Blackfire Research is proud to have their FireConnect Multi-room Technology in the new Pioneer Fayola FS-W50 Wireless Home Theatre System.

The Pioneer Fayola FS-W50 Wireless Home Theatre System is comprised of two wireless front speakers, a wireless subwoofer, and a main controller unit. The system is “wireless, elegant and extremely versatile.” Besides a power cord, no other physical connections are required, since the system is wireless. With built-in dual-band Wi-Fi, you can access your entire music library, wirelessly, through streaming services like Tidal, Spotify and Deezer, internet radio stations and locally stored music. The FS-W50 also features Chromecast built-in, Airplay, and Bluetooth to accommodate all streaming needs.

The Pioneer Fayola FS-W50 Wireless Home Theatre System is perfect for watching movies or television in surround sound. All you need is a second pair of wireless satellites – the streaming receiver of the FS-W50 is able to decode all current sound formats and automatically adapts to the available speakers. Your television and any existing A/V players can be integrated with the FS-W50 via the ultra-HD-capable HDMI connector panel.

If you’re looking to “kick it up a notch” and want to supply additional rooms with music, you can easily expand the FS-W50 into a multi-room system. With compatible WiFi speakers from Pioneer and other manufacturers, you can share your music to any and all rooms of your house via FireConnect Multi-room Technology by Blackfire Research.

For a full review of The Pioneer Fayola FS-W50 Wireless Home Theatre System, as well as more information on FireConnect Multi-room Technology, check out the review below from AV Hub.

PDF Download: https://i.nextmedia.com.au/Assets/Pioneer_Fayola_FS-W50.pdf

At their recent hardware event, Google announced two new additions to their smart speaker agenda, both of which are ready to take on the ever-increasing number of competitors in the field. Say hello to the Google Home Mini and the Google Home Max.

The Google Home Mini has the same functionality as the original Google Home, but at a fraction of the size (and cost). With voice command, you can ask Google Assistant to stream music, control your smart home, check your calendar, and search the internet. The Mini is nearly 4 inches in diameter (roughly the size of a hockey puck), with the top portion covered in fabric, which is available in three colors: chalk, charcoal, and coral. The fabric hides the speaker (1.5-inches) and a far-field voice-recognition microphone. The design is pretty simple and sleek (although as a cat-parent, I wonder how much hair that fabric covering will collect over time). The Mini is a direct response (and a direct competitor) to the Amazon Echo Dot, the cheaper, more popular version of Amazon’s flagship Echo smart speaker. Will The Mini overtake Echo Dot as the most popular pint-sized smart speaker? According to some reviews, The Google Home Mini certainly sounds better than the Echo Dot (it boast 360 degree sound with a 40mm driver), but in overall functionality, there isn’t much of a difference between the two. At $49, the Mini is the cheapest smart speaker option currently on the market.

The biggest announcement of the day, however, belonged to the introduction of Google Home Max, a premium version of the Google Home smart speaker designed to compete against Apple’s HomePod and Sonos. The Home Max is a stereo speaker that runs Google Assitant and looks quite similar to the Sonos Play:5 speaker. The speaker is designed to intelligently adjust audio depending on a user’s surroundings using AI (or what Google calls “Smart Sound”), similar to what Apple’s HomePod speaker does. The Max has two tweeters and two 4.5-inch woofers and the company has emphasized the speaker’s powerful bass. The Max supports multi-room audio via Chromecast Audio only, but supports many streaming services including Pandora, Spotify, and iHeartRadio. In terms of connectivity, the Home Max supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Chromecast. At roughly 12 pounds, this is by far the largest smart speaker on the market, and the priciest as well. The Google Home Max will set you back almost $400, but Google is giving away 12 months free of YouTube Music with every Home Max purchase. The speaker will be available in two colors: chalk and charcoal, and can be displayed both vertically or horizontally via an adjustable silicon base.

The real question is: will the Google Home Max sound as good as the company claims? The answer is, most likely, no. Smart speakers don’t have a very good track record when it comes to audio quality. That’s why many smart speaker owners look for alternative ways to playback their music, especially for multi-room. To achieve excellent wireless multi-room, or multi-device set ups, entertainment systems need greater reliability over standard Wi-Fi, more precise synchronization, and multichannel capabilities, which smart speakers like Google Home, and the Echo, lack.

The good news: Blackfire Research offers the most synchronous, reliable, and cost effective wireless solution on the market. We call it the Blackfire RED framework, and it can be embedded into premium wireless speakers and voice-activated smart speakers, creating a truly connected home smart entertainment system. Voice service solutions require a high performance, multi-room solution like the Blackfire RED framework, allowing for multiple devices to respond to voice commands simultaneously.

Combining individual entertainment systems to work together to create a truly connected smart home is non trivial – but with Blackfire RED, it can be done, and with stunning results. Blackfire RED can be integrated into a broad spectrum of high quality voice service applications, so the Blackfire connected smart home ecosystem has no limits.  

Harman Kardon, Pioneer, and Onkyo are leveraging Blackfire’s technology in over 100 new products this year alone. Join the Blackfire Revolution today!

At CEDIA 2017, premium audio manufacturer and Blackfire Research partner, Onkyo, announced the impressive TX-RZ920. The TX-RZ920 is a 9.2 channel A/V network receiver that boasts 135 watts of sound per channel. Part of Onkyo’s flagship RZ Series of A/V receivers, the TX-RZ920 features top-quality components, a massive custom transformer, and is THX Certified for movie theater quality sound right in your living room. The TX-RZ920 also features Chromecast built-in, so you can stream any music from your smartphone, laptop, or PC to the TX-RZ920 with ease. With the Onkyo Controller app, you can browse and play music from your favorite online streaming services, including Spotify, TIDAL, Deezer, Pandora, and TuneIn. The TX-RZ920 is designed for both a full home theater and smaller listening setups and supports both 2.4 and 5GHz Wi-Fi connectivity.

But the best part? The Onkyo TX-RZ920 features Blackfire Research’s own FireConnect Multi-room Wireless Audio. FireConnect mirrors network audio and external analog sources connected to a master component (from streaming services to vinyl records) to any Blackfire-compatible speaker (like the Onkyo NCP-302 Network Speaker) in any room, all over standard Wi-Fi. Now, your favorite music can follow you from room to room.

Learn more about purchasing options for the Onkyo TX-RZ920 here.

With the announcement in late July that Apple is officially retiring the iPod Nano and the iPod Shuffle (the last of the pre iPhone iPods) we can safely say that “video killed the radio star” or rather, the rise of online/app-based streaming services like Spotify, Pandora, and Apple Music, have essentially wiped out the need for music file downloading on portable devices (and the products that were designed for that sole purpose.) When the iPod debuted in 2001, Steve Jobs promised 1,000 songs in your pocket. Today, through streaming, you can play almost any song in existence, instantaneously and fairly cheaply, without bogging down your smartphone or tablet’s storage. Thus, it’s not surprising that Apple is finally saying goodbye to the standalone MP3 player (although it does pierce a knife right into the heart of my childhood.)

With online/app-based streaming swiftly becoming the norm, home A/V and speaker manufacturers are adapting as well by offering products with built-in streaming services like Spotify Connect and Chromecast built-in, allowing music lovers to stream their music wirelessly from their phone or tablet to their speakers. But this shift comes at a price because they are exposing major flaws, not just in their products, but in the wireless protocols their products are built on.

Conventional Wi-Fi runs on TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) which was designed in the 1960’s for transferring files down wired Ethernet lines, not streaming real-time, wireless, audio. Unfortunately, most products out today that boast wireless streaming capabilities still use these outdated protocols and therefore, can’t properly support wireless streaming.

This has posed a huge problem for manufacturers who want to stay on trend, but are unwilling to invest in new, wireless infrastructures. As we’ve seen with Apple’s retirement of standalone MP3 players, products that support app-based streaming are the future. And yet, manufacturers continue to release products that are fundamentally unable to support the future of wireless home entertainment.

So what can be done? Well, Blackfire Research has an answer for that.

It’s called the Blackfire Realtime Entertainment Distribution (RED) framework, and it’s the industry’s only wireless and entertainment-centric infrastructure software framework built from the ground up to both overcome the limitations of Wi-Fi and meet the needs of wireless, entertainment-related apps and products. Top global audio brands, such as Harman Kardon, Onkyo, Pioneer, and Integra have already licensed the Blackfire RED framework, and are currently shipping products that leverage its capabilities: reliable multi-room, multi-channel, low latency, wireless audio and video over Wi-Fi. With the Blackfire RED framework in products such as home A/V systems, wireless speakers, smartphones, and TVs, home owners can finally become Smart Home owners – enjoying all of their digital streaming services wirelessly, synchronously and seamlessly throughout the home.

With the original iPod, you could carry 1,000 songs in your pocket. Today, the Spotify song collection alone boasts over 30 million. We’ve been adding more and more music into our pockets, but after all this time, we’re still trying to figure out how best to get it out.

Imagine your perfect Smart Home. Would it have facial recognition locks so you wouldn’t have to worry about ever losing your keys? Or how about tinted windows that adjust to the amount of sunlight coming in, maintaining a perfect temperature inside at all times? If you’re anything like me, your perfect Smart Home would have a completely wireless, multi-room entertainment system, capable of streaming 4K video and 5.1 channels of discrete audio to speakers and screens placed throughout the home. That idea isn’t impossible today, however, it’s not being done. At the moment, the vast majority of home entertainment systems are wired, and their placement is dictated by cable lengths. And TVs are limited to soundbars that may reduce movies and music into a garbled monophonic fizz. This means that multi-room entertainment systems, a staple for Smart Home Entertainment, aren’t all that common or attractive, unless you’re into the whole tangled-wired-mess vibe.

The most cutting-edge technology for TV today is 4K, or Ultra High Definition (UHD). 4K TVs give flicker-free pictures at 60 frames per second, and up to 10 bit color. To send a 4K TV signal and 5.1 audio signal wirelessly, you’d need to transmit data at just over 80 Megabits per second (MB/s) to avoid any obvious visible artifacts. The newest WiFi routers you can buy use the 802.11ac standard to send data at a 5GHz frequency, which is a theoretical max data rate of 1.3 Gigabits per second (Mb/s).

So, if wireless, multi-room entertainment systems capable of streaming 4K video and 5.1 channels are possible, why isn’t it being done? The problem is in your WiFi. Conventional WiFi runs on TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) which was designed in the 1960’s for transferring files down wired Ethernet lines, not streaming real-time video and wireless audio for the Smart Home.

TCP is outdated.

Let’s take a closer look at TCP. TCP was originally designed to break a file into smaller packets of data, and send it piece by piece down a twisted-pair wired network connection to a router. The goal was for all the packets to eventually get to the router, no matter how long it took the file to get there. This is called “asynchronous.” Remember back in the day when you’d download music from Napster or LimeWire and it took an entire afternoon to get just a few songs? Yeah, that’s basically it.

Routers in those days could only handle so many packets at a time before choking.The lost packets were retransmitted, and so each file could only be sent to one destination on the network at a time. And if packets were getting lost, TCP would not only retransmit the lost packets, but also send the packets at a slower rate allowing the router to digest all the packets it was being sent to prevent further data loss.

TCP is wasting your precious bandwidth.

Today, in a 5GHz wireless network, it is much more likely that packets are lost through interference (transmission loss) than the router getting choked (continuous data congestion at the router). So, TCP’s approach of throttling back the data rate makes bandwidth congestion worse, not better. Tom’s Hardware site did a benchmark test of TCP vs the raw data transmission without all it’s throttling back. With TCP, they measured between 114 and 180 MB/s across five top router brands. Without TCP re-transmission they could reach 606 to 637MB/s with those same five routers.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that using wireless streaming services like Spotify or Netflix is not like sending an email. Music and video streaming have much higher demands than file transfer: packets of a streamed audio or video file have to arrive and be processed at a speed that allows a constant stream of packets to arrive reliably so there are no dropouts in the music or movie. And, if you just so happen to have multiple wireless TVs and speakers, they each have to receive the same data simultaneously.

Network interference can come from intentional transmitters, like other routers and WiFi devices on the same or adjacent channel, a cell phone or a nearby mesh-network music system, or unintentional transmitters, like a microwave oven. Noise changes by the microsecond, and with each millimeter of position- so perhaps think twice before opening that package of microwavable popcorn if you’re streaming a movie to multiple wireless speakers using a network built on TCP.

Enter Blackfire RED.

When it comes to creating your perfect Smart Home of the future, why not start today? Remember earlier when I mentioned that wireless, multi-room entertainment systems capable of streaming 4K video and 5.1 channels aren’t being done? Well, with Blackfire Realtime Entertainment Distribution (RED) protocol, it can be done, and easily. Blackfire RED can interpret all that network interference and identify where it is coming from. Blackfire RED is synchronous, multipoint, and has an intelligent adaptive algorithm for managing packet retransmission, resulting in improved signal reliability, tighter synchronization, and reduced latency. And the best part? Blackfire RED works completely wirelessly throughout your home.

The idea of your perfect Smart Home doesn’t have to remain a distant fantasy. Truly connected, wireless Smart Home Entertainment is possible today, but your current WiFi is built on an outdated protocol that can’t support the latest technology (or technology of the future). You don’t still walk around with a pager, do you? Why do we upgrade some technologies and not others? I know you’ve ditched the pager. Now go ahead, ditch TCP and say hello to twenty-first century Smart Home Entertainment.

Lifelong friends, singer and guitarist Chris Rehm and drummer Sean Hart, the New Orleans-based duo who make up Caddywhompus, have released their third studio album, “Odd Hours.” Over the course of their nine-year career, the duo keeps getting better. Because of their shared history, they have the same adolescent musical influencers, which you can unmistakably hear in their music to this day. Their lifelong friendship also allows the duo to take risks – risks that certainly pay off – like the quick, exaggerated tempo changes within songs that makes “Odd Hours” unforgettable. Highlights on the album include opener “Decent,” and “Waiting Room,” a dizzying, manic jam that throws the listener for a loop on multiple occasions.

This past Spring, Onkyo rolled out a new set of firmware updates for select A/V and hi-fi components and systems initializing Blackfire’s FireConnect wireless multi-room audio distribution. Now, Onkyo has released their NCP-302 Wireless Network Speaker featuring FireConnect by Blackfire Research for the US market, another major step in expanding the Blackfire wireless home entertainment ecosystem. The NCP-302 can link with Onkyo master components such as AVRs, work as a standalone speaker, or can be grouped to create a wireless, multi-room audio system via Blackfire’s FireConnect. FireConnect provides reliable, fast and flexible performance, enabling dynamic, real-time wireless streaming.

With your choice of black or white, this 2.6 kg speaker will look smart anywhere in your home. The NCP-302 features dual-band 5 GHz/2.4 GHz Wi-Fi, built-in Chromecast, and online streaming services such as Spotify, TIDAL, Deezer, Pandora, and TuneIn. With the Onkyo Controller app, you can control playback, explore services, and distribute audio throughout your home, all from your mobile device.

For Product Information:

Onkyo Press Release:

DAMN. Kendrick Lamar dropped one of the most influential rap albums of this decade on Good Friday. The celebrated rapper, whose 2015 “To Pimp a Butterfly” won him a Grammy for “Best Rap Album” takes an introspective turn this time around, focusing on our most basic, primal elements, with song titles like: “BLOOD,” “DNA,” “PRIDE,” “LUST,” “FEAR,” and “GOD.” On DAMN. Lamar proves he is not only the most talented rapper around, but a masterful storyteller to boot. Lamar isn’t propagating old narratives, but rather, he weaves the building blocks of his life through breathless raps and unrelenting rhymes. Directly addressing those who criticized his lyrics on police brutality on To Pimp a Butterfly’s, “Alright,” Lamar digs down deep (“DNA”), exposing the contents of his history, as well as those of his haters. His talent in storytelling culminates in “DUCKWORTH,” the album’s mind-boggling closing track, and a story that’s stranger than fiction. Kendrick captivatingly sews together two strangers’ lives, leading up to a confrontation that could have ended in his father’s death at the hands of the future rapper’s producer. The album ends where it begins with “BLOOD” – the life Lamar would have led if his father was killed and his mentor incarcerated – as another victim of senseless gun violence.

Tourist In This Town is the debut, full-length album by Alabama native Allison Crutchfield. Crutchfield is not new to the music industry, having formed notable bands since her teenage years (P.S. Eliot and Bad Banana) with twin sister, Katie of Waxahatchee. On Tourist, Crutchfield ditches compromising with bandmates and focuses on the self. Accompanying the 80’s inspired rippling synths that sail through the album are Crutchfield’s easy vocals and anxiety-driven lyrics of love, heartbreak, loneliness, and change. Standouts on the album include opener, “Broad Daylight,” “Charlie,” and “Expatriate,” with open, honest lyrics: “I love myself, or I’m figuring out how.”

In the wake of the sudden passing of Prince last year, there has been an overwhelming demand for the legendary music icon’s body of work to be made available on music streaming services. As of February 12, many fans got their wish. Warner Bros, who owns the rights to much of the late musician’s work, including renowned albums 1999, Purple Rain, and Dirty Mind, has reached an agreement with Prince’s estate to allow all his music (released prior to his 1996 split with Warner Bros) to be made available on music streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, and Pandora. The February 12 release date coincided with the Grammy Awards, which honored Prince with a tribute performance by The Time and Bruno Mars.

Warner Bros has also announced that, on June 9th, they will release a remastered version of Purple Rain, as well as two previously unreleased Prince albums and two concert films from Prince’s personal vault at his Paisley Park recording complex.

Prince did once have his music available for streaming on some digital platforms, but, with the exception of Jay Z’s Tidal (which gives artists a larger share of profits) took his music down in 2015. An advocate for artist rights, Prince split with his long-time record label, Warner Bros, in 1996 because, as a prolific songwriter, Prince wanted to release new music as soon as it was ready, but Warner Bros refused his request. This dispute and eventual split was what prompted the singer’s infamous name change to the un-pronounceable emblem combining the astrologically inspired Mars-male and Venus-female symbols. In a press release at that time, Prince wrote: “Warner Bros took the name, trademarked it, and used it as the main marketing tool to promote all of the music I wrote…The company owns the name Prince and all related music marketed under Prince. I became merely a pawn used to produce more money for Warner Bros.”

Once the Warner Bros contract expired in the year 2000, Prince went back to using his name, creating his own record label and innovating new ways for fans to access his work, becoming one of the first artists to sell their albums online.

Listen to Prince on Spotify here.

This past November, Japanese electronics manufacturer, Onkyo, unveiled the LS7200 3D Soundbar System featuring FireConnect by Blackfire Research, as part of their growing Envision Cinema product family. The LS7200 is a three-piece, 5.1.2 surround sound system, made up of a slim, 53mm wall-mountable soundbar, a wireless subwoofer, and an AV center control unit, which includes four HDMI inputs to connect all your media devices, such as Blu-Ray players, streaming boxes, and video game consoles.

The three-piece LS7200 offers key advantages over other soundbar systems:  not only does it use FireConnect to perfect multiroom distribution of wireless audio to FireConnect-compatible wireless speakers, the LS7200 will support Spotify, Connect, TuneIn, and Tidal, so you’ll have all your favorite music right at your fingertips. Onkyo’s “AccuEQ Room Acoustic Calibration tailors sound to individual spaces, adjusting essential speaker conditions such as output level, distance, and crossover” (eu.onkyo.com), so you’ll always experience incredible sound in any room or configuration.

Inside the 53mm soundbar, “you’ll find two speakers drivers for each left, right and centre channel as well single height speakers to create 3D sound effects via Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. The LS7200 also boasts a Surround Enhancer mode that creates ‘virtual rear speakers’ to help give the illusion sound is coming from behind you” (pocket-lint.com). Additionally, the LS7200 offers object-based sound for movies, as well as a deeply satisfying stereo performance with a choice of network audio options.

Whether streaming music throughout your home or watching your favorite movie in surround sound, Onkyo LS7200 3D Soundbar System is the perfect addition to your wireless home entertainment system. The LS7200 will be available starting in January 2017.

For more information, check out this Onkyo Press Release, and news from Techradar and Pocket-Lint:

Onkyo Press Release

Techradar

Pocket-lint