Deutsche Grammophon Announces Launch of STAGE+ Streaming Service in 4K, Dolby Atmos and Lossless Audio

Deutsche Grammophon announced STAGE+, promoted as "Music for the Eyes. Magic for the Ears." The new streaming service is totally focused on the prestigious Deutsche Grammophon music catalog available in lossless quality, and live performances from contemporary performers and orchestras streamed in 4K and Dolby Atmos. The service from the historic label will allow a new experience directly on any TV, computer, smartphone, and tablet, including the possibility to listen to music offline while away from home.

UK analyst group Rethink Technology Research has published a five year forecast on Voice Control of TV entertainment through remote controls entitled “Voice Control of the TV - Decision time for TV operators”. Rethink calculates that some 142.9 million homes (from 21.3 million today) will install well integrated voice technology from an operator by 2022. The forecast is by units shipped from 2017 – 2022.

It's been an interesting week! Just prior to the IBC 2017 show, Apple made its traditional event for the launch of the new iPhone 8 and iPhone X (and those Augmented Reality demos were amazing!), also debuting the new Apple TV 4K. And before Samsung and all the other Smartphone manufacturers start announcing their own versions of "X" models, we had a series of interesting corporate and technology announcements, culminating by Amazon's announcement of a series of new Alexa-based hardware devices...

audioXpress February 2017 is one of those issues to read and keep on hand. Learn about Bluetooth 5 and how the new specification promises to positively change wireless audio applications, how to extract multichannel audio from the latest-generation Apple TV, and how to use an oscilloscope to troubleshoot tube circuits. Read reviews of the Vienna Suite Pro processing audio plug-ins and the Primacoustic London 12 acoustic panels kit. Learn how Tom Perazella built its subwoofer with an Ultimax 18” driver from Dayton Audio and how Addie and Whisker built a preamp for high-impedance sources from vintage components, and much more.

Kanex announced an optical audio solution for the new Apple TV, allowing to keep using existing hardware and have high quality audio support. The Digital Audio Adapter provides an optical audio port to connect a surround sound system to the 4th generation Apple TV via HDMI. The adapter supports 5.1 surround sound via standard optical audio, or 2.0 surround sound via 3.5mm audio port.

Thonet & Vander, the innovative German consumer audio company, is adding their flagship high-end Kugel and Koloss active Bluetooth speakers to their product selection now available to U.S. consumers. These affordable speakers make a clever use of digital processing to optimize playback.