In sci.electronics.repair on Fri, 04 Jun 2004 22:39:42 -0500 gothika
I was going to post tonight regardless, but my post turns out to be
quite related to your post. In fact, I wish I'd read your post last
night, even though I guess the result would have been the same.
If your speakers have the fine tune adjustment it is possible to use
similar brands as long as are in the 900 mghz range and can tune to
match.
The Advents are actually Recotons. I have the Recotons 900mghz
speakers and the the Advent transmitter unit and they tune up just
fine.
The manager today told me the same thing! He also said, iiuc, that
Recoton had been bought by RCA. And that he used different brands at
his house, and they worked together well. He seemed to say that all
of the speakers sold used the same band exactly, but I sort of think
he means all the brands his outfit has sold. And I think, or they
give the impression by their name, closeoutguys.com, that they sell
mostly odd lots and repaired products, etc.
The thing is to go th the manufacturers website and check out the
specs to find out the tuning bandwidth of the particular brand you're
thinking about buying.
I could find the Advent speakers but I couldn't find the RCA's that I
already owned. But eventually I found some site that claimed to give
the frequency for the RCA's although I don't know how they would know
when no one else did, and it's not in the owners manual. But the site
said 911.5 to 913.5, and the Advent sites reliably said 912.5 to
914.5.
The webpage also claimed to know the frequency response, even though
that wasn't mentioned on the box or in the instruction manual.
Anyhow, when I got there today, before I talked to the manager, the
salesman in charge had Advent speakers playing, and he just plugged in
mine and they worked fine with the Advent transmitter! I said to him
maybe because the speaker is only three feet from the transmitter, so
he found some batteries and we walked about 40 or 50 feet away and
they still worked fine. Almost the first thing he had done was say
they had no more RCA speakers, but he could give me a transmitter.
And he repeated his offer to give me, free, an Advent transmitter.
Tonight I tested the bad speakers again at home and they were still
bad, in the bathroom, which is only 15 feet from the transmitter. So
I changed the transmitter to the Advent and now they work! The Advent
AC adaptor is only 100milliamps, and the RCA one was 200 milliamps.
They both have a frequency adjuster, and the Advent has an output
Level control, although maybe the maximum is no more than the fixed
RCA value. Still, now all 4 speakers work with the Advent
transmitter, and one can't argue with that. (I haven't put any of
them in the basement yet.)
All the Advents match the specs of the earlier Recotons.(If you try
Recoton they redirect you to Advent, sure sign that advent bought them
out.)
Seems I've used some of the earlier RCA wireless speakers with my
Advent transmitter as well though I can't remember the particular
model #'s.
Good to know. FTR, these are RCA WSP150's and the Advent transmitter
is from an AW400. (I thought of upgrading one of my pairs to these,
but they only have controls on one of the pair, and the second is
connected by a wire. I'm just using one speaker in each room, and I
can do that because the RCA's have the same controls on each speaker.
I still haven't tried the RCA transmitter that came with the second
set of RCA speakers. Maybe I should have, maybe it's better, but
since two speakers worked so well, I didn't think there was anything
wrong with the first transmitter. But I think he said he had extra
transmitters and he offerred me one right away.
I need a second one for the bedroom, because I have a regular radio in
there that gets 2 almost local stations that the other radios don't
get. (The first transmitter is connected to the computer for
webradio).
For testing I tried them with a music CD tonight and they really
didn't sound very good at times, and I have low standards. They list
between 80 and 100 dollars, and are still for sale. Home Depot of all
places has them on their website for 70 with free shipping for
anything over 50 dollars until father's day. The price stickers on the
ones I bought were 60 dollars, but maybe the stickers are from last
year or the year before? But maybe one has to spend more than 80 new
for good wireless music sound. But for music, I can use the radio. I
need these for talk-radio.
Thanks again to all of you.
Meirman
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or not you are posting the same letter.
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