Rebecca Day

Sound United's resources and scalability allowed the high-end Bowers & Wilkins brand to lean in further in the custom installation space, James Krakowski, vice president-commercial operations, Americas, told us at the ProSource summer conference in San Antonio this month, in a product demonstration embargoed until Wednesday. B&W, which joined the Sound United portfolio of brands last year, previewed at ProSource the newest upgrade in the flagship Bowers & Wilkins 800 Series Diamond lineup that's due to ship Sept. 1. The latest iteration, six years in the making, includes new styling and technology, led by an elongated on-top tweeter with a tube-loading system said to deliver a more open sound for high frequencies. “We wanted to add as much strength and rigidity to this cabinet as we could,” said Sound United’s Seth Snyder, regional brand activator, citing Bowers’ history as a transducer company that produces its own drivers. A primary goal in B&W speaker design is “to get the cabinet to stay out of the way as much as possible,” he said. All models in the 800 series have more metal bracing to keep the cabinet more inert, he said. The 805 D4 and 804 D4 now feature the reverse wrap speaker cabinet used in the previous 800 series’ larger floor-standing models. The structural rigidity of the design allows mounting the crossover in its own compartment in the back of the speaker, away from magnets, to lower the noise floor, Snyder said. The three-way models have new technology, what the company calls biomimetic suspension, that replaces a conventional fabric spider with a composite suspension system that improves midrange cone performance by reducing unwanted air pressure produced by a conventional fabric spider. A new walnut finish joins the white, black and rosenut options. Stereo pairs are the 805 D4 ($8,000), 804 D4 ($12,500), 803 D4 ($20,000), 802 D4 ($26,000) and 801 D4 ($35,000). Center-channel speakers are the HTM82 D4 ($5,500 each) and HTM81 D4 center-channel ($7,500 each).

ALTI-Expo show owner Barry Vogel confirmed the cancellation of the Audio & Loudspeaker Technology Association's Oct. 24-25 audio event (see 2108230070) in Orlando. The fall show was a postponement from the original June 13-14 dates, Vogel emailed registrants Monday. Most of the revenue for the association comes from the annual trade show, “so of course this is difficult,” Vogel told us Tuesday. “We are a fairly small, specialized show” with about 300-400 total attendees, “though we are working on growing that (at least we WERE prior to Covid!).” The association was also looking forward to its first ALTI Automotive Audio Conference in concert with the High End Audio Show in Munich, but that event was pushed off from September to May due to COVID-19. Vogel assumed ownership of ALTI in July 2020 “knowing that (re)building an association in today’s world is a challenge under the best of situations,” he said: “This has been anything but the best of situations.” ALTI expanded services to members to help them do business in the COVID-19 era, he said. “The dynamic loudspeaker and related technologies industry needs and deserves an association dedicated exclusively to it,” he said, saying ALTI is that group, and “we will survive this.”

Coming off a record Q2, Best Buy upgraded its sales outlook for the rest of fiscal 2022 ending late January, raising its sales outlook to “flat to down 3%” from a “high single-digit decline” from a strong second half in FY 2021. The retailer posted record sales of $11.8 billion for the quarter ended July 31, with comparable sales growth of 20% on strong demand for computing, appliances, gaming, virtual reality and home theater. It had Q2 declines in headphone and mobile phone sales. The stock closed 8.4% higher Tuesday at $121.49.

Target’s late August top toys list for the holiday selling season is a “reflection of back-to-school inventory shortages" and "the expectation that people are going to be concerned about holiday inventory availability, especially for toys,” emailed Nikki Baird, Aptos vice president-retail innovation, Monday. Target announced its “most exclusives ever” for the holidays that day and expansion of its Disney store-within-a-store section to 160 stores. Twenty-two of the retailer’s 50-item Bullseye’s Top Toys list are exclusive to Target, it said. Electronics on the list include Nintendo Switch models, plus PlayStation 5 console and Xbox Series S, which were in short supply last holiday season and well into 2021. The news release put the bug into consumers’ ears to shop early; it didn’t mention promotional pricing. Despite this year’s expected product shortages due to supply chain disruptions, Baird believes retailers will still battle hard for wallet share during Q4, but “maybe not as deep as typical because inventory levels will not be as deep. It will be more a question of whether consumers can find what they want.” Walmart, meanwhile, was still in back-to-school season Monday, promoting “free, outdoor or virtual concerts” for teachers and students: Imagine Dragons, Friday, in Las Vegas; Chance the Rapper, Aug. 30, in Chicago; and Kane Brown, Sept. 7 in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. Walmart will livestream the Sept. 7 event honoring teachers, offering virtual attendees back-to-school prices and shoppable content.

Smart home technologies are playing a growing role in creating revenue opportunities for home security dealers, a Parks Associates virtual conference was told last week. Dealers' acquisition costs are rising, and additional services can grow monthly recurring revenue, said President Elizabeth Parks. The average monthly monitoring fee for a basic system without security cameras or home control is $40.17; the average monthly fee for an interactive system with home control is $55.44, she said.

The Audio Expo North America (Axpona) show, scheduled for Oct. 28-30 in Schaumburg, Illinois, was canceled and rescheduled for April 22-24 at the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center. “Throughout this spring and early summer, enthusiasm for AXPONA in October was sky high,” said Event Director Liz Smith and Sales Vice President Mark Freed in a letter to the Axpona community. They cited spiking COVID-19 cases, “concerns over personal health, the unpredictability of international travel restrictions and reinstated companywide travel bans.” Audio & Loudspeaker Technologies International didn’t comment, meanwhile, on reports that its ALTI Expo, slated for Oct. 24-25 in Orlando, was canceled. The website showed registration still taking place Monday with fees of $499 for members, $699 for nonmembers.

Consumers are overloaded with content, and it has become difficult to manage, said TiVo executives on a Thursday webcast for the company’s biannual video trends report, based on a Q2 survey of 4,500 respondents 18 and older in the U.S. and Canada.

Nortek Control confirmed Friday its brands won't exhibit at CEDIA Expo 2021, after reports earlier in the week it had joined the list of major companies to pull out of the show amid concern over rising COVID-19 cases (see 2108160047). “Through conversations with our customers and after careful consideration given the recent rapid rise in Covid cases, we have decided to cancel all on-site activities and our booth presence at CEDIA 2021,” Bruce Mungiguerra, senior vice president-global sales and marketing, said in a statement. The decision to cancel “wasn’t an easy one but we believe strongly that the safety and health of our Nortek Control team and the rest of the Pro AV community must be our highest priority,” he said. Nortek’s brands include 2Gig, Elan, Furman, Gefen, Panamax, Proficient, SpeakerCraft, Sunfire, Niles, IntelliVision and Mighty Mule. Among other companies to withdraw from the show are AudioQuest, LG, Legrand, Samsung, Savant, Snap One, Sones, Sony and Sound United. Expo show owner Emerald, meanwhile, announced Friday a perk for “scheduled registered attendees”: an AI-based “digital companion” called CEDIA Expo Connect that’s an adjunct to the physical show, scheduled for Sept. 1-3 in Indianapolis. The trade show company called Connect a “powerful platform designed to facilitate smart business matchmaking, product discovery, and relevant content” that connects attendees to exhibiting brands and products “pre-show, onsite and post-show.” Jason McGraw, group vice president-CEDIA Expo/KBIS, said the “matchmaking” platform is a first for the trade show industry.

Lutron is building a far-field mic into lighting control keypads via an integration with Josh.ai that solves a quandary for integrators wanting to integrate voice control without compromising aesthetics. The Josh.ai Ready Wallplate incorporates Josh nano, an architectural mic, giving homeowners the ability to control lights with voice or touch via scene-based buttons, said the companies on a Wednesday product unveiling on YouTube. On-panel tabs enable customers to turn off the mics for privacy.

CEDIA Expo owner Emerald doubled down on the company’s commitment to hold the trade event in Indianapolis Sept. 1-3, even as exhibitors continue to abandon the event due to health concerns over the COVID-19 delta variant. Jason McGraw, Emerald Group vice president-CEDIA Expo and KBIS, told the company's CEPro trade publication Wednesday, “The show is 100% going on. Contrary to rumors out there, CEDIA Expo 2021 is still happening.”