Whole House FM TransmitterWhole House FM Transmitter 3.0

This product is great it works very well. It can also block unwanted music as well as playing your own music on that station

I purchased this to get 2 stereos in different rooms playing the same thing, from a Grace Digital Wireless Internet Radio. The 2 stereos are about 50 feet apart and the signal has to pass through 2 old plaster/wire lath interior walls.Setup issues: The signal was always pretty strong, but initial problems included "reverb" in the sound or "tinny" sound and distorted bass. At first I confused this with a weak signal, as it sounded like an FM radio station 100 miles away. I was ready to send it back, however, various experiments proved this was not a function of the signal strength, but 1) a poor connection in the (included) 3.5mm "line in" jack (which lots of jiggling eventually worked out), and 2) plenty of attention to lowering the line-in volume. After that it sounded great. The sound is not perfect, like the stereo where the source is plugged in directly with RCA cables, but the stereo sound is still excellent and quite acceptable. I also got more consistent results when using the Aux Out from my stereo to feed the unit, instead of the Internet Radio directly, due to more consistent volume levels I guess.Good Range: I can get in my car and surprisingly it doesn't really start fading until I am a several doors away on my residential street. And this is using the U.S. "legal" 6.5" swivel antenna that comes with it, located at the back of my home.Low volume: You are going to have to turn your remote stereo up to double the usual volume level, because if you try to turn up the volume level on the source device or try to turn up the "line in" volume on the unit, you are going to have terrible distortion. I adjusted the "line in" volume to about 50%. This made it sound good, but again the volume is low. You won't hear much static, but because your remote stereo will have to be turned up very loud, you might hear a bit of background static.Hum on A/C: This was the most annoying problem of all. I started with batteries, but the 3 AA cells were running down after several hours of use and the quality and range began to deteriorate significantly. I decided I had better plug it into the wall (using the included USB power cable and 120V A/C to USB adapter, but I had avoided that because this caused the unit to broadcast a very noticeable 60 cycle hum. I tried to solve this by soldering a 1000uF capacitor across the 5-volts on the USB cable, but to no avail. Eventually I resolved this by using the (included) car cigarette lighter to USB adapter, with a high quality power supply I had lying around, which converts 120V A/C to 4-amps of highly filtered D/C in a Cigarette Lighter receptacle. No more hum using the cigarette lighter adapter, but you are probably going to spend maybe $50 getting a high quality A/C to 12-volt power supply. However, when compared to the cost of a Sonos wireless system to do what I am trying to do, this unit is still a real value.Summary: The 2 things I wish the manufacturer would address are 1) the awful hum from the A/C power adapter they provide, and 2) broadcast at a higher volume, since the input volume must be low to avoid distortion on the output. Still, since I have resolved the hum on my own, and since I can live with keeping the remote stereo turned up louder than usual, this unit is a Keeper. With its good range and excellent sound quality, I can recommend it.

This was an easy and cheap way to send music all through my house. Now I can walk through the house with the same music (usually a baseball game) on all the various stereos, alarm clocks, etc. in the house with no lag between them. Compared to setting up $100 per unit AirPlay or other receivers, this has been great. I even got out my old walkman for listening in the back yard and it's fine. The quality is not "hiss free CD quality" but it sure beats running wires to each room, or a herd of $40 apps to send sound from your computer to your phones and old iPods. We already know how to do that - it's called radio.I do wish it were legal to use the longer antenna. Oh well. It took about 15 minutes to adjust the sound output from my computer to the right level. The sound is quite passable. Some radio receivers are really awful. My alarm clock (iHome) is actually excellent, but my cheap-o iPod/FM receiver is terrible, and it has ultra-fine-tuning FM ability, which might be the problem. My ancient Sony AM/FM alarm clock with analog tuning is great. My Sony digital walkman is decent. It seems that a wider receive range from an analog tuner picks up better, but the digitals are passable even then. You do still get noise from other devices, typical of FM. In my bathroom I have to put the radio up a little higher to get around a noise spot. This isn't the fault of the transmitter, and is quite easy to deal with.Pricing a higher fidelity (near CD quality, wired-in, whatever) solution tends to run very expensive very quickly - either needing to buy multiple small units and speakers for various rooms, or a new stereo with wires run to multiple separate rooms, with speakers. Sending audio directly from a computer to an iOS/Android device runs around 4-40 dollars per device, and still, no power, no speakers. They may offer more control, higher quality sound, and so on, but I was not after a whole-house single audio system. I just wanted to be able to hear the same game in the garage as in the kitchen and office. With one purchase I was able to do that, and no apps, no wiring, no drywall repairs, and far less maintenance.

Transmits 10-30 ft max. Not long range at all.

I purchased the FM transmitter to play my music on my tablet. The provided antenna (FCC compliant) exceeds the 200 feet advertised. I was receiving my station almost 2 MILES away with the legal included antenna. Not sure if the atmospheric conditions allowed for this. (EDIT: The atmospheric conditions have no effect on this as I have tested it many times in poor conditions, decent conditions for radio and the distances for this are the same.) Admitted I live in a second story apartment building and have it up high. I was able to hear it on the other side of town. If you're using the legal equipment provided but it still exceeds the FCC distance of 200 feet, is it still legal? This antenna and transmitter may possibly have to be reviewed again by the FCC because it CAN cover an entire small city 2 miles across in every direction. This antenna exceeds their advertised 150 feet. There are TWO power settings on the unit. On lower power the signal covers my entire apartment complex, probably 300 feet or so. On the higher power settings the signal is line of sight and can be heard up to a mile away from the transmitter. You can access the higher power by holding both the CYCLE button and MUTE at once. I love testing this unit out and it's reach is superb. Legal? No. But it's fun to play around with if you're not afraid of the FCC. I have learned that you have to turn the volume down a few notches so that it doesn't sound over modulated but the sound is pretty clear. If you're using a laptop to play music you can equalize the sound and make your music sound really good. The plug that came with it is sort of cheaply made but you can use any plug with it as long as it's the right voltage and power. I am thinking of buying another one just to play around with.My one and only complaint about this unit. It starts at 88.0 and most radios go to 87.5. It would be nice to have my station that low on the dial for better testing as there are no stations on 87.5 in my area.