Russound Adds Spotify to Streaming Music Service Offerings

Jubilant Russound executives announced the addition of worldwide music service Spotify to the company’s streaming music lineup, on a teleconference with journalists Friday. Putting together a direct licensing deal with Spotify has been “like pulling teeth” for a company like Russound that doesn't have the unit volume to turn heads at streaming companies used to dealing with million-unit smartphone volumes, Russound Product Marketing Manager Colin Clark said. “It’s not the fun part of my day by any stretch of the imagination to deal with the providers,” Clark said, saying “they’re not motivated for specialty channels. They’re motivated by volume, so working with them is difficult.” The “long, drawn out political process” of winning Spotify as a provider lasted for nine months to a year, he said. Russound also offers Pandora and SiriusXM streaming music services, along with Internet radio, but it doesn’t plan to “overwhelm” customers with a long list of streaming music choices, Clark said. “I definitely don’t want to have every service out there,” he said. “We’d need to hire a staff of 20 more people and 50 more software engineers” to support additional services, Clark said, calling that a "never-ending battle.” Beyond a point, consumers “don’t know what to choose from” when given too many options, he said. The decision to add Spotify came from dealer feedback from customers, he said. Following an installer-initiated firmware update next month, Spotify Connect will be available on Russound's XStream X5 and DMS-3.1 digital media streamer and is a feature of the upcoming MCA-88X eight-source, eight-zone controller, the company said. Clark emphasized that high-resolution 24-bit/192kHz resolution is one of the “key success factors” for the company’s streaming products.