Audio Products Front and Center at LG Lifestyle Event

LG featured its 2017 sound products at a lifestyle event in New York Wednesday. The sound bar lineup included the company’s $449 SJ7 Flex product, a two-speaker sound bar that can be used in one of three modes: as a standard sound bar under a TV, split into front and rear-channel speakers in a surround-sound setup or as a portable Bluetooth speaker with the half that includes a built-in battery. The company also showed the $549 SJ8 sound bar, with high-res audio upsampling, 4K pass-through, Chromecast built-in, 4.1 channels of sound and a slim 1-1/2 inch-tall chassis that integrates, with a kit, into the base of an LG 55-inch TV. The flagship SJ9, $899, features Dolby Atmos immersive audio in a 5.1.2 configuration. LG also showed its Levitation Station ($299), which uses electromagnets housed in a base station/subwoofer to keep a small 360-degree Bluetooth speaker “floating” and spinning in air. When the speaker begins losing juice, it automatically lowers itself onto the subwoofer base for recharging while music continues to play. On LG’s plans for voice control, Tim Alessi, LG's head-product marketing, told us no products in the 2017 audio lineup have voice control, but that technology is “obviously on our radar. We’ll be looking at how to integrate it in the future.”