Home Electronics Dealers Struggling – Excerpts say launching a home electronics business nowadays would be suicidal, because the industry has become so fast-moving and price-competitive, with stores getting competition from the increasing use of online outlets where price comparison is simplified. One retailer had to close down a 25,000 square foot store that couldn’t survive just selling TVs. He said the former higher profit margins are now gone with the prices of flat-panel TVs having fallen, with mass retailers slashing prices due to increased competition from the Internet. Home theater is also fueled by the new housing market, and that is down due to the economic climate. Another former store owner reported “The general customer who was buying the high-end audio just went away; kids want to buy iPods.” Focusing on service and installation has aided some home theater stores, but that also runs the stores into the competition of Best Buy’s Geek Squad.
Livio Radio Gets Investment for Expansion – Michigan’s largest venture capital firm has invested in Livio Radio, developer of Internet radio devices and smartphone applications. Livio’s CEO Jake Sigal is inventor of the original USB turntable, and founded Livio to produce digital audio products not burdened by complex menus and features. In addition to the Livio Radio – with either Pandora or NPR programming – the firm also has launched an iPhone app and the Livio Car Internet Radio, for accessing netcasters while in vehicles. According to Arbitron and Edison Research, about 69 million Americans listen to online radio programming each month, and by 2015 the Internet radio market is expected to grow to include more than 100 million listeners. It is felt by many that Internet radio will emerge as the preferred medium for broadcast audio in the U.S., and Livio’s products are at the forefront of this shift.
Bryston to Offer New Hi-Res Music Player Category – Later this year Canadian high-end maker Bryston will launch a digital music player that connects to a USB storage device plus an outboard DAC to play music files of either 16- or 24-bit and sample rates of 44.1K, 48K, 88.2K, 176.4I or 192K. The files – which may be WAV, AIFF, FLAC or MP3 – will reside on a USB thumb drive or USB-connected hard drive. The Bryston BDP-1 will not contain a hard drive, internal DAC, streamer, CD ripper or switching power supplies. It will simply be a hi-end digital music player when connected to an external drive and DAC. It can be connected to home networks via Ethernet and via Wi-Fi. The BDP-1 can also be controlled from a web browser using an app called Minion. SRP will be about $2,100. [Interesting that so many hi-end USB audio devices are now coming out; Mac experts tell us Firewire is superior to USB.]
Dolby Technology in New Toshiba Laptops – Toshiba will be incorporating Dolby Labs technologies in a number of their latest laptop computers. Many of them now feature both Dolby Advanced Audio and Dolby Sound Room. Together they deliver a realistic surround sound experience to headphones, restore high-frequency sounds often lost with downloaded compressed files, and extend bass response by up to an octave. The Toshiba Qosmio X505 also features Dolby Home Theater, which adds connectivity to a receiver or speaker system via a single digital cable, making the laptop a complete home entertainment PC. Ron Smith, marketing VP for Toshiba, said “Dolby technologies create a nuiquely rich audio expoerience for our customers, making their laptops all-around entertainment devices that bring movies, music and games to life.”
