The multi-zone requirements and feature set have been defined by WiSA Association member companies over the last six months, to add simultaneous support of both wireless home theater playback and multi-zone stereo audio streams. The new WiSA extended distance compliance and testing specification offers multi-zone capability, simplifies audio setup for home theater and whole house to a single system, “providing more than enough capability to meet the most discriminating audio enthusiast needs.”
In addition to offering the best in class wireless audio home-theater solution, scalable to 7.1, the new multi-zone capabilities include support for up to 8 separate zones and 32 speakers with a single transmitter. WiSA compliant systems will deliver high resolution, uncompressed audio, up to 100 meters line of sight or 20 to 40 meters through walls. Advanced signal processing technology keeps speakers synchronised to an industry leading 1 micro second, eliminating annoying room-to-room audio phase differences. WiSA compliant multi-zone products will be available from member companies in 2015.
According to Tom Lee, president of the WiSA Association, “WiSA members recognise the growth of whole house stereo audio solutions in the market place and the practical need to keep system cost down for mass market acceptance. Until now, consumers were limited to purchasing a separate and often expensive proprietary wireless whole house stereo system. However, with the new extended distance radio capabilities, a single system will provide consumers with a WiSA-compliant home theater system and a whole house system.”
“The average speaker attach rate for whole house systems has been reported to be less than 4 speakers while streaming no more than 2 separate audio streams at a time to different parts of the home. The WiSA multi-zone solution easily meets these requirements without needing special routers, bridges or additional transmitters,” says Tom Lee. “By leveraging the new extended distance transmit and receive module, we can address the majority of consumer home audio applications in a single cost effective WiSA compliant audio system.”
“With the new multi-zone capability, audio brands will be able to design wireless audio products that function in multiple use models including high fidelity stereo audio, multichannel home theater and now multi-zone (whole home) all in a single system. The WiSA logo provides consumers with the confidence that they can purchase speakers and transmitter devices such as HDTVs, AVRs, Blu-ray players, gaming consoles, and set top boxes from a variety of audio and video companies for use as both home theater and multi-zone use models and trust that they will work seamlessly together in a system.”
Tony Ostrom, vice president of product develop at Klispch Group complements: “As a leading manufacturer of high quality speaker systems, we see the effort by the WiSA Association to extend its current specification to include capabilities for home theater and multi-zone technology as a very positive move that will benefit brands, retailers and end-users in this emerging market.”
An updated Interoperability Requirements and Compliance Test that includes specifications for this expanded system functionality is available to WiSA members.
Established in 2011 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, the Wireless Speaker & Audio (WiSA) Association is an industry group dedicated to bringing a fully interoperable, high resolution, multi-channel wireless audio capability to consumer and professional products. WiSA technology transmits 24-bit audio at sample rates up to 96k/second, with robust error recovery and extremely low latency (5 ms fixed) and negligible speaker-to-speaker delay. WiSA technology operates in the relatively unused 5.2 to 5.8 GHz UNII radio frequency spectrum, reliably transmitting uncompressed HD audio from 2-channel stereo to 7.1 surround, along with system configuration and calibration data. The Association is responsible for developing technical specifications, performing interoperability compliance testing of WiSA-certified products, supporting members with marketing campaigns and promoting the broad adoption of WiSA product interoperability.
www.wisaassociation.org
