Bryston launched a product restoration service for its amplifiers, the company emailed Tuesday. The Back to the Future vintage product restoration service has three tiers that can be bought individually or combined on each product. Tier 1 is a check of all electrical and mechanical functions with parts replacement where required ($1,000); Tier 2 is a cosmetic upgrade including reworked faceplate, top and handles, but not including chassis, back panel or heatsinks ($600); Tier 3 includes replacement of output power transistors with recent applicable power devices ($400). “Because we have such a large number of beautifully designed and manufactured amplifiers out there that have been in use for as many as four-plus decades, we felt that offering these restoration service options to our customers was important,” said Bryston CEO James Tanner.

PSB Speakers released the Passif 50 Anniversary Edition Standmount loudspeaker to commemorate its five decades in the audio market. The speaker pays homage to the Passif II model released in 1974. The Passif 50 will be available for preorder online the first week of August at $2,499, with shipping due in September, the company said. The first 500 units sold will come with a handwritten letter from PSB founder Paul Barton and include a QR code with an offer for a gift pack that includes a backpack, water bottle and commemorative keychain.

Samsung announced shipping for its 2022 sound bars, led by the $1,899 HW-Q990B Dolby Atmos and DTS:X model with 11 channels, one subwoofer and four up-firing rear speakers. Wireless Dolby Audio transmission works with select Samsung TVs, the company said. Features include Q-Symphony, synchronized audio that uses every speaker in compatible Samsung TVs and sound bars; SpaceFit sound calibration; adaptive sound with enhanced voice clarity; Apple AirPlay 2 for music play from iPhones; a Game Pro mode that moves audio around the player; Tap Sound, which plays audio content from a mobile device with a touch; and Ava, a room noise analyzer that ensures dialogue can be heard clearly, Samsung said. The flagship sound bar has built-in Alexa voice control. Twelve additional models in the lineup range $199-$1,299.

Stitcher Media held the top spot in May in Triton Digital’s U.S. podcast report with 59.6 million average weekly downloads and 14.8 million average weekly users, said the metrics firm Monday. NPR was second with 32.2 million average weekly downloads and 6.6 million average weekly users, followed by Audacy with 29.5 million and 7.7 million, respectively. The top 20 publishers had over 228 million weekly downloads in the month. By genre, news was the most downloaded category (27.1%), followed by true crime (20.3%), comedy (17.6%), society and culture (7.1%), and sports (6.3%). Most downloads occurred on mobile devices (93.1%); 1.8% occurred on a desktop or laptop, Triton said.

Cyber Acoustics expanded its line of headsets and accessories specifically designed to meet the demands of schools, said the company Monday. “Clear trends emerged” from working with local school districts “around the functionality needs at various grade levels,” it said. Cyber Acoustics found K-5 students “did better with headsets that had no external volume controls while middle school students preferred it,” it said. Its new AC-5014 stereo headset features USB Type-C connectors for newer computers and Chromebooks, it said. Other features of the AC-5014 include in-line volume and mute control, a unidirectional noise-canceling microphone that can be worn on the left or right side, easy-to-clean leatherette earpads and a padded, adjustable headband, it said.

LG pushed audio quality, simple connectivity and aesthetics in its 2022 Dolby Atmos- and DTS:X-compatible sound bar lineup, now available at LG.com and select dealers. The flagship 810-watt 9.1-channel S95QR ($1,799) has five up-firing speakers, including the first center up-firing speaker, two more on the sound bar and two in the separate rear loudspeakers, the company said Thursday. The line starts with the $399 S65Q, a 420-watt 3.1-channel sound bar. New for 2022 is LG Wowcast, which allows a wireless connection from any TV with an HDMI ARC/eARC port to an LG Wi-Fi-enabled sound bar for lossless and uncompressed audio up to 7.1.4-channel sound, the company said. LG announced Wireless Audio and Speaker Association (WiSA) compatibility with premium TVs last year, allowing TVs to connect to WiSA-enabled speakers (see 2103240026). The company didn't respond to questions.

American consumers “are listening to more audio than ever before, and certainly in more places,” SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witz told a Credit Suisse investor conference Tuesday. “The consumer adoption of smart speakers and connected devices continues to accelerate and reinforce this trend in audio. Audio is one of the biggest use cases for smart speakers,” she said. “You see a lot more opportunities for people to curate and listen to music, voices, podcasts that they love, and that happens really, wherever and whenever they choose.” SiriusXM has “benefited from these trends, as audio is one of the top use cases for in-home connected devices,” she said. Subscribers are “increasingly using these devices to listen to our service,” she said. One of SiriusXM’s “top strategic priorities” the past few years “has been to increase engagement outside of the car,” she said. “That is one of the core reasons that we gave our subscribers access to streaming for free included in their subscriptions.” SiriusXM is building out its “product road map,” making sure that the service is available “really everywhere that consumers want to listen to us,” she said.

Bluesound is taking preorders for the Hub, a wireless audio source adapter and network preamplifier that allows users to add non-BluOS audio sources to the BluOS ecosystem. It enables turntables, TVs and CDs to be part of a multiroom system, the company said Monday. Inputs include HDMI ARC, coaxial digital, Toslink optical, analog RCA and a moving-magnet phono input. The $319 accessory is due to ship next week.

Auracast broadcast audio, rebranded from Audio Sharing, will "reshape personal audio,” said Bluetooth SIG CEO Mark Powell Wednesday. The Bluetooth technology will allow a transmitter to broadcast to an unlimited number of nearby Bluetooth audio receivers, said the Bluetooth trade group. With Auracast, users will be able to invite others to share audio experiences, hear sound from TVs in public places that was muted in the past and receive broadcasts from public address systems on Auracast-enabled earbuds or hearing devices, said the trade group. Travelers at an airport, for instance, will be able to receive flight announcements such as gate changes, boarding schedules and other travel information directly to their personal audio device. The advent of technologies like Auracast broadcast audio has the potential to give people who wear hearing aids and cochlear implants a new option for hearing access, said Barbara Kelley, Hearing Loss Association of America executive director. Current assistive listening systems, such as inductive loops, suffer poor quality, high cost and lack of privacy, said WiFore Chief Technology Officer Nick Hunn, saying Auracast will be easier and more cost-efficient to deploy, while offering higher audio quality and more privacy. Bluetooth specifications that define Auracast broadcast audio are part of the Bluetooth LE Audio specification suite and are expected to be released within the next few months.

WiSA Technologies released test results of its new DS 2.4 GHz multichannel wireless audio module, showing the DS 2.4 GHz module, positioned for sound bars with wireless rear speakers and a subwoofer, outperformed the competition in reliability, even in crowded Wi-Fi environments, said the company. Novus Labs recorded the number of audio dropouts and glitches that occurred over a 10-minute period with different levels of Wi-Fi traffic congestion (baseline, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% congestion). Overly congested networks can result in audible audio dropouts and glitches affecting Quality of Service. Most audio products on the market manage this by detecting heavily trafficked wireless channels and quickly switching to open channels, commonly referred to as “detect and avoid,” WiSA said. As the number of wireless devices increases in homes, it has become difficult to avoid congestion, and products using “detect and avoid” can no longer guarantee a high level of QoS, WiSA said. The Novus test results showed WiSA DS’ reliability is 1.5-3 times better than competitive 5 GHz products in the market, the company said. The DS module transmits up to four separate audio channels plus a low-frequency subwoofer channel; a single model in RX mode can output two audio channels. Fixed low latency meets the ITU and Dolby specifications for lip-sync, said WiSa.