Audio-Technica bowed wireless headphones for gaming and music, said the company Wednesday. The over-ear ATH-S220BTs ($59) have cushioned earpads, up to 60-hour battery life and can be charged up to 3.5 hours on a 10-minute rapid charge, said the company. The Bluetooth headphones also come with a 3.9-foot cable for wired listening. Controls are compatible with Siri and Google Assistant for access to voice recognition, messages and map navigation; a voice guidance function can be used for notifications about battery level and pairing status, it said.
Snap One said Wednesday it's carrying products from Sound United’s Denon, Marantz and Definitive Technology brands on its ecommerce platform and in partner stores in the U.S. “The proliferation in audio installations over the past year cannot be ignored and is a huge area of growth for installers,” said Mike Jordan, Snap One senior vice president-product management. The addition of the Sound United brands and products is a “powerful supplement for installers being increasingly tapped for distributed audio, home theater, outdoor, and other audio-focused builds,” he said. James Krakowski, Sound United vice president-commercial operations, Americas, referenced a “golden age of audio after more than a decade of seeing consumer demand for small, low-fidelity audio products stemming from the rise of the MP3.” High-resolution streaming technologies and surging demand for premium at-home streaming services like HBO Max are creating demand for better home theater and hi-fi systems, Krakowski said.
Shure and Sennheiser back an FCC proposal to allow wireless multichannel audio systems (WMAS) for wireless mics, in comments posted Tuesday in docket 21-115. Others urged caution; comments were due Monday on an NPRM OK’d 4-0 in April (see 2104220056). "Users have been burdened by significant reductions in available spectrum as a result of the Commission’s repurposing and repacking of TV band spectrum while the demand for wireless microphone support for a wide range of productions and events has only increased,” Shure said. “WMAS has the potential to enable wireless microphone users to pack far more wireless microphones into the same amount of spectrum and achieve the same high quality performance with no adverse interference impact to adjacent band and co-channel users.” OK WMAS for Part 74 licensed and Part 15 unlicensed, the company said. WMAS “allows the wireless microphone operator to maximize the available spectral resources,” Sennheiser commented: It "utilizes the spectral resources only" when needed. Remove the 6875-6900 and 7100-7125 MHz bands from the list of eligible frequencies for wireless mics, Microsoft said: “These bands have been unused by wireless microphones for years.” Microsoft urged a channel bandwidth limit of 6 MHz, a spectral efficiency of three mics per MHz for high-performance devices and power limits consistent with Part 74 rules. Cisco and Facebook asked that 6 GHz and 7 GHz mics be excluded, citing interference risks. “Steer clear of spectrum policy decisions that unnecessarily promote uncertainty impacting the future use of unlicensed technology that the Commission is so clearly relying on as a key ingredient in its recipe to advance the nation’s broadband goals,” they said. The Aerospace and Flight Test Radio Coordinating Council said it doesn’t have concerns on WMAS using the 1.4 GHz aeronautical mobile telemetry band, on a secondary basis, provided protections remain.
LG’s Tone Free FP8 wireless earbuds ($179) are shipping and will be followed this month by the FP9 and FP5, said the company Monday. The FP8s have active noise cancellation, a wireless charging case and Headphone Spatial Processing from Meridian Audio. The 3D Sound Stage feature uses upmixing to broaden the sound stage, said the company. Larger drivers and diaphragms are said to deliver more bass. Three mics in each earbud make the wearer’s voice clearer on calls and lower ambient noise, LG said. A UV LED built into the Tone Free cases was tested to reduce bacteria on the earbuds’ speaker mesh by 99.9% in five minutes while charging, the company said.
Audeze is launching electrostatic headphones for the medical industry that are designed to alleviate acoustic issues associated with MRI testing, the company said Monday. Patient stress and movements during MRI exams, amid loud sound-pressure levels, can make scans unusable for diagnostic purposes. Audeze created a new transducer technology to eliminate the acoustic problems associated with MRI. Audeze’s electrostatic design with embedded carbon nanotubes solves issues with coated diaphragms that have been used in previous electrostatic speaker designs, said the company. Audeze worked with UCLA professor Mark Cohen on the noise-canceling headphones.
Sonos' partnership with The North Face ties its Roam portable speaker and a new station on Sonos Radio to the outdoor products company's adventure recordings. The “Never Stop Exploring” station has nine soundscapes of field recordings made during filming of The North Face’s mountain-climbing videos "to bring the sounds of adventure into their homes," Sonos said Monday. The tracks are audio only.
OnePlus bowed its first true wireless earbuds with adaptive noise cancellation (ANC). In ANC mode, the OnePlus Buds Pro ($149) counter unwanted sound frequencies from ambient noise or chatter, adjusting the level of noise cancellation to match the noise, said the company Thursday. Each earbud has three mics to filter out noise levels up to 40 decibels. The earbuds have the OnePlus’ Audio ID sound profile technology that calibrates a sound profile customized to a user’s specific sound sensitivities, said the company. They support Dolby Atmos. Battery life is given as 38 hours with the Qi wireless charging case, 10 hours with a 10-minute charge.
Summit Wireless shares reached a 52-week high Thursday at $7.06 as the company continues to raise awareness for the WiSA-certified category and a WiSA-branded store on Amazon. The stock closed 13% higher at $4.60. Summit’s Wireless Speaker and Audio Association officially announced the Amazon storefront Thursday, after CEO Brett Moyer teased the news on an investor webcast last week (see 2107160043). WiSA expects its Wave marketing program to drive 2 million visitors to its website this year. At Amazon, consumers will be able to buy WiSA-certified TVs, transmitters and speakers. In addition to home cinema solutions from WiSA member brands LG, Hisense, Klipsch, Harman, Enclave and Platin, the Amazon store will show WiSA speakers and TV bundles from retailer partners including Electronic Express and Walts TV, WiSA said. The store is designed to present customers with options for system configuration, performance level and budget. A search for WiSA at Amazon Thursday brought up a Samsung 65-inch UN65TU8000 bundled with a WiSA SoundSend transmitter and WiSA-certified Monaco 5.1-channel speaker system for $1,795. Also shown were non-WiSA-certified Edifier Bluetooth speakers; Samsung, Onkyo and Vizio multichannel speaker systems; a WeMax laser projector; and a Retekess FM transmitter for houses of worship and schools. A Google search Thursday listed Bestbuy.com third behind the WiSA Association website.
Zvox is promoting dialogue intelligibility in its latest sound bar. The AV357 ($299) uses the company’s Accuvoice hearing aid technology and SuperVoice technology that lets users reduce the level of background sound in TV programs to help bring voices “front and center,” it said Wednesday. The manipulation of the audio signal “lifts” dialogue out of the mix to help viewers who have difficulty understanding speech while watching TV, said the company, saying the sound bar has 12 levels of dialogue boost. Using what Zvox calls an Alexa Ready feature, users can connect an Alexa Echo device to the sound bar's input 2 and use it while listening to a program. They could ask Alexa for a football game score while watching a different game, for instance, said the company.
Summit Wireless’ Wireless Speaker and Audio (WiSA) Association announced Toshiba's Regza TV brand as the first certified product under the SoundSend Certified program. The WiSA certification is an effort to bring TV makers into the WiSA ecosystem “to ensure flawless and simple connection and interoperability,” it said Wednesday. Smart TVs will receive certification after successfully testing to work with SoundSend, including all audio connection and control requirements between the SoundSend wireless audio transmitter and the smart TV, WiSA said. SoundSend, which can be connected by HDMI or optical cable, is the association’s first branded product. The $179 puck-shaped transmitter is designed to make wireless multichannel audio accessible “in minutes” from most smart TVs. WiSA estimates SoundSend will open the WiSA speaker market to more than 1 billion TVs by year-end.