WiSA Introduces SoundSend Home Cinema Audio Transmitter to Instantly Connect Smart TVs to WiSA Certified Speakers

WiSA unveiled its WiSA SoundSend audio transmitter, the Association’s first branded product to hit the market since its inception. The SoundSend is an HDMI (or optical)-connected transmitter designed to make wireless multichannel audio accessible in minutes to nearly every smart TV. SoundSend allows for instant transmission of smart TV content to WiSA Certified speakers for a true cinema sound experience at home without speaker wires. The product will be available for purchase in November of 2020 and will retail for $179 US MSRP.

Sonos introduced Sonos Arc, a premium smart soundbar for home theater with full integration in the Sonos wireless home audio eco-system and support for personal voice assistants. The new large size soundbar builds on Sonos’ experience in designing systems for home theater, with a solution featuring support for Dolby Atmos that is able to process audio according to content type, generating immersive sound and improving dialogue. The Californian company also announced some surprise updates to existing home speakers.

NAD Electronics is previewing another exciting Masters Series release at CES 2020! The M33 is a BluOS enabled DAC/amplifier that will also be the brand's first product to feature Purifi Audio's new amplification technology. In its simplest form, the NAD M33 is an ultra-high-performance 200W amplifier that can serve as the heart of a reference whole-home system. For the brand, this will be its new flagship model, featuring BluOS multiroom streaming, Gorilla Glass touchscreen controls, 32-bit ESS Sabre DAC, full MQA decoding, and Dirac Room Correction.

Expanding on its collaboration with Meridian Audio, LG Electronics will introduce at CES 2020 an impressive lineup of soundbars featuring premium quality audio, easy connectivity, smart functionality and sleek designs that integrate perfectly with LG's latest OLED and NanoCell TVs. The new 2020 soundbar lineup supports high-resolution audio (HRA) sources and immersive sound formats including Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, while some models also offer advanced self-calibration.

Immersive 5.1.4 sound and deep bass that has to be heard to be believed: Sennheiser’s new AMBEO Soundbar will be available from May 2019. Created by Sennheiser in collaboration with the Fraunhofer IIS to be one of the world’s best soundbars, the AMBEO Soundbar places the listener inside the sound experience with incredible realism, delivering 3D sound that blurs the line between playback and reality from a single all-in-one device.

Sonos announced the all-new Sonos Amp, a powerful and versatile home audio hub that powers traditional wired speakers with sound from nearly any source, and fully integrates these speakers into Sonos’ easy to use wireless home sound system and any wireless audio source. With the new Amp, Sonos also announced a new partnership with Sonance architectural speakers to connect with the new Sonos Amp and confirmed it will open its developer platform to potential partners for control and integration of Sonos solutions.

Once again, audioXpress focuses on loudspeaker building, design, and testing in its September edition. We have three great speaker DIY projects that are certain to inspire our readers, Geoff Hill explains how speaker measurements are evolving under the latest Audio Engineering Society (AES) efforts, and Richard Honeycutt writes about modulation distortion in loudspeakers. We interviewed Crispin Herrod-Taylor, the designer of the amazing SoundBuckets portable speakers, we explain all you need to know about the latest HDMI Enhanced Audio Return Channel (eARC) specification, and Ward Maas tells the story of Infineon's new energy-efficient multi-level amplifiers.

Version 2.1 of the HDMI Specification supports a range of Higher Video Resolutions and refresh rates including 8K60 and 4K120, Dynamic HDR, and increased bandwidth with a new 48G cable. Version 2.1 of the HDMI Specification is backward compatible with earlier versions of the Specification, and was developed by the HDMI Forum’s Technical Working Group.