Wireless is “in”, especially for audio devices – headphones work without any cables at all and smart speakers are networked in the home and offer entirely new sound experiences.
Where and how we listen to music is changing. People want to enjoy music quickly, easily and in high quality in any place – be it at home, at the office or while exercising. With streaming services such as Spotify and smartphones acting as constantly available music centres, the CD is being replaced as the “classic” sound-storage medium.
Users increasingly want to play music through devices which they can take with them anywhere, all day long – be it a pair of wireless earphones or a portable speaker.
Definition Bluetooth
Bluetooth technology in demand
According to market research firm GfK, Bluetooth technology is especially in demand in Western Europe.
About 15 per cent of headphones and stereo wireless headsets sold in the first half of 2017 had Bluetooth capabilities – meaning that the Bluetooth share of the market was almost double the previous year.
Likewise, true wireless devices are also becoming increasingly popular. With this technology, headphones such as the ”BH406” by ACME neither need a cable to connect to the music source nor to connect the right earbud to the left.
Only the left earbud is connected to the smartphone via Bluetooth as a primary speaker while the right speaker is connected automatically via “True Wireless Stereo”. “True Wireless Stereo Plus”, whereby both earbuds are connected directly to the mobile device via Bluetooth, goes one step further.
Each earbud only receives the audio content that is relevant for it. This increases the audio transmission’s robustness and results in equal electricity consumption for both earbuds.
The prevention of latency between the two buds also increases sound quality.
An even more intense live concert experience
Improved sound quality is also what the PEEX rX wearable by Powerchord is all about – although not for listening to recorded music, but rather live concerts. In fact, it’s actually an entire system for enhancing a concert experience.
The technology behind the product was developed in cooperation with RTX A/S. The concert-goer wears the PEEX rX device which connects to their smartphone via Bluetooth Low Energy.
The wearable in turn receives different audio channels such as vocals, bass, drums or guitar transmitted across the venue from previously agreed feeds from the artist.
These channels are transmitted over commercial Wi-Fi chipsets, whereby the Wi-Fi protocol was completely replaced with a proprietary protocol. This, along with other patented technology, ensures that the high quality- and latency-related demands of concert-goers are fulfilled.
The listener can then control the volume and mix their own sound using an app on their smartphone, for example bringing the vocals more into the foreground, or reducing the bass.
In doing so, the headphones maintain the live experience by not eliminating the ambient noise and harmonising the real (speaker) sound in real-time.
Networked across rooms
Although portable Bluetooth speakers have not yet achieved the sound of a live concert, their sound quality is nevertheless constantly improving.
Speaker systems with multi-room capabilities – devices with which users can enjoy different music in different rooms – are particularly in demand. In these systems, several speakers within a home Wi-Fi network are connected to each other in order to achieve an impressive and striking listening experience across several rooms.
An example of this is the HomePod from Apple – iOS 11.4 allows the wireless speaker to be connected to another speaker and thus easily create a true stereo listening experience.
The system uses two HomePod speakers as a stereo pair to deliver a sound that fills the whole room, just like a commercial stereo pair – and all from a speaker that is just under 17 centimetres tall.
This is possible because the HomePod uses automatic room recognition to determine its position, and adjusts the sound automatically, regardless of where it is located, for the best-possible music experience.
A wireless peer-to-peer direct connection developed by Apple is used for perfect interplay between multiple speakers and fully synchronised music playback.
Additionally, the AirPlay 2-based multi-room audio system allows music to be played in one room from another, for music to be moved from one room to another or for the same song to be played throughout, with an iOS device, a HomePod, Apple TV or by Siri commands.
Wireless with Hi-Fi quality
Sound quality is an increasingly important aspect for wireless speakers. For example, the Onkyo P3 smart speaker transmits speech and music in Hi-Fi sound quality that fills the entire room.
The system is one of the first intelligent speakers supported by DTS Play-Fi technology, which allows music from every possible application or file to be streamed in pure, unadulterated quality over standard Wi-Fi, through one or multiple speakers and components with Play-Fi capabilities.
Play-Fi is supported by many of the largest brands in the world in the Hi-Fi sector, and the speaker all but takes the wireless experience to the extreme: Alexa, the virtual assistant, can be used to control not only music, but also other compatible smart devices.