Sound United Taking Advantage of ‘Flight Back to Quality,’ Says CEO
At the company’s first North American dealers’ conference Tuesday in New Orleans, Sound United CEO Kevin Duffy rebuffed the idea that millennials aren’t willing to invest in a high-quality sound experience, saying, “We don’t agree with that.” While the audio…
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business focused over the past decade on convenience and “commoditized” product, Duffy referenced what Sound United sees as a “flight back to quality.” Duffy cited content providers’ efforts, including the Imax collaboration with DTS, to bring “very high-fidelity content into the home.” Netflix is streaming in Dolby Atmos, and Google, Hulu and Apple are spending “billions of dollars to create good content that must be displayed with great audio, too,” he said. That audio content needs high-fidelity equipment, “properly installed, properly configured” to enjoy the music, and large tech companies are putting marketing dollars toward “driving people into their living rooms to do that," said the executive. Among features highlighted in four Denon and Marantz AV receivers that launched this week are auto low-latency mode; voice control support for Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, Google Assistant and Josh.ai; Apple AirPlay 2; HDCP 2.3 support; and HEOS wireless multiroom music streaming.