Recently Published AV News

While you need at least a pair of height speakers and a new A/V receiver to enjoy the benefits of Dolby Atmos, the theory was that you didn't need to upgrade your Blu-ray player. However, we've found that users of some older model BD players may experience audio dropouts with some TrueHD and Atmos tracks. The issue relates to a feature called Seamless Branching, which was added to Dolby TrueHD after the original spec, (not to mention quite a few Blu-ray players), was released.

Back on October 21st, Sonos co-founder and general counsel Craig Shelburne announced the company would be suing D&M Holdings over Denon's new HEOS wireless speakers. The full complaint discusses four patents that Denon violated, and also notes that in some cases, Denon appeared to simply copy/paste much of Sonos' product literature. While D&M has been relatively quiet about the subject, their CEO Jim Caudill has released an official statement.

Back in February we interviewed SVS CEO Gary Yacoubian on the AV Rant Podcast. He stated that he was pushing to get SVS into more stores. We never would have imagined that he'd be so successful. Today, SVS announced their subwoofers will now be carried by Magnolia Design Centers. Yes, the ones inside Best Buy. All-in-all, this looks to be a great thing for SVS to increase their brand recognition and probably a great draw for Magnolia stores to access customers that usually buy online.

XTZ debuted their wireless Cinema Series home theater at the 2014 CEDIA Expo in Denver. The system is built around WiSA's interoperability standards, and features Summit wireless modules which can transmit up to 96kHz/24 bit resolution. The folks at WiSA also have some news including some new technical wizardry, a new president, and more members. Want to know all the details? Click to keep reading.

Recently there were reports that Pioneer would sell its home audio-video arm to Hong Kong-based Baring Private Equity Asia and Pioneer’s Japanese rival Onkyo Corp. Baring was said to acquire 51% of Pioneer with the rest to be divided at a later date. It's now September and new information has been released about the deal. Baring has pulled out of the deal and taken their cash with them. This has resulted in Pioneer selling directly Onkyo in exchange for a 14.95% stake in Onkyo. Both brands will be maintained after the sale, according to the companies. We'll keep an eye on this deal and let you know the details as they emerge.

After a short hiatus, Panasonic is bringing back the Technics marque. Announced at the IFA show in Berlin, Panasonic unleashed two new lineups, the R1 Reference series and the C700 Premium series. A full C700 setup will run approximately $5,250, while a R1 system will cost roughly 10X that amount. Panasonic also has some new technology to unveil, including a graphite tweeter capable of extending out to 100kHz as well as an advanced Class D amplifier design. Want to know all the details? Click to keep reading!

On June 24th, Pioneer officially announced they will be selling their home A/V electronics subsidiary. What does that mean for consumers? Not a whole lot at this time. New Pioneer branded A/V receivers and loudspeakers will continue to roll out, including Dolby Atmos compatible models. Moreover, with an alliance between Pioneer and Onkyo , Pioneer Home Electronics should emerge as a stronger, leaner competitor.

It's official: D&M subsidiaries Marantz and Denon have jumped on the Dolby Atmos train. Between the two companies, three new A/V receivers and one pre/pro have been announced with Atmos support. How many channels of audio are needed to pull this off you ask? The Denon AVR-X4100W and Marantz SR7009 will boast 9.x channels of audio, while the Denon AVR-X5200W and Marantz AV7702 will support up to 11.x channels of sound. Want to know more about the supported configurations? Click to keep reading!

Back on May 28th, Apple put out an official notice they would be buying Beats Music & Beats Electronics for the tidy sum of 3 billion dollars. Now it looks like the Cupertino based company has more news: a new headphone connector standard based on the Lightning port currently used to transfer data and charge iDevices. Apple touts several advantages of this new standard, including improved audio quality and being able to eliminate the current 3.5mm headphone jack to reclaim internal space. Surely the ability to lock out third party headphone manufacturers or charge exorbitant licensing fees never crossed their minds, right? Click to read all the details.

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The HDBaseT Alliance added a new member on April 7th, Canadian A/V distribution hardware manufacturer MuxLab Inc. For those unfamiliar with HDBaseT, it is a standard for passing HD audio / video content, Ethernet, and up to 100W of power over a single CAT5e or CAT6 cable. Joining the Alliance brings useful benefits to MuxLab, not the least of which is ensuring product compatibility with other manufacturers. Curious to know more? Click to read the whole scoop.

Unlike most cable companies, hardware seems to be an area of innovation for DISH. This week, they announced an add-on to the Hopper Whole-Home HD DVR platform which increases the tuner capacity of the Hopper experience. Specifically, the Super Joey adds two more network tuners to the Hopper’s three native tuners, allowing you to now record up to eight shows simultaneously. This, combined with the Prime Time Anywhere feature all but eliminates channel conflicts and lets you record just about anything anywhere.

DISH announced this week that its recently upgraded DISH Anywhere app can now be downloaded for free for the Kindle Fire HDX tablet. Of course the app continues to be available on Android and iOS devices, but now DISH customer have even more options for watching content when away from home.

Yamaha is pleased to announce that Spotify Connect firmware is now available for its 2013 network AV receivers and their flagship CX-A5000 AV processor. With Spotify offering superior audio sampling rates, along with Yamaha’s legendary Natural Sound, users can expect to get the highest-quality audio playback from their AV receivers.