Finally.. A Wireless Solution to Rear Speakers in Dolby 5.1
For those who are in the situation where you do not want to run wires to your rear speakers but really want to enjoy Dolby 5.1 sound, I think I have found the cost effective solution. It is called Rocketfish and it is a wireless set up for the rear speakers.
I live in a new house and it was already drywalled before I bought the house so I did not have the opportunity to wire the walls for my home theater. However, I have a nice theater downstairs with HDTV and a large room w/10' ceilings. Unfortunately, everything is drywalled and finished so what do I do to get a good rear surround speaker sound?
I was in Best Buy and just randomly came upon this device and the good news it was on sale for $80.00 (Regular $100). Here is what you get:
- A sending unit which attaches to your amp. It hooks to the surround sound speaker jacks and sends the signal wirelessly to the back.
- An Amp and receiver in the back. This receives the signal, amplifies it and sends it to your surround speakers. It has a separate volume control which is used to fine tune or "trim" the rear volume.
- Cheap speaker wires ( I would just throw these out.. they must be there just so they can say they included everything you need)..
It was very simple to hook up although I encourage you to read the small manual. I actually hooked the wrong box to the receiver at first then found out and needed to reverse it. The units automatically "find" each other and you are up and running in no time.
The manual does say to adjust the latency on your rear speakers as, like all wireless devices, there is a bit of latency. However, I did not do that and I cannot tell the difference.
There are a few good sites concerning this device and I will post the links at the bottom of this article.
My Review:
These are awesome! I have very good sound and I have watched both network 5.1 (Football) and movie 5.1 (1408) and the sound has been as good as a wired system (I admit, I am not such an audiophile that I could tell the difference) but I would defy anyone to tell me that my rear speakers are wireless unless I tell them.
They operate on 2.4ghz and I was very nervous about interference with my home Wi-Fi system but so far so good. In fact, I am in the room where these are running, watching the game as I type this and Wi-Fi and Rocketfish seem to be playing nice together.
So, bottom line, if you cannot run wires to the back due to a home already built and you are not going to rip walls apart just to put in a 5.1 system, this is a great alternative.
You may read about a humming problem, which is easily solved by turning the unit off when you turn your amp off. However, they have fixed that and the unit I have has no indication of this problem.
Sites to Look at:
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