The WiSA Association Blog www.wisaassociation.org

Established in 2011, the Wireless Speaker & Audio (WiSA) Association is an industry group dedicated to ensuring quality wireless connectivity by fostering interoperability certification testing between CE devices and high-performance wireless speakers.

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We Appreciated Your Support for WiSA Association at CES 2015!

Thanks to all of you who came by our suites at CES. We had the most successful CES to date. Attendees, press, analysts, WiSA members and potential members packed our two rooms to hear the latest demonstrations, see new products and learn about WiSA audio technology and member benefits. Not only were there demos in our suite, but Bang & Olufsen had an entire room of demos in the on the main floor of the Venetian. There were also demos of products on the LVCC floor from Klipsch and Sharp Analyst presentations from Futuresource. Others also highlighted WiSA as the high quality wireless technology for home theater applications.

We also had a nice reaction to news that we recently added 6 new members -- Aurender, Digital TV Labs, Gold Peak Electronics, LG Innotek, Vifa and WASP, bringing our total number of members to 36. More companies have made commitments to join as a result of discussions at CES so we hope you’ll stay tuned here through our website, blog and social channels for the latest!                                   

At the show we demonstrated new WiSA certified products from Enclave Audio and Klipsch and shared excellent sounding demo systems from Sharp and B&O. Check out these pictures we snapped from the show for you:

Klipsch's WiSA -enabled Reference Premiere Wireless Home Theater Speakers.

R: Sharp's Wireless Universal Player. L: Bang & Olufsen's tower speakers.

Enclave Audio's 5.1 system

We also demonstrated the latest home theater + multiroom technology with members Summit Semiconductor, Fostex and XTZ Cinema and our new member LG Innotek lent us working samples of their new transmit and receive modules.

We briefed over 24 reporters and industry analysts and have seen coverage in more than 25 publications, blogs, and broadcast outlets including CNET, Secrets of Home Theater & High Fidelity, Sound+Vision, CEPro and Digital Trends to name a few. You can always read the latest here on our website. The articles are segmented with tabs called “WiSA Association News” and “WiSA Member News.”

Tom and Linda chatting with Scott Wilkinson, reporter for the AVS Forum & Home Theater Geeks.

Download our WiSA Association technical whitepaper to learn more and contact our President, Tom Lee, if you’d like to work together to boost the impact of WiSA based products across the wireless audio market. He can be reached at [phone] or at [email protected].

Cheers, The WiSA Association team

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New Members & WiSA Certified Products Introduced at CES 2015

We’ve got lots of exciting news to share with you from CES here in Las Vegas!

First, we just added six new members. Joining the Association to promote the WiSA standard is: Aurender, Digital TV Labs, Gold Peak Electronics (HK) Ltd., LG Innotek, Vifa, and WASP. The addition of these new brands brings us to over 35 members and builds more momentum for the new products and technologies we’re introducing here at the show. Members now include global consumer and professional audio speaker brands, CE manufacturers, ODM and OEMs, guitar manufacturers and other industry associations.

Several of our members are announcing new WiSA certified products, modules and technologies here at CES as well and we’ll be providing demonstrations in the WiSA suite at the Venetian Hotel in room 30-226 from Tuesday, January 6th through Friday, January 9th. The products we’re showing from LG Innotek, Enclave Audio, Claridy Audio, Fostex, Klipsch, Bang & Olufsen, Sharp and Summit Semiconductor range from mass market speaker systems to high end speaker systems, multiroom applications and audio transmitter and receiver modules.

If you’re here in Vegas attending CES, we hope you'll stop by suite 30-226 in the Venetian to take a look at our demos and chat with us in more detail. If you have any questions, please contact WiSA Association President, Tom Lee at [email protected] or [phone].

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Is Home Theater Market Growth on the Fast Track?

At the Wireless Speaker and Audio (WiSA) Association we see significant growth in Home heater market over the next decade driven by Thin TV’s and embedded wireless audio solutions that simplify setup without sacrificing audio quality. Today, CEA data suggests that ~18% of consumers will purchase a Home Theater system within the first year of a TV purchase. What is interesting is that this number hasn’t changed significantly in the last 15 years since Home Theater in a box solutions were introduced. Why? From the WiSA membership we hear the following:

Home Theater setup is complex and intimidating to the average consumer

Majority systems purchased are still ≤5.1

Advanced 3D Codecs will require even more audio channels: up 12  for X, Y, and Z planes

The cost of professional installation can range from $600 - >$2,000

Drilling holes

Pulling speaker wire

Surround sound setup

Covenants may prevent drilling holes for installation (Apartments, Condo’s, Historical buildings)

Consumers are mobile. They want to be able to take the system with them if they move and not have to pay for a new installation and to re-wire everything. 

So you’ve just purchased a brand new 4K smart TV for your family room. You can stream content directly over the internet; view your collection of Blu-Ray discs and play games into the midnight hours on your PlayStation®. However, as the movie starts to play and you’re admiring the picture quality, you realize from 20 feet away you can’t understand a word they are saying. Desperately you attempt to turn up the volume realizing even at max volume it’s insufficient and the sound is easily distorted coming from the tiny speakers embedded in the thin profile TV. What next?

Well if you have an AV receiver and an understanding spouse, you can connect up to existing speakers or you can purchase the latest must-have accessory, the Soundbar, which at least allows you to hear the dialog again. Unfortunately, the vision of family movie nights watching blockbuster movies in full surround as in the theater just became more problematic. George Lucas once said audio makes up over 50% of movie experience. So what is the answer?

The complexity of installing your own surround system can be terrifying if you’re technically challenged, and hiring an installer to do the work for you can be cost prohibitive. The only solution that can simplify the complexity is a wireless Home Theater, but wireless has gotten a bad rap for being low quality and subject to interference from other wireless sources. To the contrary, WiSA has developed a test specification that defines a quality audio connection that is highly resilient to interference and supports Home Theater configurations up to 7.4 channels of high resolution 96 kHz 24 bit audio. Bang and Olufsen was the first high end audio company to deliver products last year based on this specification.

WiSA specification does more than just deliver high quality audio; it also preserves consumer choice between brands by certifying audio transmitters with different speaker brands that support WiSA. What this means to the consumer is that Home Theater setup is reduced to plugging your WiSA certified speakers into an outlet and powering on the transmitter. First time setup is reduced from a “hide the wires” construction project to a simple mobile app or on-screen-display on the TV that walks you through the process that takes minutes to complete. Place your speakers in the recommended Dolby or DTS locations if you can, but don’t worry if less obtrusive locations are preferred since a WiSA based system can adjust speaker delays and volume to make you feel like you’re always in the middle of the room.

Growth is driven by making what consumers believe to be impossible simple, and for Home Theater that transition is being driven by wireless connectivity and organizations such as WiSA. Integration of WiSA based technology into TV’s and other common consumer electronic platforms may give you the impression that the Home Theater market is shrinking, but the opposite is true. High touch big box Home Theater is being replaced by integrated wireless systems scalable from 2.0 to 7.4 configurations. In this case, Home Theater invisibility equals market acceptance with higher attach rates and accelerated growth. WiSA organization predicts that by 2017 wireless Home Theater will be standard equipment on TVs and AVR products with internet connectivity.

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Dolby Atmos® and its Applications for WiSA's Wireless Audio Technology

One of the most exciting and popular demonstrations at the recent CEDIA Expo show was Dolby’s ATMOS demo sound room.  Show attendees were literally lined up “around the block” to listen to the new object-oriented sound experience.   It was a very impressive demo with helicopters buzzing overhead and cars racing across the room.  It was the most life-like home theater sound that I have ever heard – much better sound than your average movie theater.   My personal feeling is that Dolby’s ATMOS object oriented audio standard is a perfect application for WiSA’s wireless audio technology.  For those members that are active speaker manufacturers this new Dolby audio standard opens up an entirely new market for you.  One of the issues with implementing Dolby ATMOS technology is a proliferation of wires.  In addition to forward firing speakers, Dolby ATMOS also requires up firing speakers (either integrated into the regular speaker or as a separate add-on speaker unit).  Suddenly, installers and homeowners are looking at running several more pairs of cumbersome (or impossible to route – especially in retrofit applications) wires around the room.    WiSA-enabled Dolby ATMOS speakers would have several key advantages – no wires (of course), exact speaker placement and from a WiSA speaker manufacturer point of view, a single WiSA receiver would be equipped with two separate channels that could send crystal-clear, high resolution audio to both the forward-firing as well as the up-firing speaker. This would keep the product implementation cost low and simple.   A WiSA enabled Dolby ATMOS speaker product would solve the consumer wiring issue, would produce amazing sound and would enable you to build a leading edge, highly differentiated product.  WiSA is developing an interesting reference design that will make it easy for Dolby ATMOS enabled AVR products to send this new audio standard to WiSA compliant speakers.  Look for more news on this enabling reference design development at CES.   If you are interested in talking in more detail about using WiSA technology for a Dolby ATMOS speaker product, please drop me an email at tlee AT wisaassociaton.org.  I am looking forward to discussing this exciting use of WiSA technology.

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Do high-end loudspeaker cables really make that much difference in the quality of the audio you are listening to?

I know this is a very controversial topic amongst audiophiles. There are those who swear that the higher the quality of the copper used in making the speaker cable and being married to the right outer coating and shielding along with the right thickness for the distance between speakers and the AVR definitely makes a big difference. But with prices ranging from a few cents per foot for the Home Depot crowd (average consumer) to somewhere in the vicinity of $2,500 per foot for those where price is no object, one would think the difference would be in the orders of magnitude.  But that’s not what my anecdotal research tells me; there are people swearing to the validly of their position on both ends of the spectrum.    

What I’d like to do is for us to step out of that controversy and enter into what I think is a more fun discussion about the difference between wired speakers and speakers that don’t need cables, cheap or expensive.  What if you could get the quality of the audio you want and expect out of your favorite brand of speakers by merely plugging them into an electrical outlet? They would receive a signal from a transmitter device built into a TV, AVR, set top box, game console or other transmitting device.  The transmitted signal would be on par with or better than the quality of the audio you get at the newest cinemas coming to market today with the most updated equipment. Wouldn’t that be better?  I’m not talking about Bluetooth gadget speakers here.  I’m talking about the type of speakers you would want to listen to your favorite music or watch the latest release of House of Cards.  

As an added bonus with wireless speakers, if you want to rearrange your media room, living room, or home theater you simply unplug the speakers, put them where you want them, plug them back in, turn the system back on and you’re done.  No need to re-pull wires.  What if you decided to move to a new house or a new city?  You wouldn’t be leaving hundreds if not thousands of dollars worth of wire and installation cost behind.  Just pack up and go!

What am I really talking about here is a technology that can emit 24bit and up to 96Khz of audio without any compression; without any interference; with multi-channel capability; and with multi-brand interoperability, that is simple to setup and use.  I think that’s pretty neat.  Don’t you?

Well, this is exactly what the WiSA organization is doing through an association of over 30 brands.  They are bypassing the go-it-alone strategy and are opting to band together to standardize the wireless interface between those transmitting devices like I mentioned above and  “cableless” speakers.  Manufacturers are already bringing WiSA-compliant products to market with many more to come in the months ahead.

Many of you, if not all of you, are familiar with Bang & Olufsen.  They are the premiere manufacturer of high-quality, designed focused speakers, TVs and other devices.  They were so impressed with the charter of the WiSA Association and the underlying technology that they have brought to market no less than four new WiSA–compliant products.  Sharp Corporation who sees the trend toward wireless devices is also bringing a WiSA-compliant product to market this month that will set a new standard for wireless connectivity between their high resolution wireless audio media player and WiSA-compliant speakers.

The question is this: If there are wireless speakers out there that can deliver the quality of audio that you expect,  without interference, glitches, and dropouts, would you consider buying them? If not, why not?

We would like to know your thoughts.

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The WiSA Association Rocked CEDIA 2014 - Here’s a Look at our Favorite Moments

Whether you were able to attend CEDIA Expo in Denver earlier this month or not, chances are you followed the buzz. We had a great time meeting hundreds of show attendees, connecting with WiSA members and providing demos of wireless home theater and multi-zone audio capabilities in sound room 13. Here’s a look at our sound room set up, made possible by the following WiSA Association members: Bang & Olufsen, who provided their WiSA complaint Beolab 20 speakers and the Beovision Avant TV, Sharp, with theirWiSA compliant Wireless High Resolution Audio Player, Claridy Audio supplied their brand new WiSA compliant XTZ cinema series home theater speakers and Hansong for their 5.1 WiSA compliant surround sound system.

Summit Semiconductor incorporated the extended distance modules into prototype speakers from WiSA members, Klipsch and Paradigm, for the technology demonstrations of our multi-zone whole house capabilities.

Did you catch any of our press coverage from the CEDIA Expo yet? We hosted briefings with 16 reporters! The latest articles featuring WiSA Association at CEDIA include Robert Kozel’s show recap from Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity and Scott Wilkinson’s article on AVS Forum. We expect more coverage in the weeks to come and we’ll be posting everything to our website, so stay tuned.

CEDIA was also a good opportunity for us to continue to get the word out about our Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn communities. We use these channels to spread the latest news about the WiSA Association, our members and to share industry news, research and trends.

Our participation in key industry events like CEDIA, as well as our PR, marketing and social media efforts are all aimed at promoting products and the broad adoption of WiSA product interoperability. To continue that commitment our president, Tom Lee will participate in Futuresource’s Audio Renaissance: Market Dynamics in the New Audio Age” event in London, England, October 23, 2014 as a panelist, along with Piet Coelewij, Managing Director, Sonos and Jeff Hughes, CEO, Omnifone.

Want to learn more about the WiSA Association? Download our whitepaper and click here to read about all our WiSA membership benefits.

We always welcome your feedback and questions. Please contact:

Gaelen O'Connell Editor, Social Media WiSA Association [email protected]

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WiSA Presents InfoComm Webinar on Wireless Surround Sound Audio Transmission

President of the Wireless Speaker and Audio (WiSA®) Association, Tom Lee, presented an InfoComm webinar yesterday: “Wireless Surround Sound Audio Transmission Using Dynamic Frequency Selection to Achieve Interference-Free Connection.” We had a great turnout, 290 attendees! If you weren’t able to attend live, we’re sorry we missed you, but you can catch the recording at your leisure here. In this webinar you’ll learn: ● A bit more about the WiSA Association ● A look at how wireless audio technologies have progressed over the years ● The wireless audio options you have today, from Bluetooth, 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz Wi-Fi, and 5GHz UNII (unlicensed national information infrastructure) band, utilizing Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) channels, which enables 24-bit uncompressed wireless audio at 96kHz that WiSA uses in its specifications ● How WiSA is currently testing its newest specification that addresses home theater and multizone/whole house capabilities using the DFS - through walls, up to a 100 meters line of sight to produce crystal clear wireless high resolution audio ● Differences between personal audio, Wi-Fi streaming services and multichannel home theater ● Answers to your burning questions about wireless audio

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Hello from the New WiSA Association President

Hello from WiSA Association! My name is Tom Lee and I am your new President.  If we haven’t already spoken I am sure that we will have a phone conversation in the coming days.  I have been on the job now for a little over three weeks.  I am quickly learning a great deal about WiSA, our members and the tasks ahead of me.

I’d like to share a bit about my career, background and the path that led me to this new exciting position.  As difficult as it is to admit at times, I have been in the technology industry for over 35 years and have seen many changes – especially in the world of audio.

In my early days I worked for Intel in a number of progressively senior marketing and business development roles.  I spent most of those Intel years in Hillsboro, Oregon (in fact, I grew up in Oregon and attended the University of Oregon studying Computer Science and Finance).  I was also fortunate to get an international assignment for about two years running marketing for Intel’s System Group in Japan. It was great getting exposure to the international business environment and culture.

I had the desire to try a startup, so in the mid-90’s I moved my family to Texas where I was part of a team that took one of the world’s first 3D printing companies  (DTM Corporation) public through a NASDAQ IPO.

I also spent many years working at Cirrus Logic learning about the pro and consumer audio business.  I ran the audio DSP marketing organization as well as the ARM MCU group -- defining products and taking them into the market.  Much of the MCU business was targeted at consumer and pro audio products so I’m sure that I have already met some of you over the years.

I have spent the last several years in senior roles in a number of startup companies developing semiconductor products for high volume consumer markets.

My specialty is  developing innovative approaches for taking new technology products to  market.  Determining the best way to explain and sell technology in terms that consumers will understand is a real challenge and huge focus of mine as your new President of WiSA Association.

In addition to my business background in audio I also have a personal interest/hobby in audio technology and music.  Please excuse me ahead of time if I ask too many questions about your products.

I am looking forward to meeting all of you in person over the coming weeks.  I hope to see many of you at CEDIA 2014 in Denver on September 11 – 13, 2014 or at CES 2015 on January 6 –9 in Las Vegas.

You will be seeing increased communication from the WiSA Association in the coming weeks.  I will be keeping all of you up to date on our expanding membership, new working committees, updated versions of the compliance test specification addressing whole home and Pro AV, audio industry education,  marketing and education programs and important news on what is going on in the competitive wireless audio landscape. The Association needs to play a much larger role to be meaningful for your company beyond publishing an interoperability specification and attending trade shows.  In the coming weeks I will be asking for your feedback and sharing my ideas about how to add more value to our partnership.

I am excited about the new opportunity and I am dedicated to building a large and successful ecosystem of WiSA compliant products.

Please contact me any time if you have questions, ideas or feedback about the WiSA Association:

Tom Lee

[email protected]

[phone]

skype: thomas_l_lee

By the way, we also have a new office address for receiving mail:

WiSA Association

458 Market Street

Suite 7-1026

San Francisco, California 94104

Regards,

Tom Lee

President, WiSA Association

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CE Week Was A Smashing Success!

Hello from the WiSA Association! We had a strong showing at CE Week in New York last week. We spoke with over 40 reporters, received some great press coverage and spoke with a variety of attendees and exhibitors.

We were thrilled to demo the Sharp Wireless High Resolution Audio Player SD-WH1000U, named favorite show discovery by Kalman Rubinson of Stereophile Magazine.

We also got to introduce booth visitors to Bang & Olufsen’s newest WiSA-compliant high-end wireless speakers, the BeoLab 20 and check out their new Madison Avenue retail store.

Both the Universal Player and BeoLab 20 were covered on this Twit TV Home Theater Geeks episode by Scott Wilkinson so you can get the full scoop, even if you weren’t able to make the show!  Look for Jodi Sally of Sharp at minute 5:30 for more on the Audio Player and minute 55:10 for WiSA Association speaking with Dave Zapfel of Bang & Olufsen.

Reporters and attendees were also abuzz about WiSA’s emerging speaker technology that will pump sound wirelessly through three walls.

Thanks again to all who supported us and our CE Week efforts! And please look for us at the upcoming CEDIA 2014 show.

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Get Ready New York, Here We Come!

Those of you who are plugged in to what is going on in consumer electronics know that CE Week is coming up pretty quickly.  While certainly not the largest of consumer electronics exhibitions by any stretch of the imagination, it is, nonetheless, one of the important ones.  For starters, it is in New York City, the crossroad of the world. Everybody knows how to get to NYC.  Secondly, it is a mecca for the influential press that covers the latest happenings in the industry. It is where fashion meets technology showcasing the latest wearable technology.  So if you have a new technology, gadget, or product rollout, CE Week is the place to be.

The WiSA Association will, once again, be attending CE Week and this time we will be showcasing WiSA-compliant products that are actually on the market; you can buy them today! At previous events, we were only able to demo prototype systems with the promise that products will be available “in the near future.”

Bang & Olufsen, a WiSA Member, have loaned us a pair of their recently announced WiSA-compliant BeoLab 20 speakers. We will team this up with the Sharp SD WH-1000U WiSA-compliant High Resolution Wireless Audio player as our featured demo. Both members will have their own exhibits and press events showcasing their WiSA products.   

CE Week will only last a couple of days but it is shaping up to be quite an intense couple of days for sure.

There has been a lot of industry curiosity surrounding the efforts of the WiSA Association with membership doubling year-over-year.  And, we will be announcing several new brands in the coming weeks.  However, , I guess the real question is: Is the migration to wireless for high-resolution audio as inevitable as all the other devices that have moved on to wireless?

- WiSA Association President, Jim Venable

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WiSA Association Rocked Wireless Hi-Res Audio at InfoComm14

Thanks to everyone who attended and showed their support to WiSA Association at InfoComm14 earlier this week. We had a fantastic presentation with Pete Putman on "Future Technologies, Smart Display Interfaces: The Next Generation and Wireless AV" - over 300 people attended.

InfoComm14 also served as a coming out party for Bang & Olufsen's BeoLab 20, which got rave reviews from attendees. We're off to CE Week next week to keep the momentum going and people buzzing. Cheers to taking wireless technologies to new levels!

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Join WiSA at CE Week for wireless high-resolution audio system demo

A leader in the wireless high-resolution audio category, WiSA Association is proud to announce our second appearance at CE Week in New York City, NY from June 25-26, 2014.

The market shift towards wireless audio has developed some exciting new products. We’re thrilled to be just one of many CE Week exhibitors taking wireless technologies to new levels and giving you a personal sneak peek at the show!

Visit us at booth #108 in the Altman Building to experience Sharp’s SD-WH1000U, the first WiSA-certified High Resolution Wireless Audio component, transmitting both audio and video. We’ll be demonstrating the Sharp player with Bang & Olufsen’s newest WiSA-compliant high-end wireless speakers, the  BeoLab 20s.

WiSA-compliant products go beyond other wireless technologies on the market like Bluetooth, AirPlay, Wi-Fi, etc. to offer 24-bit music and video games in their original sampling rate, up to 96kHz - no compression, no dropouts, just pure interference-free, HD-quality sound.

Planning on attending CE Week? Let us know in advance by leaving a comment here on our blog and/or contacting Linda Ferguson at lferguson AT wisaassociation.org. We look forward to seeing you at the show!

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You Say You Want Wireless High Resolution Audio for ProAV? Check Out The WiSA Association’s Vision at InfoComm!

The Wireless Speaker & Audio (WiSA™) Association is gearing up for another great year at InfoComm and we’re looking forward to seeing you in Las Vegas the week of June 16th!

We know our way around the home theater space and we’ve felt the strong pull by the ProAV community for high resolution wireless speakers for quite some time. We think ProAV wants the same things as the home theater market: convenience, cost savings, simple set up and teardown, reliability, and, more importantly, interference-free wireless interoperability.

This will be the third year in a row that industry luminary, Pete Putman, contributing editor, Sound and Communications, editor of HDTV Experts.com invites WiSA Association president Jim Venable, to demonstrate WiSA-compliant products as part of his AV wireless presentation. Jim will be demonstrating the brand new WiSA-compliant Bang & Olufsen BeoLab 20 speakers and engaging with attendees to hear how WiSA-compliant gear could overcome challenges facing the ProAV market.

Join us for “Future Technologies, Smart Display Interfaces: The Next Generation and Wireless AV” on Tuesday, June 17th at 10am. Pete will speak about the progress wireless high-bandwidth display and audio connectivity have made in coming to market and the battle between proprietary standards and conventional 802.xx-based systems. He will be giving you the full scoop on:

How well they actually work

Where can you use them

Interference and spectrum challenges the systems face

WiSA’s roadmap for addressing key needs for the Pro market - what we’ve done, what the requirements are and what WiSA technology will support.

They’ll also answer all your burning questions and, of course, you’ll want to be there for their live demos!

We’ll be sharing some exciting plans for our summer, including information on a product the high-end custom install market is going to love from one of our very own WiSA members.

That’s the update on all of our plans. Tell us, will YOU be at InfoComm14, too? If so, what gets you most excited about the idea of wireless in the ProAV space?

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WiSA Association to Showcase WiSA-compliant Products in Amsterdam at Integrated Systems Europe 2014

By Jim Venable, President, WiSA LLC.

We are barely done with a very successful CES in Las Vegas and now we’ll be off to Integrated Systems Europe in Amsterdam this coming Saturday 1 February 2014.  The Association will once again have a sound room where we’ll be demonstrating the industry leading Bang & Olufsen 7.1 WiSA-compliant system.  This system was such a stunning hit at CES; totally blowing everyone’s mind at how such extraordinary, robust sound could be coming from a wireless system.  Many thanks to the B&O team for assisting us in getting everything we needed for a successful demo at CES and ISE.   

Additionally, we will also be showing a 5.1 demo provided by members Accusound and Hansong. This system shows how one can get a high resolution, beautifully rich sound from such a compact, cost-effective product.  Truly amazing.

For those of you who are not familiar with ISE, this is a show sponsored by CEDIA and InfoComm drawing approximately 50,000 attendees with exhibits spread over 12 buildings.  Last year we had about 500 people that came through our sound room area over a three day period and with the expected increase in attendance this year, we are planning for even more. It should be another great show for the WiSA Association as we continue to build the momentum toward industry-wide adoption.

The WiSA Association sound room is located at 7-R170 in the Amsterdam RAI, NL.  The ISE 2014 show runs from 4 February through 6 February. Please stop by to hear a demonstration if you are there! J.V.

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The WiSA Association Demonstrates Award-Winning Products and Sets Roadmap At #CES2014

By WiSA Staff Writers

The Wireless Speaker and Audio (WiSA) Association demonstrated a variety of new high-resolution audio (24-bit / 96 KHz) products from their Members at #CES2014 including the Sharp Universal Player with built in WiSA transmitter, the Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 11 TV, also with a built-in transmitter, and the Beolab 17, 18, and 19 speakers, the first WiSA-compliant speakers on the market. B&O also introduced some WiSA-compliant accessories at CES to bring high-resolution wireless audio to legacy B&O speakers: the BeoLab Transmitter 1 and BeoLab Receiver 1. The Sharp Universal Player with WiSA transmitter and the B&O Beolab 17 and 19 models all won CES Innovation 2014 awards.

WiSA also showcased a new compact 5.1 wireless surround sound bookshelf speaker system from Accusound, scheduled to shipping to 500 Australian retail locations later this quarter.  By utilizing adjoining suites on the 30th floor of the Venetian Tower, the WiSA Association was able to simultaneously demonstrate three complete wireless audio systems, each transmitting up to 8 audio channels.

One of the new WiSA-compliant products that may have slipped under your ‘CES radar’ was the new WiSA-compliant Wireless Audio Bridge from Sharp. This device directly answers the question that many consumers and AV installers have asked numerous times at industry trade shows, where the consumer already purchased stereo speakers and an amp or receiver that they want to keep, but they also want to upgrade to 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound. The Sharp wireless audio bridge is a WiSA-compliant receiver that only requires AC power and outputs line level audio received from any WiSA-compliant transmitter.

On Thursday January 9, 2014, more than twenty executives and engineers from the WiSA Association Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) met to discuss their next steps in high resolution wireless audio. The WiSA TAC established two special interest groups (SIGs) within the WiSA Association, to address two distinct vertical markets:

Whole-Home / Multi-Zone Wireless Audio SIG

Professional and Commercial Wireless Audio SIG

We want to thank our WiSA Members, our Technical Advisory Committee, and everyone who stopped by the WiSA Association suite at the 2014 International Consumer Electronics Show. And special thanks to Stephen Rochlin from EnjoyThe Music.com, who managed to interview Jim Venable in the 2014 CES WiSA demo suite, without actually visiting the WiSA demo suite or even being in Las Vegas!:

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Visit The WiSA Association at #CES2014 In Suite 30-226 Of The Venetian Towers

By WiSA Staff Writers

Once again, the Wireless Speaker and Audio (WiSA) Association is gearing up for the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada on January 7-10, 2014.  We will be unveiling some new wireless products, and demonstrating high-definition wireless surround sound audiovisual systems from WiSA member companies, including Accusound, Bang & Olufsen, Hansong, and Sharp.

Speaking of WiSA members, we are happy to welcome three new brands: Anaview,  Danville Signal Processing, and Tymphany, as official Members of the WiSA Association. The Association’s membership has steadily grown from 10 companies in 2012 to 23 brands in 2013.  In addition to the three new members, the Association includes: Amber Technology, Accusound, Bang and Olufsen, Ceton, Dali, Definitive Technology, GGEC, Gibson, Hansong Technology, Klipsch, Martin Logan, Meiloon, Nyne, Onkyo, Paradigm, Pioneer, Polk Audio, Silicon Image, Summit Semiconductor, TEAC, and Sam Runco.

Let’s get back to CES2014.  Similar to last year, we will have two adjoining rooms in our demonstration suite, with a working door in between the rooms, so that multiple wireless surround sound systems can be demonstrated at one time. We will have a total of three systems working concurrently at CES, each with multiple WiSA-compliant components. So how does each of the three systems know which wireless speakers to “talk to”?  Well, it’s all about the setup!  By bringing up the three systems one at a time, the transmitters always know which speakers are on their Dynamic Frequency Selection channel.  Then, each system works as a “team”, automatically jumping to an open DFS channel simultaneously if any interference is detected.

In the first room, we will be showing two systems, each comprised of components from different WiSA Members.  This shows the interoperability of WiSA-certified products, so consumers are free to mix and match speakers, TVs, and sources from different WiSA brands.  For example, the first demonstration system will be using a normal 1080p HDTV with a Hansong HDMI adapter as the WiSA wireless audio transmitter.  The Hansong HDMI adapter will transmit the audio to a 5.1 Accusound speaker system.

In that same room, but on a lower level, we will be showing the new Sharp Universal WiSA Player, which will be transmitting wireless audio to Bang & Olufsen’s new Beolab 17 speakers, announced in October 2013.  The Sharp Universal Player will also be transmitting wireless video to an 80” Sharp Aquos display. The Sharp Universal player can play Blu-ray discs, stream audio and video directly from the internet, and also includes a hard drive to store your media files locally.

The second room of our WiSA Suite will be completely dedicated to Bang & Olufsen.  The HD television display will be B&O’s BeoVision 11, a work of art in and of itself.   This display will send the surround sound audio wirelessly to the new Beolab 17, Beolab 18 and Beolab 19 speakers. 

If you are a loudspeaker brand, or audiovisual manufacturer, , and would like to setup a special meeting with the WiSA Association, please contact Jim Venable, President of the WiSA Association, at [email protected]. If you are with the media, please email Linda Ferguson, PR Counsel, at [email protected].  Otherwise, just stop by our Suite 30-226 of the Venetian Towers.

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CES Awards Go To WiSA-Enabled Products

By Jim Venable, President, WiSA LLC.

It was a pretty good week for the WiSA Association and a couple of our members.  Bang and Olufsen was awarded two honorees from the International CES: CES Best of Innovation 2014 award for their recently announced BeoLab 18 wireless  tower speaker and the CES Innovations 2014 Design and Engineering award for their BeoLab 17 compact wireless speaker.  Both products leverage the WiSA standard for multi-channel wireless sound and are available through Bang & Olufsen’s company stores and their dealer network worldwide.

Sharp Corporation was also awarded the CES Innovations 2014 Design and Engineering award for their new WiSA-enabled Universal Player which they plan to introduce at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show  in Las Vegas. The player transmits 24bit, 96Khz audio wireless to any WiSA-compliant speaker systems.

These prestigious awards are sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association who produces the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.  The WiSA Association will be showing a complete 7.1 Bang & Olufsen wireless system as well as the Sharp Universal Player at this year’s event starting January 7th and running through the 10th at the Venetian hotel. Make plans to stop buy and be prepared to be WOWed.