Zvox will begin shipping aluminum soundbars this week, the company said in an email to customers Friday. The soundbars, made of extruded aluminum cabinets, employ Zvox’s new digital woofer control system, MegaBass, that’s said to generate exceptional bass from a thin enclosure without the need for an external subwoofer. Features include AccuVoice dialogue enhancement, Bluetooth streaming and output leveling for loud commercials, said the company. The 43.9-inch and 35.5-inch models are $599 and $499, it said.

Global sales of wireless multiroom audio speakers grew 30 percent in 2015 but fell short of industry expectations, Futuresource said Thursday. Wireless multiroom speakers also shrank as a share of total wireless speakers, to 8 percent of units, it said. Futuresource blamed lower-than-expected sales on market fragmentation from new entrants such as DTS’ Play-Fi and Frontier Silicon’s Undok platforms. Single-brand platforms are more than 95 percent of the multiroom audio segment, Futuresource said. A third of consumers who plan to buy wireless speakers want to be able to play music simultaneously in multiple rooms, the researcher said. But that’s not translating to sales due to lack of retail demonstrations and “inadequate communication” from manufacturers, leaving consumers “struggling to understand these products,” Futuresource said. “Consumers are really confused about the technology,” analyst Rasika Iyer said. More than half of U.S. wireless speaker shoppers canvassed by Futuresource believe Bluetooth is an ideal technology for streaming music from one room to another, not realizing that’s Wi-Fi’s strength, she said. A relative few multiroom audio announcements at CES were “indicative of this market slowdown,” Iyer said, saying Google Cast “stirred some interest” in Wi-Fi audio with partnership announcements with Raumfeld, Bang & Olufsen and Frontier Silicon. Futuresource predicts a market shakeout that will lead to growth long term. Future prospects for the category are “positive, as long as the industry can standardize product offerings and better communicate the technology and how that translates to an enhanced consumer experience,” she said.

Atlantic Technology is shipping a pair of in-wall speakers designed for placement next to flat-screen TVs or video projection screens. Both speakers use 6.5-inch mineral-damped polymer woofers, a 1-inch dome tweeter and first-order 3,500-Hz crossover network, said​ the company. The IW-110LCR has a midrange-tweeter-midrange driver configuration with two woofers bracketing the tweeter for installations requiring a broader soundstage, it said. Both speakers come with magnetic mounting grilles. Suggested retail prices of the IW-110LCR and IW-105LCR are $500 and $350 each.

Sony Europe released more details on the PS-HX500 turntable introduced at CES as the world’s first with hi-res audio “ripping capability." The PS-HX500 goes on sale May 30 in Europe for 514 euros ($583) with a belt-drive aluminum die-cast platter, straight tone arm designed and made by Sony and a moving-magnet cartridge custom-made for Sony by Audio-Technica. Play speed is switchable between 33.3 and 45 rpm. An integrated pre-amp lets the player connect to the analog line inputs of an AV receiver, while a hi-res audio on-board converter transforms the analog stereo signal to a digital bit-stream that travels by conventional USB to a PC or Mac, Sony said. The PS-HX500 will come with factory-set cartridge protractor alignment, but users can adjust bias and tracking weight, Sony said. At a recent demonstration we saw at Sony Europe headquarters outside London, the turntable was being used with a tracking weight of around 2.5 grams. As a Diana Krall LP played without a closed lid, we noticed that the captured audio had small clicks, apparently from airborne dust attracted to the disc surface.

A Meridian Audio MQA firmware update will be available Thursday for owners of the company’s Explorer2 digital-to-analog converter, Prime headphone amplifier, 808v6 reference CD player, 818v3 Reference Audio Core, Special Edition loudspeakers and 40th Anniversary systems, the company said. The updates will be available for the products at the Meridian website, said the company, while Meridian dealers and customer support will handle updates directly for its Reference Series products. Many artists have been using MQA on their master recordings, said Meridian Sales Director Barry Sheldrick. Atlantic Records’ CEO Craig Kallman told us at CES the label hopes to have MQA recordings in the market later this year (see 1601110059).

Russound will show additions to its XStream series of wired and wireless audio products at Integrated Systems Europe next month in Amsterdam, the company said Wednesday. Products slated for ISE demos include the XSource streaming audio player, XZone4 four stream/four-zone audio system, TVA2.1 digital amplifier and A250 and A2100 rack-mountable stereo amplifiers, the company said. ISE gives Russound access to residential and commercial sides of the custom electronics business in Europe, CEO Charlie Porritt said.

Harman has enhanced its Clari-Fi software to improve the quality of compressed digital audio by restoring warmth, clarity and ambience of the original music that’s lost during compression, the company said. The recent enhancements address lower quality audio streams including audio limited to frequencies down to 8 kHz, said Harman Wednesday. Clari-Fi also now offers speech detection and detection of advanced codecs including HE-ACC, “smoother sounding high frequencies” and the ability to up-mix mono sources to stereo, said the company. Comparing Clari-Fi with competing technologies, Harman said, “Clari-Fi does not blindly add equalization, bass boost, or other effects that alter the original artist’s intended listening experience.” Instead, the predictive software “intelligently and accurately recreates the lost information providing a high-quality music listening experience.” Products incorporating Clari-Fi include: Huawei’s Mozart M2, the first Clari-Fi-enabled tablet; the Sharp Aquos and TCL Idol 3 smartphones; the LeTV Max4-70 smart TV; and Harman-owned home audio products from Mark Levinson and JBL. Automotive brands offering Clari-Fi in select models: Hyundai, Kia, Lexus, Lincoln and Maserati, Harman said.

Crowdfunded audio startup Mass Fidelity announced availability of its Core wireless speaker system. The company says its $599 Core speaker offers “better than stereo” and “holographic” sound from a 6-inch x 6-inch x 4-inch form factor. Core creates a stereo image without separated speakers, the company said. A desired acoustic wave field can be generated in space if the sound pressure level and directional gradient are known, said the company. An “infinite number” of small speakers would be required to achieve that result, but Mass Fidelity said its Holographic Sound Technology algorithms can approximate the ideal scenario with five speaker drivers. Users can connect up to eight Cores in a home, and the speakers can play individually from a local source or in unison, said the company. No app, Wi-Fi connection or switch is needed as the devices create their own proprietary multiroom network in the 5 GHz radio frequency band, Mass Fidelity said. Core speakers connect to a smartphone via Bluetooth and battery life is 12 hours, said the company. Mass Fidelity’s Indiegogo campaign raised $1.5 million after an initial funding goal of $48,000, the company said.

Indiegogo-backed Aumeo Audio showed at CES its “tailored” audio device, a module that connects between headphones and a smartphone to customize sound to a user’s own hearing sensitivity. Because each ear is sensitive to different frequencies, audio should not be “one size fits all,” Aumeo CEO Paul Lee said. Aumeo maps a consumer’s “hearing print” for each ear and then tailors the sound by filling in the missing frequencies and bringing hearing to the optimal level, Lee said. Users map their hearing prints using an app that creates audio profiles using a series of tones. When an individual connects music, the playback is optimized for that person's hearing, the company said. Aumeo is pitching the $149 device as a way to prevent hearing damage from ear-damaging headphone volume. When consumers try to compensate for frequencies they can’t hear by ramping up the volume, that damages hearing and can be permanent, the company said. The company missed its November shipping date due to manufacturing delays, a spokeswoman said. Shipping is to begin right after CES, she said.

Sound United brands Polk Audio and Definitive Technology announced Bluetooth updates for their wireless speaker lines Monday in a pre-CES news release. Both brands have added wireless rear streaming capabilities and added Amazon Prime Music via the DTS PlayFi platform. Polk debuted the Omni SB1 Plus soundbar ($699), a refresh of the SB1, with Bluetooth connectivity allowing consumers to connect devices directly to the Omni SB1 Plus via a 3.5mm jack and re-stream audio content to other Omni wireless speakers in the home, the company said. The SB1 Plus, with a wireless subwoofer, has Polk VoiceAdjust technology consumers can use to isolate and adjust the voice channel when watching TV. The subwoofer supports wireless surround sound via two Omni S2 or S2R speakers, or a single Omni S6 speaker, the company said. The Polk Audio Omni S2R speaker ($249) also added Bluetooth connectivity. The battery-powered indoor/outdoor speaker, with DTS Play-Fi multi-room streaming, can operate for up to eight hours on a charge, said Polk. Definitive Technology's W Studio Micro soundbar will support wireless rear surround speakers beginning spring, said Definitive. The software update allows the Wireless Collection W7 and W9 speakers to pair with the soundbar and act as left and right rear channels within a home theater setup, the company said. Sound United President Kevin Duffy said the new home theater additions were in response to customer requests for features that take speakers’ role “beyond simply listening to music.”