…and at $299, they will certainly make an impact in the nascent soundbar market.

Vizio is known for it’s line of LCD and Plasma HDTVs, and specifically known for being very value oriented and offered through retailers like Walmart, Costco, Target, Sears, etc. Well with that go-to-market strategy, Vizio has made themselves the market leader in North America, and simultaneously one of the biggest targets in the industry. As the likes of LG, Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, and Philips all drop trau and shrink margins, Vizio and the entire FPTV market is headed into its inevitable commoditization cycles. The shakeout will begin.

In this environment, it’s not surprising that Vizio is entering the TV accessory business. The soundbar is a rapidly growing segment, as consumers demand a better, richer, audio experience that the cheap speakers built into panels can deliver. Often for second, third, and fourth TVs in a household, a full AVR or home theater setup is not in the cards for most consumers. So, CNET is reporting that Vizio is launching a soundbar that includes:

• Virtual surround sound (likely SRS Labs’ TruSurround HD)
• Wireless subwoofer (with wireless link by a company not unspoken of here at Wireless Audio Blog)
• Audio quality that will blow your mind, because it will cost only…
• $299 MSRP

The third bullet is what I’m most excited about. Vizio is one of the most clever technology sourcing companies in the world today. They understand the value function very well, value=f(performance/cost). I happen know that Vizio has found themselves some pretty disruptive IP that will make this soundbar sound unlike any other. It will surpass models that cost twice as much… easily. I am anxiously awaiting the reviews once Vizio gets this bar into the hands of the likes of Crave, EngadgetHD, Sound and Vision, etc. I think the consumers who swim in the audio gear market will greet Vizio with open arms.

Stay tuned…

First seen back at CES. Creative has put together a very nice package with the HS-1200 set [Product page on Creative website].

One of the features that sets the HS-1200 apart from products like the FREETALK or the Clearchat, is the SoundBlaster X-Fi technology that Creative bundles in. X-Fi delivers some pretty kick-ass virtualization for up to 7.1 surround sound via CMSS-3D and restores clarity lost in many of our compressed music files via Crystalizer. With the accompanying X-Fi package, these headsets deliver gamer-certified performance as well as the versatility that comes with products like the FREETALK and Clearchat models from other companies.

From a pure design perspective, these ear-pads are particularly comfortable for my taste…. Plus, if you’re of the unusually large-headed variety (like me, hat-size 8), you’ll appreciate the fit of the HS-1200.

My favorite part though (and secretly how the HS-1200 really differentiates itself) is the mic boom — it’s simply the best I’ve used on any headset, wired or wireless. The boom is slick to the touch, adjusts its contours with perfectly “plastic” precision — no elastic memory behavior that plagues many flexi-booms, and it is long, allowing you place the mic right where it should be, in front of your mouth.  All other headset makers should simply copy this design.  It rocks.

For consumers, more choice is good.

Go get your game on.

Wired’s Gadget Lab reviewed the Audioengine W1.  Product summed up nicely.  Thanks to Rob Beschizza for the Avnera shoutout

Check it out.

More good news. This month, Rocketfish started selling two new wireless headphone models in Best Buy stores nationwide. There are two models, the RF-WHP01 and RF-WHP02. Each model has Avnera’s first generation wireless audio system, which at this point is popping up in many other places.

Both models are targeted at TV and home AV environments.

Key application usages:

1. Watching TV at night without disturbing house-mates (Killer frickin’ app)
2. Enhancing TV/AV audio for people with diminished hearing
3. Listening to music from iPod dock, PC, home stereo while cooking dinner, doing housework, etc.

The RF-WHP01 and RF-WHPo2 are both very similar models, with the primary difference being:

1. RF-WHP02 is mainly targeted at TV users, so it offers some hook-up flexibility. Including a boom mic option for older sets that don’t have supplementary audio outputs. This is also a quick and dirty way for someone to enjoy music at a higher volume level than others also watching the same TV, without headphones.
2. RF-WHP02 has a spatial enhancement feature to enhance stereo sound.
3. RF-WHP02 also offers some voice enhancement meant for people with diminished hearing who have difficulty picking out speech when watching TV.
4. RF-WHP01 has black trim. The RF-WHP02 has metallic maroon trim.

The RF-WHP01 & RFWHP02 are available now at Best Buy stores. As of the writing of this article, they are not yet available online, though that’s only a matter of time.

UPDATE: They are available now online: RF-WHP01 for $79.99 and RF-WHP02 for $99.99.

To get a sense of what a killer deal this is… compare this to Sony’s 2.4GHz and the 60-some dB SNR 900 MHz junk that is still hanging around…

So forget IR, forget 900 MHz, forget paying north of $200… pick up a pair of Rocketfish headphones that just work.

These screen grabs of Logitech’s software download support area say it all…

For Mac OS X

… and for Windows,

The ClearChat will be shipping soon, so go check it out if you are looking a wireless headset with Logitech’s usual quality.

Comment thread here pretty decent as well… fair and balanced folks. Although again, many of the negative experiences mentioned in the thread could have been addressed if they visit this comment thread. I’m also loving the shout-0uts for AudioEngine’s AW1. Which rocks in its own way.

Over on Micro Everything, Mats picked up on an recent WSJ article about Apple’s wireless audio potentialities. I too have given this plenty of thought… no big surprise… but I just can’t keep quiet about my random toughts anymore… there are many things I find pretty intriguing about Apple’s approach to this wireless audio distribution, but the aspect I want to talk about foremost is how sneaky and un-Apple they’ve been in rolling it out.Wireless audio by Apple has been leaking into the Apple platform, reaching the more adventuresome consumers via a series of Trojan Horse tactics…

1. The Airport Express. It started here with a simple point-to-point wireless audio feature called Airtunes about 4 years ago. The two primary limitation… it only allowed point-to-point links and the source point had to be iTunes running on a computer. Well now that has changed…
2. The 2nd generation Airport Express with Wireless-N has also seen the quiet launch or point-to-multi-point airtunes. Now you can play your iTunes to more than one Airport Express endpoint at any time.
3. Because Airtunes is a custom audio payload protocol that uses WLAN network as its network transport, any WLAN enabled device with the necessary protocol software running on top of it can be a potential source or receiver of Airtunes content… such as
   1. Another PC - as receiver as well
   2. Apple TV - source or receiver
   3. iPod Touch - as source via WiFi
   4. iPhone - as source via WiFi
   5. iPhones and iPods are also perfect platforms to have your sweet touch screen remote controls… (a la http://www.alloysoft.com/) with all kinds of opportunities for third party skins, features, meta content exploits, etc… and not to mention the hardware only gets cooler and cooler every year, so consumers will constantly be getting more and more GUI capabilities.

The “predictable” wireless speakers would perhaps be very slick looking speakers with Airport express electronics built in.All in all I say, what a platform!!!?? Compare this to Microsoft… who have had so many false starts here, with big splash promises that just never measured up when put to the early adopter stress tests… but they have their Xbox I suppose… as if!As for Apple, I just can’t wait for the APIs to mature and for the community of nifty software developers to catch on and build out a great set of exeriences…But mine isn’t all glowing… being who Apple is, I see two potential impediments to world domination in this space…

1. How much will Apple bind the experience to iTunes and protected AAC contents?  If it’s more open - platform and library agnostic… you have the makings of something really interesting.
2. Another caveat is that I don’t know of any high throughput WLAN in urban environments anymore. I am not sure WLAN networks will give the kind of QoS needed to maintain robust synchronized multi-point wireless audio instances… I’ve all but given up on WiFi in NY. Too crowded… too many APs fighting it out… tough problems, no doubt.

Apple’s under the radar approach is a nice way to hedge against exposing the system infrastructure risks… and in the meantime, they can quietly build out the user-level application functionality in a nice way… it may be that to truly realize their vision, they’ll need new dedicated wireless audio transports to work this out… for reals… time will tell.

While I know that everyone’s blog is just as accessible as another, these blog/media machines — like Gizmodo’s Gawker Media and Engadget’s Weblogs Inc. — just know how to attract the eyeballs. They’re undeniably centers of gravity when it comes to attracting the gadget lusty peanut gallery. I just wish they spelled “AvneraAudio” correctly.

That being said, it always makes me happy when I see one of the products we helped enable get a small stage on one of these geeky mega-venues. And what a product Audioengine crafted. This thing rocks.

All my shouting and banner waving about the “Swiss Army Knife of wireless audio gadgets” from the Alive Matters bleacher seats only gets the word out so far… but that’s not going to stop me.

Lots more to come. Stay tuned…

As chopstickhero so eloquently posited,

this is a product that makes you think “why didn’t i think of that?”

Well the folks at Avnera did (way back in 2004!), and we made a single chip that will bring devices like this (and more) to market for years to come, at prices consistent with any other common PC accessory.

Logitech, the number one PC accessory maker in the world, also saw the possibilities right away. At Cebit, Logitech launched the ClearChat Wireless PC Headset.  We’ve been waiting for this meticulously designed headset to hit the streets. Looks like we are a few weeks away from it being in stores. This is really exciting, because Logitech is the first customer of ours to take our core chip-set and then, on their own, set out to design a world-class product around it. It has been a long time coming, but we’ve now seen why. Logitech pays attention to every detail, and does take their time to widdle away design risks and functional quirks to arrive at a product that is well-though-out and with some clever details that differentiate it from what else is out there, wired or wireless — Logitech brings crisp, classic industrial design, materials with great feel, and ergonomic expertise to yield probably the most comfortable headset I’ve worn, including those from Logitech’s wired product-line. Among other cool tricks is the microphone boom that illuminates when muted, so people around you can learn when they can talk to you without being heard, and to remind you when it’s prudent to curse the folks on the other end of the call.

People will ask, can’t Bluetooth do this? The short answer is no.

They will say, “if it isn’t Bluetooth, I don’t want it.” The consequence is they won’t be able to use one of the most practical accessories for the PC to come along in years.

You see, BT does not deliver:

• The audio quality of uncompressed PCM 48 KHz audio. This headset delivers 1500 Kbps audio, BT only 320 Kbps.
• The fixed latency of an isochronous audio signal path - with an end-to-end delay that is less than one frame of video. This means you will hear the bullet shells hit the floor when you see them hit the floor.
• Full duplex stereo and voice for gaming. With BT you only get mono voice quality audio in both directions when you give up the stereo. And there is no software out there today that robustly manages the profile switching necessary to put the BT device in the right mode for the application at hand.
• Zero installation steps. ClearChat is Plug & Play with Mac OS, Windows XP and Vista, UPDATE: and very soon Ubuntu

While the majority of computer gamers will probably (rightly) say this thing is great for World of Warcraft or whatever, the applications that I use my wireless headset for (in order of frequency) are:

1. Making calls and attending conference calls via Skype
2. Listening to music on Pandora or Slacker while I work on my PC
3. Watching my Slingbox on Slingplayer

Rock on.

Check out all the geeky stuff going down at Showstoppers. Robert Scoble was streaming live from his Nokia phone which was broadcasting live on Qik and it is captured here for all of posterity. Skip to minute 18 and you’ll see the “best” part — me, the amateur spokesperson for Avnera giving Scoble the 411 on the FREETALK Wireless Stereo Headset and the Creative HS-1200. Thanks to Jim Courtney from Skype Journal for flagging down Robert and making the introduction.

[Link to video]