Tag Archives: sony

Mobile Google Cast and Spotify Connect with Sony h.ear go

April 12, 2016 admin Leave a comment

sony h.ear go

Sony h.ear go is a wireless mobile speaker in their multi-room line that you can take with you and play music on the go. You stream music to it through Google Cast, Spotify Connect and Bluetooth. It also has a line in for old school connections. It outputs 12W+12W. The battery lasts up to 12 hours and it even supports high resolution audio, even though it may be on the small side for you to actually hear the difference. So have it at home as part of you ordinary multi-room setup and bring it with you on your trips. A great addition to the Sony lineup.

Oh, and it comes in lime, pink, blue, red and black. The price is 199$.

Multi-room

Multi-room news from ces 2016 part 2

January 6, 2016 admin Leave a comment

Read part 1 here.

srs-zr7

Sony has announced two new wireless speakers. The SRS-ZR7 with four built-in speakers, Hi-Res audio playback, support for Google Cast, Spotify Connect and Multi-room capability through the SongPal app. SRS-ZR7 also has HDMI with ARC so it can be connected to a TV to play Dolby Digital/DTS audio.

The SRS-ZR5 is smaller than its big brother but has the same features except that it lacks Hi-Res audio support and instead has Bluetooth with LDAC and NFC support.

They are both available in spring 2016.

ht-nt53-large

Sony also has two new sound bars that both has Multi-room support in the same way as their wireless speakers. The HT-NT5 sound bar with a wireless subwoofer has Hi-Res Audio playback, support for 4K content,HDR via HDMI HDCP 2.2. The HT-CT790 has similar specs and a few more HDMI inputs.

str-dn1070front-mid

Finally Sony upgrades its A/V receiver line with the STR-DN1070 A/V receiver. It has a new DAC with support for DSD native playback of High-res Audio files. It has 8 HDMI ports (6 in/2 out) with HDCP 2.2 for 4K/60p thus supporting 4K and HDR content. It has support for Sony’s other multi-room speakers, AirPlay, Bluetooth, Google Cast and Spotify Connect. So they all play nice together through the SongPal app.

In all, impressive upgrades across the multi-room product line by Sony.

Libratone

libratone_zipp_cph_edition

Libratone Zipp now comes in an updated design, the Copenhagen edition. The wireless multi-room speakers technology was updated a few months ago and has 360 audio, AirPlay, Spotify Connect, Bluetooth (APTX) and DLNA. The new covers comes in Salty Grey, Pepper Black, Raspberry Red and Steel Blue.

Samsung

Samsung_radiant

Samsung has its Radiant wireless multi-room audio speakers and will launch four new sound bars that will be a part of Samsung’s wireless multiroom-audio system. No mention of their product names yet, exempt for the HW-K950 mentioned in yesterday’s post. They have also added support for the streaming services SiriusXM and Tidal.

All multi-room products will become part of Samsung’s home-automation network controlled by their new line of TVs, that will be home automation hubs.

Intel Compute Stick

If you want to build your own multi-room device based on windows 10, then the new Intel Compute stick line is something to look closer at. The entry level atom has twice the power of last years top device and they have also added the m3 and m5 with even better cpus paired with 4 gig ram and 64 gig on board storage. So with HDMI output and two real USB ports, you can easily play Hi-res audio, stream Spotify and AirPlay, with the right software of course.

Multi-room

3 Home theater receivers with multiroom and 4k under 499$

October 7, 2015 admin Leave a comment

The living room audio Receiver can be the most powerful part of your multiroom setup or its achilles heel. Any decent receiver connected to a pair of decent speakers can output higher quality music than most stand alone multiroom speakers. But what good will it do if they lack multiroom technology?

Im currently in the market for a new home theater receiver and multiroom support is a must. Along with support for 4K UHD, Audio return channel, 7.2 surround, HDMI 2.0, HDCP 2.2 and decoding of the usual HD audio formats. But without multiroom techniques, it would end up collecting dust for most part. Or i would have to buy an external streaming player and connect it to the receiver.

So let’s take a closer look at three receivers that supports the criterias above:

Denon AVR-X1200W

AVR-X1200W is part of Denons 2015 lineup and has Spotify Connect, AirPlay, Bluetooth and DLNA 1.5. Denons own Heos system is not built in. X1200W can drive speakers in a second zone if not all 7 speakers are in use for your home theater setup.

The output is 80W at 8 ohm. It has basic support for DTS Atmos (5.2.2), which can bring 3D surround with ceiling speakers. DTS X will come in a firmware update later this year.

Sony STR-DN860

sony-str-dn860

The STR-DN860 has Google Cast, AirPlay, Spotify Connect, Bluetooth and DLNA. The STR-DN860 is fully integrated with Sonys multiroom system so it can be grouped together with Sony stand alone speakers, in their Song pal link app, to play music in party mode.

The output is 95W at 8 ohm. It also has Miracast. STR-DN860 does not have Dolby Atmos.

Onkyo TX-NR545

onkyo-tx-nr545

The TX-NR545 has Spotify Connect, AirPlay, DLNA and Bluetooth. Which are the same techniques that the AVR-X1200W supports.

The output is 65W at 8 ohm. TX-NR545 has basic Dolby Atmos support (5.2.2) in that two of its 7 speakers can be used for it. The TX-NR545 does not have DTS X.

Conclusion

From a multiroom perspective, the STR-DN860 is the strongest receiver with its support for Google Cast, AirPlay, Spotify Connect, Bluetooth, DLNA and works well with Sonys other multiroom products. The other two supports the same, except Google Cast.

From a home theater perspective, the AVR-X1200W is the strongest receiver with both Dolby Atmos and DTS X support. The TX-NR545 comes second, due to its Dolby Atmos support and the STR-DN860 third. Even though they all support the usual HD formats.

So the AVR-X1200W from Denon seems like the best overall choice, when weighing in both multiroom and home theater aspects. With the STR-DN860 from Sony as close runner up due to its even stronger multiroom support. But maybe the better integration with the other Sony products (and Google Cast) makes me go in that direction. Its a hard choice.

Multi-room

New Sony devices with Airplay and Spotify Connect

September 12, 2015 admin Leave a comment

Sony has released three new wireless multiroom speakers that makes them a serious market contender. They are SRS-X77, SRS-X88 and SRS-X99. All three has support for all major streaming technologies: AirPlay, Google Cast, Spotify Connect, Bluetooth, NFC and DLNA. SRS-X88 and SRS-X99 also supports Hi-Resolution audio. They can be used one at a time or grouped together in the Song pal link app for iOS and Android. The HT-ST9 and HT-NT3 sound bars and STR-DN1060 and STR-DN860 A/V receivers also has the same functionality.

SRS-X88 and SRS-X99 support playback of a wide variety of Hi-Resolution audio including MP3, WMA, AAC, WAV, FLAC, AIFF, ALAC and DSD. You can also attach an external hard drive to the speakers through USB. SRS-X77 has a battery so it is mobile.

The SRS-X99 has 154 Watts and seven speakers: Two super tweeters, two front tweeters, two mid-range drivers and a single subwoofer.

The SRS-X88 has 90 Watts and five speakers: Two front tweeters, two mid-range drivers and a single subwoofer.

The SRS-X77 has 40 Watts and three speakers: Two front tweeters, a subwoofer and dual passive radiators.

The HT-ST9 and HT-NT3 sound bars and STR-DN1060 and STR-DN860 A/V receivers supports the same techniques and audio formats as the three new speakers and all seven units can be used together in the app.

So how do we compare this with Sonos? Sony has stronger hardware with support for hi res audio and all major streaming technologies. Sonys app is limited to grouping the speakers. The market leader Sonos has moderate hardware, that lacks hi res audio and manny technologies that Sony supports but instead has strong software that can handle almost any streaming service and scenario out there in a refined manner, with different songs playing in different zones from the same controller. So which of those two are best for a customer that wants to play multiroom music in the easiest and most powerful way? The boring answer is that it depends on how you want to use it. Both will handle the most scenarios but in different ways.

Multi-room

CES Multi-room News part 3

January 7, 2015 admin Leave a comment

Read part 1 here and part 2 here.

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.