soundbar
Qualcomm has announced upgrades to some of its sound platform chips, with the S3 gen 3 and S5 gen 3. Here we look at the major changes made. The S3 is aimed at mid-tier audio devices. Looking at the specs for gen 2 and gen 3 the major upgrades on the previous generation include: 2 x compute power An additional Kalimba DSP (2 instead of 1) Improved DAC […]
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The integration of microphones into smart TVs has been an increasing trend for a few years now and one highlighted by our Soundbar market report back in 2021. The integration of microphones was/is the missing link that propels the smart TV into the role of the smart home hub. SAR shows that approximately 200m Smart TVs […]
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Getting back to normal? Are we “getting back to normal”, CES 2024 suggest so. This was my 8th year attending in my current role and anecdotally it felt as busy as it ever was pre-COVID. The CEA stated that there were 135,000+ attendees, which is close to the usual 150,000+. As always there was a wide range of […]
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November 27, 2023, Harman announced the acquisition of Roon, a music software company most well-known for its Roon app. Roon Labs was founded in 2015, but its journey in music technology began much earlier, in 2004. The founders were involved in developing music software for companies like Sooloos, Meridian Audio, and HP before establishing Roon […]
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This partnership between WiSA and Sunplus is significant as it speeds up development of Dolby Atmos soundbars by providing what the two stakeholders call the SPA300 SoC Software Development Kit. The development kit leverages WiSA’s expertise in immersive sound technology. There are several brands that supply WiSA certified equipment. The partnership between WiSA and Sunplus should […]
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The soundbar market does not enjoy the rapid growth it once did. Even though this has been a market showing superiority to home theatre in box systems—and even AVRs—the trend is a slowing in shipment growth. The use of wireless (sometimes battery powered) speakers incorporated into a multiroom setup may be a good trade off as this […]
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What seems to be the follow on from an announcement in July ’22, it has been publicised for the second time that Netflix will be adding AMBEO spatial audio—powered by Sennheiser—to some of its titles on the streaming platform. After recent price hikes, it’s good to see Netflix adding additional value to the service. Albeit interesting […]
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Netflix recently announced the availability of spatial audio to all devices, but this feature does not require a surround speaker system as it is through a two channel audio configuration. Since it is two channel audio based, the availability of spatial audio will be rather wider unlike Dolby ATMOS also available in some of the […]
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The Bluetooth SIG launched Auracast™ this week. This is the brand name for the broadcast audio ability enabled by LE Audio. It has been eagerly waited for by the industry and is very interesting new way to use Bluetooth. Regarding branding, this reminds me of previous attempts by technology organisations to stir up consumer […]
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Bowers & Wilkins have recently announced the release of a brand new Soundbar, the Panorama 3. For a company that’s primary focus is audio quality over use, the new soundbar comes with all the essential features that you would expect on a basic Soundbar with the Bluetooth codecs aptX Adaptive, and AAC offering Bluetooth quality […]
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