WISA in 2020?

Hello all,

The recent talk around here about multi-channel audio got me thinking over the weekend (uh-oh).  I have a pair of BL8000s and BL4000s that I'm not really using and was considering adding them to my Eclipse for multi-channel.  Given the layout of my room and location of the BV, wiring some of these speakers is not really an option.  The layout of the room (walls, open walls, seating arrangement) will also be a problem for speaker placement in general, but maybe B&O surround processing magic can help with this, but this is a discussion for another day.

Are people now mostly happy with WISA performance? 

I saw some threads from a few years ago with people complaining about interference between their WISA speakers and Wifi networks.  Has this been resolved?  My wireless router is about 6 feet from my BV (there's a wall between them), and I can't really move it.  One of the "solutions" to the interference problem was to disable 5GHz which really isn't an option in my home.  On the plus side, I don't live in a dense area so there's a lot of open spectrum when I do a wifi scan.  

Also does the Receiver 1 have a "wall wart" power supply or does it use a normal plug?  I can't see any pictures. 

I'm a little gun shy given the poor performance of the BeoLink Wireless 1.  If these speakers do not operate reliably, I'll catch a lot of crap from the family... 

Thanks in advance,

There was no WISA sw updates to any component (Transmitter 1, speakers, receivers) since January 2018, could be taken as a proof of stability.

I’m personally using WISA since more than 6 years and I’m very happy about the performance.

Issues i could report:

If the transmitter (e.g Moment, TR1, TV) is too close to the speakers, you could face some sound cuts or speakers disconnect/reconnect, slightly changing positions fixes the issue.

5GHz networks can be an issue, maybe the 2018 update has solved that, I have not tested. You should test in your environment to be safe.

Here is a picture of the RCV1 power adapter (French mains):

Completely agree! I use wisa for a year and no problems. My BL3’s with receiver 1 are approx. 10meter away from the BV and on occasion they have a little bit of interference but that is due to the close position next to each other (I think).

In beginning I had bit of interference of wifi and put off the 5ghz and that helped. Not sure if there are many other 5ghz networks around me.

The Wireless 1 is a bad product unfortunately, had it installed for a few months back in the day’s but nothing then problems with it and got rid of them. Wisa is perfect for me, not able to hide the cables in the walls, so now I still have a clean cable management.

Nearly two years of Eclipse/Beolab 17 use age and they’ve never missed a beat.

Seems wifi band crowding and interference will always be an issue no matter what band. I'm fortunate enough I can't even see my neighbors wifi hubs, occasionally one will peak and show up and immediately disappear. Instead of moving everything away from 5 GHz I went to 5 GHz from 2.4 in an attempt to get my Beolink Wirelss setups to work reliably. They were mostly reliable until I got a new alarm system with wireless sensors but that seems to stomp on them so I had to abandon them.

Wisa still intrigues me so it's good to hear it's pretty stable. It would solve some issues with going to Beolabs for my surrounds.

iirc if you keep the 5ghz band under channel 48, WiSa and the 5ghz band will never overlap to begin with.

But WiSa is very stable in 99% of cases even with several 5ghz bands around.

I don’t think there is a free channel range to use (see image from TR1 doc).

I just tried channel 40 on my WiFi access point and my WISA devices went crazy (surely because my WiFi access point was too close, less than 1m), I’ll do more test.

Thanks for the feedback.  This all sounds promising, and the chart is helpful as my wifi scanner shows no activity around or near channels 120-128 (I'm in the us).

mbolo01 mentioned above that it's bad to be "too close".  Do you have an approximate range for what "too close" is?   Also, it's unfortunate the transformer is so large, but oh well... 

Next step I believe will be to temporarily hardwire my speakers to see if I like the sound (and wife can accept the looks).  4 rj to powerlink converter cables are much cheaper than 4 receiver 1s.

 

 

I have been using speakers with WISA for several years now, never had any issue.  There was one time the BL18 went red but then it went green again.

The BL18s are front left and right, are 1m from the Avant and there is a wireless router point behind the TV (i have 3 mesh boxes, that is one of them), albeit the Avant is ethernet to my router (in another room).

The BL3's are rears with receiver 1's and they have never had a connection issue. 

I have been thinking of wiring / cabling the 18s to the Avant only to test if there is any sound difference, but wont run cables to the back of the room.

From all of the discussions over the years on this Forum i have read about the BeoLink Wireless 1, this product is nothing like that at all. I think for a lot of products using earlier wireless technologies, it was still fledgling.

Anyway, in summary: it's good, no issues. 

Stan:

mbolo01 mentioned above that it's bad to be "too close".  Do you have an approximate range for what "too close" is?   Also, it's unfortunate the transformer is so large, but oh well...

You’ll find all you need to know in this Tranmitter 1 doc which I think is applicable to any Wisa transmitter:

https://beoprime.com/media/pdf/6c/88/d1/Guide-BeoLab-Transmitter-1-25870e66de005f.pdf

Stan:

Thanks for the feedback.  This all sounds promising, and the chart is helpful as my wifi scanner shows no activity around or near channels 120-128 (I'm in the us)

I don’t think that 120-128 DFS channels are allowed in the US according to the chart.

Also, selecting a DFS channel can take up to 1 minute ( as stated at the bottom of the chart), some channels may even take 10 minutes, which could be a very bad user experience.

Where it is possible to select 5GHz channels with most of the WiFi access points, it is not possible to do so with the B&O Wisa transmitters such as the Moment, the Transmitter 1 and TVs which have a process to detect the free channel to use at startup.

To ensure proper cohabitation, I suggest to select and configure a free 5GHz channel for the WiFi access point(s) after running a WiFi scanner, to always make sure the WiFi access point has/have been started first, e.g after a power cut, to keep the recommended distances between 5GHz devices and finally trust the Wisa automatic channel selection!

mbolo01:

I don’t think that 120-128 DFS channels are allowed in the US according to the chart.

You are correct.  I read the chart wrong.  Thanks again, this is all very helpful.