No more drilling, tucking cables under carpet, and fiddling with endless tangles of cable. Wireless technology from RCA can give you freedom from wires. Fill and surround your house with sound from our 900 MHz wireless speaker systems. And unchain yourself from the stereo with RCA's wireless headphones.
Chances are there's one or two places at home where you'd love to enjoy music without having to go to the trouble of laying the speaker wire (or drilling the holes) to get it there. And, short of strapping on a pair of headphones, your options are pretty limited. Fret no more: The WSP150 wireless powered speaker system from RCA lets you import music from CD, radio, DVD, or virtually any audio source to nearly any room in the house--the range is about 150 feet, even through most walls and floors.
The WSP150 uses the FM (frequency-modulation) technique employed in radio to transmit audio to the two speakers, each of which houses its own 2-watt amplifier. The speakers each offer a roll-on power/volume switch and a tone control/bass boost button.
The system comes with two main parts: the transmitter and the speakers, all of which require close proximity to an AC outlet, unless you opt to battery-power the speakers--perfect for outdoor use in nice weather (requires four D batteries per speaker, not included). The transmitter plugs into a wall outlet and hooks into your desired audio source via a single stereo minijack-to-RCA cable (supplied). Be aware that with no master balance knob, the two speakers must be manually adjusted for equal volume.
What's in the Box
A transmitter, two stereo speaker/receivers, two DC power adapters (6V, for speakers), one DC power adapter (19V, for transmitter), an 8-inch Y cable adapter (.125-inch minijack to two RCA-type plugs), user's manual, and warranty information.
1 Worth it - if cheap enough! Not $100!!!
picked up two sets in liquidation for a big $20 each, and while they are pretty much as bad as decribed elsewhere, I will probably find some use in the future, such as the deck.
I would be royally p'd off if I had purchased them at retail price.
My own main issue with them is that they are entirely unsuitable for an iPod: Whenever the audio signal goes off - such as after a playlist ends - the emitter stops broadcasting after a brief delay.
Then all hell breaks loose as the speakers emit a loud chirp-and-screech noise, on and off. A nice way to wake up in the middle of they nigh, if you like to fall alseep to some music...
2 Worth the money but...
My wife and I purchased the WSP-150 as an alternative to a seperate stereo or boom box so that we could have the same music in the kitchen as we were playing in the living room. The setup was a bit shaky. I,like another reviewer, expected traditional speaker wire from the stereo to the transmitter. I was a bit put-off by the given connections. You get a male RCA Y-connector to a female 1/8" plug which is useful if you come out of single source such as the TV or a stand-alone cd or tape player. The only other connector is a noise filter. The noise filter will help get rid of any squeals or other interference caused by some electronic devices. The transmitter has a male 1/8" plug that allows you to come directly out of a headphone jack. I went the headphone jack route and experienced a couple of problems:
1)You are not supplied with an adapter to go from 1/8" to 1/4"-I needed one.
2)Getting a good volume balance between the living room speakers and the wireless speakers was a hassle.
Our primary goal was achieved once the balance was worked out. We can have a pleasant volume in the living room and any volume we want in the kitchen.
There are some drawbacks to the RCA-150 wireless speakers:
a)if you want thumping bass-they are not for you. Otherwise they sound good. Good but not great, I don't find the bass boost useful.
b)Quiet music sometimes causes the transmitter to shut off which in itself is another hassle in the setup process-Proper balance using the volume control!
c)having electic outlets close to the speakers-fortunately we do or we would either have had to run the speakers on batteries all the time or run extension cables from the outlets.
A nice benefit...They can go outdoors for parties. They aren't rated for outdoor use year-round so don't leave them out!
3 Not good in condos or apartments
In apartments or condos where you might live close to neighbors who have 900Mhz telephones and other cordless / wireless devices, this speaker system will frustrate you. I'm an electronic engineer. I set this system up in my father's condo. As soon as we got it working, his phone rang and the transmitter shut down. We verified this a few more times and finally decided to unplug his telephone. The transmitter worked for a bit longer this time but it shut down again when I made a call on my cell phone. We wanted to see how long the transmitter would work if we just stopped using telephones -- but after just 5 minutes (the longest up-time yet) the transmitter shut itself down again. I assumed at this point that interference from a neighbor's telephone was the cause. Incidentally, when the transmitter (wireless base antenna) shuts down from interference, you have to reset it by unplugging it from its power source (and plug it back in) to get it to work again. This product is too much trouble at any price.
4 Junk
Couldnt get a good signal. One worked better than the other. I finally gave up when they both started hissing.
5 I could not get my speakers to stop hissing
I've tried these speakers for 6 months and could not get a clean signal from my transmitter to the speakers. This resulted in an awful hissing noise. My experience was the same whether I was running off of batteries or off of the AC adapter. The distance between the transmitter and speakers was between 5ft (line of sight) and 10ft (through drywall).
If you are expecting the quality of 900Mhz cordless phones, look elsewhere.
For what it's worth, my RCA WSP150 speakers were refurbished.
I have put these bulky duds to rest.
6 Good Enough for Casual Listening
Just got a pair and had them set up within ten minutes without any problems. Was easy to hone in on the signal and no noise despite two cordless phones and two baby monitors in our house. The quality is tinny and thin, and they are NOT for surround sound since you can not separate the two channels, but for our rec room they were a nice solution for a room that wires could not be run. If you can run speaker wire in any way, save the money, you can get much higher quality speakers for less if you dont mind the wire.
7 They work great.
The documentation is terrible at best, but after working through that I'm pleased with the product. I wanted to hook these up to my stereo, but the manual only tells you to use the RCA plugs and connect to the audio out. No stereo I know of has an RCA audio out.... at least not marked that way. Once it dawned on me to use the "tape out" as my audio out I was playing with power tools. Other then the lack of volume control at the receiver, I'm pleased.
8 Pretty good for the price
We bought these for extra speakers for the house, that we could move around. My Dad has the same ones and was pretty happy, and I have to say we were too. If you are a Expert Stero Person, no they aren't for you. But if you are just a person that loves music and just wants a nice pair of speakers, these are for you.
9 A complete waste of money
Lots of static, poor quality audio reproduction; Giving this item a 1 star rating is a real stretch...
10 Poor Sound, Can't be used as surround
Ok, here is the deal...these cannot be used as true surround sound speakers. They plug into the headphones jack and don't send a delayed signal. The delayed signal in dolby surround sound is what makes the Top Gun jet zoom behind you or in a 360 degrees..etc......
They sounded pretty lame as well. I don't know why other's had problems setting them up...it really wasn't that hard....you just adjust the signal.
I'd stay away from these unless you are desperate. Spend the extra $100 and upgrade.
11 review for: RCA WSP150 900 MHz Wireless Speakers
I work in an industrial area with many sources of radio waves and
electrical connections. These speakers work as advertised and I have had no problems what so ever. The actual hook up to the television was very simple and I am very pleased with this product.
12 Find a refurbished set and save BIG $
I researched a bit and found these speakers on a popular auction website for $39.98 shipped to my door. They were advertised as "open-box", but are actually refurbished by the manufacturer with all the paperwork and accessories. While setting them up, they seemed a bit tempermental with the line level RCA outputs on my system. Fortunately, I have about a half-dozen possible outputs at my disposal, and I was able to find a happy medium using a splitter on my cable box digital audio outputs. The results are excellent. The range and sound quality is better than I expected, and this product is a real bargain at the price I paid. Do your homework and be patient with the setup and they will pay off for you.
13 Simple Setup...So/So Sound
I just received my wireless speakers, and spent about 13 seconds setting them up. They certainly pick up sound when its being broadcast from my PC. Problem is, I can't just leave them on when they're not receiving. There's a slight static, similar to a baby monitor, that can be annoying. So, I'm forced to turn them on and off manually. The sound is ok...not very loud. But, if you're just looking for an easy solution to portable speakers, I'd say go for it.
14 Bad to set up but great once running
I just got these for Radioshack for $99 (they were on clearence). I do agree they are not the easiet things to set up with the fidling of dials. Some attempts to tune them seem to work with only limited success as they would give out a clicking sound. However once I found a good channel I liked them a lot. I use them to play mp3s that are being streemed from my Linksys Media Adapter.
I live in San Francisco in a middle floor condo and have yet to have issues with interference from my cordless phone or extneral. The guy in Radioshack did say there were some areas on the city where they did not work well.
In conclusion they met my requirement of playing music in both ends of my condo without running wires.
15 Don't do it.
It is not worth the money. You spend a considerable amount of time turning dials to get the signals to match on the tranmitter and speakers. You hear humming in the background. The transmitter only works with high volume. So, if it's an movie with literally no talking, this is the speaker to use. I wish I would have done my research before I made the purchase. If this is the functionality of all wireless speakers, I guess I will have the house wired.
16 Good if your expectations aren't too high
I bought these speakers to allow me to listen to streaming online radio and music (including MP3) away from the computer like in the bathroom and kitchen. For music, they are not great. If I turn on the bass boost, they buzz and rattle, if I turn it off, the sound is thin. They work great for talk-type programs, though. I bought refurbished ones, so for the price, not a bad deal. I would not want to pay full price for these, however.
17 Wireless Speakers
We bought the RCA WSP 150 speakers, used. We installed them today and I would say the sound quality isn't quite as good as conventional speakers. Everything seems to be working fine. The only problem we had was with trying to hook them up to our speaker terminals with the y-splitter. We kept on losing the receiver signal for some reason. So we ended up pluging in to the VCR in/out on our receiver. That seems to work. It would be helpful if we could hook them up to the speaker in/out so we could control the sound from the reciever instead of from each speaker. But all in all, for 30 bucks, not bad.
18 Works, but hard to get a good signal
Got them working. Sound is OK, but there is some intermittent static. the signal sometimes fades (which leads to losing sound and gaining static). Bad part is the "tuner." You essentially turn a rotary dial on the transmitter to transmit to a certain channel (although you never know which one, just turn til something works). After tuning the transmitter you have to tune the receiving speakers as well which has a similar rotary knob. If you can't get a good, steady signal you just play with the knobs until something works. Can be very time consuming and may not work for everybody depending on the electronics in your house and what your house is made from (might interfere with the signal). Also, what works for one speaker (knob location wise) might not work with the other speaker. I got the first speaker to tune in almost perfectly about 5 seconds after turning it on. 10 minutes later i'm still working on getting the second speaker to get as good of a signal.
It would have been MUCH better if you could just select something like chanel 1 through 11 via something that "clicks" so you know you are exactly on the right channel and dont have to mess with 3 different knobs to get all 3 pieces of hardware to work together.
I gave the product 2 stars instead of more because of the difficulties in getting a good, strong, steady signal that didn't break up. If the signal had been steady I would have given the product a good 4 stars because the sound is quite acceptable (if you can get it tuned in well).
19 RCA WSP150 900 MHz Wireless Speakers
I bought a pair of the speakers but could not get the transmitter to power up. Suspecting a bad connector, I returned the set to Radio Shack. I tried all possible combinations with 2 transmitters and 2 power supplies, but could not get either transmitter to sustain power. Seems like poor quality control to me. The Radio Shack salesperson admitted that they never got them to work in the store.
20 Kept losing signal
I bought these speakers for a new home theater system so I wouldn't have to string cable all over my room for the surround speakers. When playing an "active" movie (i.e., lots of action) they worked great. When the action died down and there was only talking or no talking, the speakers would lose their signal and got loud static. Once the movie returned to louder activities, the signal popped in again.
OK for music, but not as good for home theater since sound levels do not remain constant.
21 Pretty Good Speakers
I got these for Christmas one year and had a really difficult getting good sound out of them. I wanted to use them for my PC to play music around the house. At first I would get very soft sound and sometimes no sound at all. I shelved them for a while and then decided to try them on my PC again with a Soundblaster 16 sound card. Excellent sound. These speakers are not for the impatient person. I do have the transmitter sitting on the top floor on a high shelf so that it can get go transmission. The transmitter can not be surrounded by anything. I can get a good 100 ft out of the speakers. Then I start losing signal. There are times that I get a beeping sound of them. For some reason that does subside. I do recommend them for the price. Beware it might take some time to find the right niche for them.
22 Must have received a bad batch
I bought a pair of these speakers at Home Depot and the transmitter was problematic. It would turn on when first plugged in, then die about a minute later. Returned to store and got another pair with same results. Returned again and tried the third pair at the store. Three strikes, they're out! Probably just a bad batch with the same problem for all.
23 Great Quality but takes a while to setup.
These a very good set of speakers for only $80. I wanted to use them in a surround sound setup for my bedroom. The directions were very brief and did not explain the AV hook up at all. It comes w/ white and red AV jacks. My tv has a white & yellow hook up, so I put the white in the white and the red in the yellow and tried to get a signal with the speakers but all I got was static, I tried this for my stereo and vcr too the same result occured. I then decided to put the white in the white and the red in an extra white hook up on my vcr and the result was a great sound quality. One speaker has low static the other is perfect. Great speakers, but beware of the AV jacks it might not be applicable with all AV hook ups.
24 Medium success
I bought these to use as rear channel surround speakers after reading the positive and negative customer reviews. The biggest caveat I have is that I expected traditional speaker wire connections and found, upon opening the box, the connection is either through the headphone jack or via RCA connectors (red/white). Neither option provides the channel separation for them to be used as I intended. They are easy to install, but we have a 900MHz cordless phone and a baby monitor and there are static bursts that pop into the speakers intermittently. When dialed in, they provide decent sound for the money. We're going to hang on to them and try them out on the deck next summer.
25 Great wireless speakers at a reasonable price
Bought my speakers a couple of weeks ago and had no problem setting them up. Sound reproduction is good and have had no interference whatsoever with my wireless phone (also 900 Mhz). Real test was one week ago when I had a party and used them with 4D batteries each. Played all night long and all my guests were impressed by their performance. I would certainly recommend this product.
26 There are good 900Mhz wireless speakers out there!
I've purchased 2 sets of Recoton W440 900 Mhz wireless speakers for myself and 1 set as a gift. They provide very good sound quality and were easy to set up. Total set up time was about 10 minutes. (Took 3 minutes to unpack out of the box and about another 7 minutes to set up)
27 Had No Problem
I purchased these speakers prior to reading the negative review and, needless to say, was prepared for the worst. I began setting them up, and was having problems getting a good signal and thought 'Oh well, guess this was a waste of money.' But then I realized I had the wrong AC power supply hooked up to the transmitter (there are 3 power supplies - each specific to the transmitter and speakers.) Once I corrected the supply problem, the speakers worked beautifully. I use them as my surround speakers at a distance of around 30 feet from the transmitter. Few negatives - the sound is a little hot and tinny, even with the bass boost button on (but for 80 bucks, sounds great) and even though the speakers are capable of running on 4 D batteries each (not supplied), the batteries will die quickly (24 hours of use or so). But overall, I am quite pleased and find them to be a great deal.
28 What a bust
It is this simple. Don't buy this product. After trying for 10 hours through my stereo, both TV's and portable CD I could not get a listenable signal. This was a very frsutrating experience. I want to try some other brands but am skeptical of the whole thing now. If anyone has had success with 900 mhz speakers let me know. The only good thing about this was Amazon's customemr service. They were, as always, excellent. I am just upset my deck will still be without tunes.
