a low powered FM transmitter on a school/church campus so that they could play music and do announcements over a wide area. I found a 1Watt FM transmitter for $99 on Amazon, I think it is good for 1/2 a mile in unobstructed open air. Should cover everything inside a small church building easily. Then pick up some cheap boom boxes or any fm radio and put wireless sound anywhere they want.

Does that sound like it would work?

 

[WayneP]

It might.

If it doesn’t – “wireless speakers” are relegated to consumer audio and should be avoided at all cost. I’m with s0c9 in recommending a pro-audio solution, which will require a stand-alone transmitter/receiver system coupled with an active speaker. I’d suggest looking into the Alto Stealth system or the DN-202WT transmitter and DN-202WR receiver combo. Make sure you get a generous return policy in case you aren’t happy with it, though. If those don’t get the job done, as s0c9 mentioned you’re probably going to have to move up to really pricey IEM systems from Shure or Sennheiser. Hey, you did tell the guy it wouldn’t be cheap!

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

Pedulla Club #45 Unique Arrangements of Hymns, P&W Standards, and Original Tunes
Administrator, Tobias Club #133
Administrator, Fretless Club #943
Big Cabs Club #23
My Basses
Pedulla Club #45
Tobias Club #133

 

[JKos]

What distances and materials are talking getting through? Is the RF environment relatively clean or dirty/congested?

“wireless speakers” are relegated to consumer audio and should be avoided at all cost.

I've heard some awfully good consumer wireless speakers. Maybe that's all they need.

My previous church had a similar situation. They used one transmitter by the board and put the "left" speaker in one room and the "right" speaker in another.

Why would you at all be concerned with any reasonable latency?

- John

 

[kirkdickinson]

It might.

If it doesn’t – “wireless speakers” are relegated to consumer audio and should be avoided at all cost. I’m with s0c9 in recommending a pro-audio solution, which will require a stand-alone transmitter/receiver system coupled with an active speaker. I’d suggest looking into the Alto Stealth system or the DN-202WT transmitter and DN-202WR receiver combo. Make sure you get a generous return policy in case you aren’t happy with it, though. If those don’t get the job done, as s0c9 mentioned you’re probably going to have to move up to really pricey IEM systems from Shure or Sennheiser. Hey, you did tell the guy it wouldn’t be cheap!

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

Pedulla Club #45 Unique Arrangements of Hymns, P&W Standards, and Original Tunes
Administrator, Tobias Club #133
Administrator, Fretless Club #943
Big Cabs Club #23
My Basses
Pedulla Club #45
Tobias Club #133

Yeah, maybe I should make a list of parts both with "Done right" wireless and with wired. In the nursery, probably a powered studio monitor would be plenty wired or wireless. In the social room, probably the new QSC CP10 would be plenty. I think the church as a EON speaker in storage that would work for that too. I like the look of that Denon stuff. I used to have an entire home stereo setup with Denon. It was an Audio Video Switcher. I got it way back in the 80s and used it for 25 years until it got water damaged. Denon used to make some awesome stuff. I guess they probably still do.

 

[kirkdickinson]

What distances and materials are talking getting through? Is the RF environment relatively clean or dirty/congested?


I've heard some awfully good consumer wireless speakers. Maybe that's all they need.

My previous church had a similar situation. They used one transmitter by the board and put the "left" speaker in one room and the "right" speaker in another.

Why would you at all be concerned with any reasonable latency?

- John

Latency isn't reasonable if you can hear the main source at the same time. They are a rockin' Pentecostal church that cranks it up. Latency will cause nasty echos.

 

[JKos]

Latency isn't reasonable if you can hear the main source at the same time.

Which you had not specified in your posts. If you are worried about time alignment, then you'll have to account for the time it takes the main source to get those rooms. About 1 ms per foot. You may actually need to ADD delay.

Latency will cause nasty echos.

Unless it happens to be the time alignment you need. It is highly unlikely zero delay/latency will be the right answer.

- John

 

[WayneP]

I've heard some awfully good consumer wireless speakers. Maybe that's all they need.

The issue isn’t sound quality, it that consumer wireless is Bluetooth-based and as such unreliable.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

Pedulla Club #45 Unique Arrangements of Hymns, P&W Standards, and Original Tunes
Administrator, Tobias Club #133
Administrator, Fretless Club #943
Big Cabs Club #23
My Basses
Pedulla Club #45
Tobias Club #133

 

[JKos]

consumer wireless is Bluetooth-based

Not all of them. There are 2.4 and 5.8 GHz systems that are not Bluetooth.

Latency will cause nasty echos.

Consider this... A wired system with no added delay will cause the audio from the remote speakers to actually be ahead of the audio from the main source.

- John

 

[kirkdickinson]

Not all of them. There are 2.4 and 5.8 GHz systems that are not Bluetooth.


Consider this... A wired system with no added delay will cause the audio from the remote speakers to actually be ahead of the audio from the main source.

- John

True, Something I hadn't considered. I will have to look at their presonus board to see if there is a way to delay the sound output.

 

[JKos]

Something like this, perhaps? As an example, at least. Without knowing the budget, it makes it harder to suggest solutions.
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My previous church would select the cheapest possible option. My current church... the good stuff.

- John

 

[kirkdickinson]

Something like this, perhaps? As an example, at least. Without knowing the budget, it makes it harder to suggest solutions.
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My previous church would select the cheapest possible option. My current church... the good stuff.

- John

I think their budget is low budget. Not my home church, I am just friends with a lot of people there.

They have plenty of funds, but their priority is an orphanage they sponsor in Kenya.

 

[two fingers]

Dude is WAAAAAAAY overthinking this.

Share it on Facebook. Super cheap camera to a laptop. Then the nursery staff can bring it up on their phones. Ridiculously cheap Bluetooth speaker would make it sound "bigger".

Forget wireless speakers and get a cheap wireless router for wi-fi if the church doesn't already have wi-fi..

Plus, you may reach others in the community with your Facebook broadcast.

This is 2018, man! That preacher is talking 1985!

 

[superdick2112]

Google "Dante".
Yamaha utilizes Dante, and if you get with the program, you'll never need to run speaker cables again.

What is Dante? - the Basics

dante | Sweetwater

 

[Mark Koln]

I was thinking about wireless speakers lately, but didn't find anything in my budget though. They are kind of expensive at my place, or just in general.

 

[Deleted member 165050]

Latency isn't reasonable if you can hear the main source at the same time. They are a rockin' Pentecostal church that cranks it up. Latency will cause nasty echos.

As has already been said you're more likely to find the latency the other way round, and need to add delay to the remote speakers.

 

[JoeWPgh]

The best/cheapest option might be streaming over WiFi. Congregation members might have old computers and stereos they can donate

 

[Old Garage-Bander]

I was just searching the internet and remembered a long time ago reading about a guy that set up a low powered FM transmitter on a school/church campus so that they could play music and do announcements over a wide area. I found a 1Watt FM transmitter for $99 on Amazon, I think it is good for 1/2 a mile in unobstructed open air. Should cover everything inside a small church building easily. Then pick up some cheap boom boxes or any fm radio and put wireless sound anywhere they want.

Does that sound like it would work?

Totally illegal for use in the US without an FCC license.
Even illegal to sell in the US.
Using one of these puts you in Pirate Radio territory.

As little as the FCC does these days in the way of technical enforcement, they’ve got a real woodie about busting pirates. Furthermore, broadcasters are so starved to see the FCC do anything in the way of enforcement of technical rules, that they will jump at the chance to see a pirate get busted and report you in a heartbeat, especially if you are interfering with their broadcast.

Part of the problem with getting these little radios is that they tell you to just tune it to a frequency where you can’t hear another station. Well just because you can’t hear it where you are does’t mean they aten’t there and you aren’t interfering with them. With the advent of the recently minted Low Power FM stations allowed by the FCC, with stations running between 10 to 100 watts, you are less likely to hear a legit station and more likely to cause greater interference due to the ratio of their signal to yours.

Many years ago, before busting pirates was a thing for the FCC, I had received calls from people who listen to the station I work for. They reported hearing another station on the air. They said the station was playing early 20th century music. The frequency was very near ours and making it hard for them to listen to us. The listeners were in our fringe reception area, so it didn’t take much to cause a problem for us. So one day I took a little trip, armed with all sorts of direction finding gear and a spectrum analyzer. Turns out that I didn’t need any if that to locate where this was coming from. Just driving around, listening to the car radio did the trick.

The transmitter was running only about 100 mW (1/10 of your 1 watt rig). It was located in a retirement home.
The people running the place just wanted to play some music that their residents liked and could tune in on the radio in their apartment. They had no idea that this was illegal or that they were interfering with another station.

I explained it all to them and suggested if they could find another frequency that didn’t interfere with other stations, (much easier to do back in the 80’s) that they probably would go unnoticed. I told them as long they didn’t interfere with my station that I didn’t care what they did. Given all of the technical details involved, it was very likely that they would be able to change frequencies and keep operating. That is unless the FCC did decide to bust them.

I did warn them about that possibility and the potential impact would be anywhere from having their equipment confiscated to fines running into the thousands of dollars.

 

[Slevage]

I’ve been to a function where the DJ put a powered Mackie in the “cocktail area”.

It was about 300’ away from the main rig and through two walls. There was a wireless receiver plugged into the back of the Mackie 1-12. It was a pro grade unit (xlr connections). I don’t know the brand, but it worked/sounded great.
Good gear to fit the bill does exist. Better than running wires in many cases.
Remember— building codes and fire codes come into play when you penetrate a wall to run wires. Penetrations need to be caulked with fire rated material.