Tag Archives: harman kardon

Multi-room

Multi-room news from CES 2016 part 1

Leave a comment

CES 2016, in Las Vegas, has started and multi-room audio is, just like last year, one of the bigger areas. So let’s go through the hottest news so far.

Harman Kardon Omni+

harmonkardon_omni_plus

Harman Kardon revealed its new Omni+ multi-room system. It includes the Omni 10+, Omni 20+, OmniBar+, Adapt+, and the Omni 50+. Four speakers, a soundbar and a streamer that connects to existing systems.

They all handle high-definition audio streaming with 24-bit/192KHz quality. The system supports both Spotify Connect, Google Cast, Deezer and Tidal. In the controller app, you can group a pair of Omni+ speakers with the OmniBar+ to build a 3.1 or 5.1 wireless surround system. It has 5G WiFi connectivity, Bluetooth, Ethernet and an aux input.

The Adapt+ will cost 129$, The Omni 10+ $199 and the OmniBar+ $999. The Omni+ system arrives in stores in the spring.

Prizm

prizm_music

The Social music player Prizm is getting ready to launch after a successful kickstarter campaign. It is said to be able to sense the mood in the room and choose music type accordingly. If you hear a song in the room that you like, click on its heart icon, and the song will be added to your connected account.

Prizm will have support for Spotify, Deezer and Soundcloud at launch. It will also support AirPlay, UPnP, DLNA and Bluetooth. Prizm does not have integrated speakers and should be connected to an existing sound system through optical or 3.5mm audio output. The price will be 169$.

MQA hi-res audio

The new hi-res audio technology MQA (Master Quality Authenticated), that consumes less bandwidth without sacrificing quality, is a hot topic at CES 2016.

BLS_Gen2_Family_Wifi-600px

Bluesound has announced that all of their products, both 1st-gen and 2nd-gen, will be MQA compatible through a free firmware update later this year.

The music service Tidal showcased its coming MQA support that also will come later this year.

Samsung Dolby Atmos soundbar

Audio_CES2016_Main_2

Samsung’s new HW-K950 soundbar supports Dolby Atmos surround. It has three forward-facing front-channel drivers and two upward-firing Atmos height drivers that reflect sound off the ceiling to deliver height channels. The system also includes a wireless subwoofer and a pair of wireless surround speakers with upward-firing drivers, enabling the system to deliver a 5.1.4-channel Dolby Atmos sound field.

More info will come later this week about pricing and compatibility with the other Samsung audio products.

Multi-room

CES Multi-room News part 3

Leave a comment

Read part 1 here and part 2 here.

intel-compute-stick
Intel Compute Stick seems like the multi-room DIY dream. Put it in a receiver and you get digital audio (and video) from a full fledged computer with the size of a (large) usb stick and the power footprint of a smartphone charger. Put spotify on it to enable Spotify Connect functionality and AirServer for AirPlay functionality. Pick your software choice for playing music from the device and your network. I will get back to this type of DIY setup in more detail in the future.

Bluetooth 4.0 is built in. It has a quad-core Atom processor, Windows 8.1, 32 GB of eMMC storage, 2 GB of RAM, HDMI, USB, a microSD slot and wireless 802.11b/g/n. All this for 149$. There is also a 1GB RAM/8GB memory Linux version priced at $89. Both arrive in march.

phplukbcw
Philips adds the Spotify Multiroom Adapter SW100M to its existing Spotify Connect lineup.

The adapter can be connected to existing audio systems through analog (RCA) or digital (coaxial, optical). Then you’ll be able to send music from your Spotify app on your smartphone to the adapter or send it to more than one Philips speaker/adapter in party mode.
It launches in Spring 2015.

omni-bar
Harman Kardon has a new addition to its Omni family of wireless audio products. The Omni Bar is a 2.1 soundbar and has its own wireless subwoofer. The system will cost $800 and arives in April 2015.

The Omni Bar connects to a TV through digital optical or HDMI, and connects to your home wi-fi network. It’s controlled with Harman Kardon’s Controller App. You can stream the same audio (including TV audio) to the rest of the Omni speakers in your system. As the rest of the Omni family, it supports playback of 24-bit/96kHz high-resolution audio.

The Omni system also gets more compatible services including Tidal, Qobuz, Tunein, Rhapsody and Juke, made available in April 2015.

Sony-SRS-X99
Sony announces multiple speakers, support for Google Cast and a new Song Link app to control them with in a multi-room environment, up to 10 wireless speakers/devices.

Among them, the new Sony SRS-X99 wireless speaker that has Hi-Res audio, 154 Watts, supports Google Cast, Spotify Connect, Bluetooth and NFC. The SRS-X99 also supports Hi-Res audio up to 24bit/192kHz.

Sony uses a new LDAC codec that, they claim, transmits data three times more efficiently than Bluetooth.

Multi-room

Harman Kardon Omni

Leave a comment

Omni 10

The Harman Kardon Wireless HD Audio System consists of the Omni 10 speaker, the Omni 20 speaker and the Adapt, for connection to an existing Hi-Fi system. They are controlled with the Harman Kardon Controller App for iOS and Android. As always, Sonos is the biggest contender that comes to mind.

Omni 10 and Omni 20

The Omni 10 is a Wi-Fi and Bluetooth speaker. It fills small to medium sized rooms with music up to HD quality. The Omni 20 is for larger rooms. Both supports 24bit / 96kHz HD audio streaming. They also got a 3.5 mm audio input.

Bluetooth

Connect a device to one speaker via Bluetooth and it can re-stream the same song through every other speaker in the system. Or play it on just one speaker.

Multi-room

The system supports up to 6 speakers which can be played individually, or linked together.

​Place two Omni speakers in the same room and link them together for 2.0 stereo sound, or add more speakers for a full 5.1 surround configuration. Future software updates will support more multi-channel configurations like 2.1 and 5.0.

Music sources

​Deezer and MixRadio are integrated on launch. Music on devices through Bluetooth.

Price

They will be released soon and has the following target prices: Omni 10, 199$. Omni 20, 299$. Adapt 129$.