Sonos wireless music system owners can now control Sonos speakers directly through the Pandora mobile app -- a feature that’s been available to Spotify users through Spotify Connect -- and they can control Pandora stations with voice commands via Amazon’s Alexa, said the companies Tuesday. The control works with all three Pandora service tiers: ad-supported, Pandora Plus and Premium. To promote Pandora’s $10 monthly on-demand service, Sonos listeners can try Pandora Premium for free for 60-days, they said.

Frontier Silicon, a supplier of Chromecast built-in and other audio technologies, will provide its Minuet smart audio platform to Harman for the JBL Control Xstream wireless speakers due to in stores this month, said the companies Monday. In addition to Chromecast built-in, the $499-per-pair Xstream speakers support 24-bit/96kHz high-res audio playback, Spotify Connect and provide “highly synced” wireless stereo and multiroom audio, they said. The companies have collaborated since 2013, they said. Other brands using Frontier Silicon audio designs include Bose, Denon, Grundig, Harman Kardon, Hama, JBL, Onkyo, Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Pure, Roberts, Sony, TechniSat, Yamaha and Zound Industries, Frontier said.

Audio technology company dbx-tv said Monday its software is inside Hisense’s $9,999 laser TV, which began shipping last month (see 1710250038). The dbx-tv software integrates with Harman Kardon speakers and amplifiers, the company said. The dbx-tv Total Volume processing prevents unwanted loudness changes between programming sources, and the Total Surround algorithm delivers surround sound using the TV speakers, said the company.

Pioneer & Onkyo U.S.A.’s Rayz Plus Lightning-powered noise-canceling earphones will ship with Hearing Components’ Comply earphone tips, said Pioneer & Onkyo Thursday. Comply tips have viscoelastic memory foam that conforms to the user's ear canal, adjusting to movements and temperature changes while creating a snug fit that’s said to maximize sound quality and prevent bass tones from leaking. The $149 Pioneer Rayz Plus are sold at Apple stores and Amazon.

Pioneer announced the first offering from its ClipWear Active line of earbuds. The SE-CL5BT in-ear Bluetooth headphones ($39) use a clip design that holds earbuds in place while acting as the battery housing to take weight out of the earbuds themselves, said the company. The earbuds are sweat- and water-resistant with an IPX4 rating.

The mature headphone market has “pockets of significant growth,” said a Thursday Futuresource report. The wireless segment is driving revenue, increasing prices and fueling innovation of smart features, it said, with 2017 headphone sales on track to reach $9.5 billion, up 83 percent vs. the prior year. Consumers’ enthusiasm for wireless is driving sales of headphones with features including adaptive noise canceling and voice assistant integration, it said. By 2021, adaptive noise-canceling is expected to account for 28 percent of the noise-canceling segment, driven by demand for live translation and hearing aids, it said. Access to voice assistants in headphones is gaining momentum, with new products from Bose, Samsung and Bragi to launch in Q4, while low-cost proximity sensors have helped spur smart features in Apple AirPods and products from Bragi, Pioneer and Plantronics, it said. A challenge for manufacturers is to create products that satisfy consumers’ growing needs with simple designs, without compromising the user experience or duplicating the functionality of smartphones, it said.

The “mission” of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry “is to promote the value of recorded music, to campaign for the rights of record producers and to expand the commercial uses of recorded music.” So said an IFPI spokesman on the global recording industry’s growing concerns over the phenomenon of “bit rot,” the progressive self-corruption of stored audio and video data on hard drives (see 1709270048). IFPI recognizes “the significance of preserving the vast creative output of the music industry, but we also recognize that the expertise on media preservation is itself a separate area,” he said. IFPI’s members and affiliate organizations “contribute to many and varied preservation efforts, and have done so since the beginning of recorded music,” he said. “This has included donations to libraries and archives,” and “technical contributions” through groups like the Audio Engineering Society, as well as through “company-internal” archival efforts, he said. “We have not issued specific guidance on data degradation issues but know there is wide awareness and plenty of expert advice available on data backup and preservation from the consumer level, right through to specialist archival needs.”

French audio company Focal announced availability Friday of the $1,499 Clear “circum-aural” headphones. The Clear builds on the Elear headphones, which last year introduced to the market an open-backed electrodynamics transducer, said the company. The headphones’ copper voice coil has a strong magnetic field, resulting in sound that fully recreates the dynamics of the original recording, it said.

Boutique hi-fi company Wrensilva announced Sonos compatibility in two high-end consoles that bring vinyl into the Sonos ecosystem. With the Wrensilva Sonos Edition Console ($4,999), users can listen to a record throughout the home through Sonos speakers and control the audio from the console without having to go through a phone app, they said. Once the volume is manually changed, the Sonos app automatically will update its settings, allowing the console to be controlled from any room, Wrensilva said. The collaboration shows how “vinyl and digital music can live together seamlessly,” said Sonos CEO Patrick Spence in a statement. The console, which can store 120 LPs, features a turntable and two Sonos Play:5 speakers inside a hardwood cabinet. The less expensive, more compact Wrensilva Sonos Edition Loft, sells for $2,499.

TaoTronics’ Phobos and Deimos sports headphones ($29-$39) are now at Best Buy, said the company in a Monday announcement. Features include noise cancellation, a “sweatproof” build, Bluetooth 4.1 connectivity and aptX audio. Battery life is given as eight hours per charge.