Low latency wireless audio for today's music makers.
Following the successful launch of WIDI Wireless MIDI, CME introduces the next step in ultra-low latency wireless audio without compromising sound quality and playability.
CME iWA wireless audio technology latency comparison with audio over Bluetooth
Crowd Creation: Become part of the process
You're invited to join the wireless audio revolution. The first goal is to activate at least 1,000 people.
Currently, this technology is in the conceptual stage. After the first milestone has been reached, an early prototype of a portable near-field loudspeaker for mobile music making will be presented.
Of course, other products that fit within the concept of CME's ultra-low latency wireless audio technology will be pitched along the way.
Following your wishes, feedback and input, this prototype will be made ready for production. At the same time, you will be invited to place your pre-order. As an early adopter you will receive an exclusive 50% discount.
Feel welcome to register right now and read the entire story of instant wireless audio below.
Goal 1 reached on 4th of July 2022
Goal 2 reached on 25th of December 2022
Goal 3 reached on 1st of May 2023
Phase 4 announced on 1st of May 2023
Goal 1 reached on 4th of July 2022
Goal 2 reached on 25th of December2022
Goal 3 reached on 1st of May 2023
Phase 4 announced on 1st of May 2023
CME iWA - Instant Wireless Audio
- ultra low < 3ms latency
- up to lossless 24-bit/48kHz stereo
- minimal interference
- accessible pricing
- made for prosumers & creators
Is wireless ultra-low latency lossless audio really that complex?
As wireless audio technology moved from analog to digital, a recurring challenge arose between latency and high sound quality. For some time now, only a limited number of solutions have been available for digital wireless transmission of uncompressed stereo audio.
The big problem is the extremely high costs for those solutions.
Why not use Bluetooth technology to make it accessible?
CME has been working on wireless technology for over 15 years. Currently, the WIDI range is taking the world by storm with the most advanced Bluetooth MIDI technology available.
Bluetooth 5 is perfectly capable of handling the MIDI protocol. Latency can be reduced to 3 ms between 2 WIDI devices. That said, when you talk about Bluetooth audio, you're entering a completely different arena.
Latency is created by two major factors in wireless audio transmission, namely: data rate and interference. To wirelessly play CD-quality stereo music, you must be able to transmit 1.411Mbps (1,411kbps) per second. And 24bit/48KHz even needs 2.3Mbps
The Bluetooth standard delivers only 1Mbps (1,000 kbps) by default. And that's not enough. In addition, these specifications only describe the transmission speed in perfect condition. In practical applications you will probably only achieve 50% of this.
Obviously, the stable low-latency data rate of Bluetooth cannot guarantee the lossless transmission of 1.4Mbps CD stereo music.
Therefore, several compression algorithms have been implemented in the technical specifications of Bluetooth headsets and speakers. For example, the maximum data rate of AAC as used by Apple is 320kbps.
As a result, the process of compression and decompression on top of the wireless transmission can lead to a latency of 100ms and easily more…
Test results iWA prototype A + B, May 2022
Bluetooth is not the only technology. What about 2.4 GHz?
Another widely used technology for wireless audio transmission is the 2.4GHz non-standard proprietary protocol, such as Boss' WAZA wireless headphones and many other wireless guitar audio transmitters.
CME has already released the WIDI-X8 wireless MIDI interface based on the proprietary 2.4GHz protocol in 2005. Since the data rate of MIDI is only 31.25 kbps, 2.4GHz (as well as Bluetooth) provides sufficient speed for timely and accurate transmission.
To this day, CME remains the leader in wireless MIDI. With decades of experience in both Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz, our engineers know what wireless technology can do. And certainly what the limitations are. And those limitations come with lossless audio.
Fortunately, that is about to change.
What is the difference between iWA and 2.4GHz solutions available?
The 2.4GHz frequency works in the same bandwidth as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Therefore, this protocol is sensitive for interference. When interference occurs, most 2.4GHz devices do not have the capability to perform rapid frequency hopping as Bluetooth (and WIDI) can.
As with Wi-Fi, the solution implemented to reduce interference for 2.4GHz is to drastically reduce the data rate (often below 1Mbps) and repeat the transfer of the same data to make sure nothing is lost. This is not a problem for file transfers, but not suitable for real-time audio.
Again, with lossless audio in stereo, the data to be transmitted is relatively large. Therefore, many 2.4GHz solutions are mono designs for microphones and guitar signals. Even with a high resolution of 24-bit/48KHz, the data rate of mono audio is only 1,152 kbps.
As you can see, 2.4GHz can provide a solution for mono sound, but not for lossless stereo.
And unfortunately, another problem arises...
Power consumption
While the 2.4 GHz proprietary protocol can achieve relatively high data rates, it consumes much more power than Bluetooth. Usually the 2.4GHz solution consumes 10 times more power compared to Bluetooth.
That's why the JBL Bluetooth headset has a battery life of 50 hours, while the Boss's WAZA only lasts 5 hours. When the battery is low, the data rate and transmission stability of 2.4 GHz is significantly reduced.
And that is another serious challenge for professional musicians....
What about 5GHz?
There are also a few wireless mono audio transmitters that operate in the 5GHz range. Technically, 5GHz can deliver a better data rate by implementing a Wi-Fi protocol.
However, as already explained, Wi-Fi (2.4GHz and 5GHz) has its limitations when it comes to real-time audio and power consumption.
5GHz will only work better when using a proprietary protocol that is fully focused on real-time lossless audio transmission.
But even then, the solution will again become very expensive and still be vulnerable for interference.
What is iWA by CME?
iWA is the ultra-low latency wireless audio system evaluated by CME. Based on the above, our clever engineers are constantly striving for the best balance between performance and cost in this future system.
For example, during our evaluation we had to let go of several technical solutions with "very good" technical indicators, but with "very expensive" components.
From that point of view, the current concept yields the following:
- Enough data rate redundancy to meet the stable transmission of high-quality uncompressed stereo audio
- No interference from crowded and noisy 2.4GHz frequency band
- Latency performance meets the demands of modern music makers
- Data transfer stability can still be guaranteed in very low voltage condition
- The cost should be acceptable to most music users
Feel welcome to sign up today and be a part of the process. You are invited to share your thoughts, ideas and concerns in the comment section below.
And last but not least, watch this video to see where we stand today.
Hi , I'm a professional live sound engineer, i'm very interested in what you are doing , i have an i dear and question about using this technology.Can someone give me a call when time permits.
thanks TW
CELL : 678-481-3309
You can simply reach out via https://www.cme-pro.com/support/#tve-jump-183922d36ae
I would be very interested in helping on this project. I can do in field testing, and trial, error reporting. I need a long range wireless audio solution for my ceremony rig. I use Android and Bluetooth on an Everse 8. If we could implement low to no latency audio that would be a challenge accepted by me.
Sounds good. Hopefully we can bring good news in the next update.
I've been waiting for wireless audio for playing guitar on my Fractal Audio Axe-fx modeler. The tones are great, but I use headphones and hate the headphone wires. Any way this can be used for wireless headphones? That would be ideal!
YEs, we are working on an RX/TX solution that will bew compatible with your headphone!
I would like to plug my guitar directly in to Apple Vision Pro using this technology.
I will keep watching progress on this development.
Everything but USB-C is dead already. Besides that European Community regulation have it hat devices with USB-power-port must have USB-C. And most music gear vendors have switched completely to USB-C already. Also Apple will have only USB-C as USB-Connector from this year on.
The sooner all this ancient USB-connectors go away the better for everybody. So why sink costs in 3 different connector types when there is only one that will survive.
🙂
I see USB A and USB B ports on new hardware still. So, there is a good reason to keep offering it. In our own hardware, the USB-C port isd the most important one, always!
Any low latency speaker must be lithium powered and full audio range for me as a synth performer. We do outdoor gigs along bicycle paths with our own portable power in support of art shows. In my studio its a different thing with 50+ synths and drum machines. My colleague does installations in forests and parks run from an ipad with 8 speakers. So our needs are not as simple as the stage in the local pub. Just added a core to my widi.
Oh and in Canada yorkville sound, owned by Canada&#39;s biggest chain of music stores Long &amp; McQuade make killer 3 way lithium powered 5 hour rechargeable pa speakers. I&#39;m a 40+ year music tech vet and you should reach out and talk partnerships. They are honest, 30 years in the business or more and design things sound on sound mag likes. Seriously. Strength plus strength makes a winning combo.
By the way the asm hydra was unveiled at knobcon, where i volunteer to setup their 200 vendors exhibit hall. All things synth there,outside Chicago in September.
Thanks for sharing those details. Keep in mind that the first iWA focus is on creating a studio indoor solution 😉
Tx Rx with the ability to have master tx to multi rx
How would multiple tx rx pairs work in the same venue?
We are currently focussing on one-to-one in a studio environment. Next step could be 1-to-1 in a live environment, followed by one-to-multiple. That is too far away at this point.
With our WIDI devices, we can do one to multiple either via an app or with a aut-scan procedure.
For silent practicing, a 1/8” dongle on headphones with a 1/8” jack would work for me.
Wonder how that would work with controller(s) and tone generator set up as a group.
Thanks for the suggestion. We will focus on 1-to-1 first. Once that is completed, we will research group connectivity.
1-1 is all I’m hoping for. Thx!
Do we really have to go down the 2.4Ghz bandwidth avenue? It’s so crowded with wireless routers and other devices that the risk of interference is inevitable. I had to stop using a wireless guitar rig for this very reason because the interference I was getting from other devices was a nightmare. We need to move on to a new frequency if that avenue is to be explored.
That is the whole idea of iWA 😉
Thanks for the invite. I was Chief engineer of a fairly large studio for 25 yrs. Your concept is impressive and would love to be a part of it! ( Note: I was an underwater acoustic analyst
Welcome Raymond. Feel free to participate!
There are some affordable products for that, like https://www.amazon.com/MELONARE-PM-1-Wireless-Monitor-System/dp/B0D3XSWYQV?th=1
I hope this will kill all existing products.
Thanks for sharing those details. I know these companies offer cheap solutions and make all kind of statements. They are simply not true.
In theory, with the same power consumption, BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) offers four times the data transmission bandwidth of UHF. To match BLE’s bandwidth, a UHF system would need to consume roughly three times more power.
The PM-1 has 10 channels and supports manual channel selection. While it advertises “frequency hopping” technology, this likely only applies to the automatic pairing process—not true adaptive frequency hopping. That means it can’t dynamically switch channels during use to avoid new sources of interference.
Relying on pre-selecting a “clean” channel before a performance is risky. During the show, that channel could suddenly be occupied by another wireless device—like a camera going live on-site—causing unexpected interference. At that point, there’s no time to manually change settings, which can lead to audio dropouts or popping in your monitors.
This is why reviews of wireless audio products are often so mixed: some users report great experiences, while others say the product was unusable. If a system can’t automatically and intelligently avoid interference, its performance is left to chance.
Also, while the PM-1 claims to deliver 24-bit/48kHz high-resolution sound, this is highly unlikely unless a highly efficient compression algorithm is used. In most cases the claim stereo is not a true stereo either.
As said, many budget UHF wireless products tend to exaggerate their specs to appear more attractive to buyers. Of course you are totally free to use their products.
If it works for you, it works for you.