Audio News for May 16, 2007

Electronics Biz Ups & Downs – Pioneer Electronics has posted higher revenues and reduced their previous losses for the fiscal year. Their home electronics sales increased 3.9% to $3.12 billion, although plasma display sales were down slightly due to a drop in OEM sales. Giant retailer chain Tweeter Home Entertainment has reported sharp losses and says it may file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Wal-Mart wants to compete more heavily in the lucrative home electronics business in the near future. The world’s largest retailer says it is outfitting some of its stores with goods more demographically compatible with the area served. It will begin selling the new Philips and Sony home theater systems and more HDTV sets, in an effort to lure higher-income shoppers than the typical Wal-Marter. They would like to best Best Buy when it comes to selling HT gear.

Low Consumer Interest in Radio Alternatives – Mark Ramsey, president of audio entertainment strategy company hear2.0, used the web traffic service Alexaholic to check on consumer interest in the three broadcast alternatives to standard radio today: XM Satellite, Sirius Satellite and HD digital radio. He found that XM had a general downturn in traffic over the past year, with Sirius also seeing reductions – but not as serious, probably due to their adding the Howard Stern Show. And traffic for HDRadio.com was almost not there.

Introductions at Home Entertainment Show – The Primedia Home Entertainment Show in NYC last week saw these among many new product introductions: Online component sales company Outlaw showed a seven-channel, 300w-per-channel, amp, a new compact speaker and an L-C-R speaker. Soundmatters showed an eight-channel amp with 170w-per-channel but in a slim chassis 3.3 inches by 3.4 inches by 39 inches. ZVOX demonstrated their WOWSA – a Wide Angel On-Wall Surround Audio speaker system which has five speakers, a dedicated amp, and their PhaseCue soundstage-widening circuitry built into a cabinet 5 inches by 7 inches by 37 1/2 inches, to fit under flat-screen displays.

Notable AV Statistics – 35% of U.S. households now have receivers and speakers for 5.1 surround audio.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that all those speakers are hooked up and it certainly doesn’t mean they are all in the perfect ITU configuration. It is estimated that about 40% of those households do not have their surround speakers connected, and/or have them sitting on top of their front speakers! However, an MIT study found that most consumers rated better sound as more important to them than better images, and Nielsen found that 75% of viewers rated better sound as the best feature of DVDs over VHS and standard TV. And while we’re on the subject of TV, it’s been estimated that the average American watches TV for a total of two months out of the year!