Lab

Wireless music

Spaghetti junction. Rat's nest. Tangled mess. Cables - the most fundamental of PC accessories - are never fun. We try to hide them out of sight, clear them away, resorting to all manner of clips and tubes to make them look more orderly - often with precisely the opposite effect.

But more and more technologies are becoming available to liberate us from the tyranny of cables. Remember how good it felt to go online wherever you pleased when your new WiFi router spread the Internet around your home? Suddenly, you no longer had to plan your whole house around ensuring that your PC was within a stone's throw of the telephone socket.

PC speakers and headphones have always been synonymous with trailing wires. But they too are undergoing a wireless revolution. If you want to experience the benefits of multi-room and even outdoor listening without trailing cables, the wireless devices in this round-up could be the way to go. Enjoy Internet radio in the garden with a British summer-proof set that won't be destroyed if it rains, or listen to your favourite tunes in the bathroom.

In fact, your music can be streamed anywhere around the home - up to 100m away from your PC - and you don't even need a WiFi network to make it happen.

Battle of watts

As is often the case, there are two competing technologies in this field: Bluetooth A2DP and radio frequency (RF). The former is a digital system that requires a Bluetooth dongle if your PC doesn't already support it; some of the products come with one. The latter is a good old-fashioned technology that's rather more flexible: RF devices come with a transmitter that can be connected to any audio device with a 3.5mm headphone socket. That could be your PC, an MP3 player, or all manner of other gadgets. They also allow you to add an unlimited number of extra speakers that will work from the same transmitter.All the PC speakers featured here, except the Parrot Party and Gear4, have separate power supplies for each speaker, meaning you can position them wherever you like.

Two main factors affected the sound quality of the products on test: signal strength and the power output that the speakers were capable of producing. We assessed both to calculate our ratings.

The speaker and headphone sets on the next six pages offer all the features you need to free your tunes, from battery operation to remote controls. Whatever your requirements, there's a wireless audio solution for you here -and its price tag may come as a pleasant surprise.