Is wireless audio home theater technology gradually improving?
 

Is wireless audio home theater technology improving? Will it ever achieve the level of a decent wired audio home theater? Even if the advancements are slow, will it happen? And if so, how many years till wireless audio home theater technology is respectable?

Yes, improving. Maybe someday. But wireless has latency & reception issues that wires just don't have. I see....many years.

Plus, even if you can send a signal through the air, you still have to supply electrical power to the speakers. That means you still have to plug them (or something connected to them) into a wall outlet.

Yeah, that's why I don't get the point... Rather than run speaker wire, you have to figure out some way to power the speakers which are probably located somewhere where there isn't any convenient power source. Am I missing something?

Yes.

What you are missing is what we call the SAF/WAF or Spousal/Wife Acceptance Factor.

For some bizarre reason, audio and video equipment are stigmatized whenever any wires, boxes, lights or remotes are in plain view. Things that can be hidden, are tiny and cute usually get the SAF/WAF. This is part of the reason for the appeal of BOSE all these years and the reason so many HTIB's now copy the small footprint.

Maybe someday wireless will be the norm, but we are not there yet.

Depending on room layouts, it makes sense. Not everyone can run wires easily to the rear speakers, especially in apartments.

Yeah but you have to run the electrical wire somewhere! I ran wires along the ceiling in my apartment, you don't really even notice them. So either way, you have to run wires.

I have an electrical outlet behind my couch. That would allow for rear speakers to be plugged into the wall and then placed on either stands or end tables on both sides - with minimal visible wiring.

In my case a wireless system would be MUCH easier.

Glad it will work for you.

Please do a review on how they sound so that everyone asking the question will have a better idea.

Oh I'm not planning on doing it - I was just commenting on how you don't necessarily have to have exposed wires either way.

And you wouldn't want my review. I can't tell the difference between very good and average speaker quality (or Dolby vs. DTS, etc). I'm much more swayed by the "surround experience" than I am by the quality of the sound.

I'd imagine bluetooth solutions might be able to work for this. However, you'd have to have a built in delay mechanism to account for timing and distance as others have discussed above.

Delay could be compensated for in the receiver. The receiver would see the surround speakers as being farther away, and it would adjust the timing for the front speakers and the video signal (if using HDMI) accordingly. However, there would be lag in video games, which play sound in real time.

I could be wrong, but a power cord and 2 speaker cords climbing a wall sound exposed to me. Kinda our point, that wireless is mostly not so wireless.

That just makes no sense at all to me. How can those be even partially mutually exclusive.

They're behind a couch though, so depending on the speakers they may not be very visible at all since they're hidden by the couch. I actually have that sort of set up with a cheap Samsung HTIB, with wireless rears and all the cables behind the couch.

I'm not really sure why it's so hard to understand or picture everytime someone mentions wireless rear speakers. :p

Like I said, I can't tell the difference between good sound and very good sound. I can pick up some nuances, but I don't have "audiophile ears" in any way, shape or form. I have very good hearing as far as volume, but I'm probably at least a bit tone deaf.

But that doesn't take away my enjoyment of the experience of surround sound. I can still tell what direction sounds are coming from and a good surround mix really enhances the whole movie experience to me.

Right, but you still had to worry about hiding wires. So wireLESS doesn't mean UNwired, which is what most people picture.