August 27, 2007

LU:  Can you elaborate a little bit for the non-tech-geek people onsome of the benefits of having the Wi-Fi capability and the network capability in general?

JT:  People are doing things with their PC-oriented data more than ever.  Whether it's storing it on an iPod, a Zune, a Creative Audio, a Flash drive, or external hard drives like MyBook that are relatively inexpensive for lots of amount of space. So consumers have ripped CDs from their own library and they're purchasing material online — we know the record companies are showing huge increases in downloaded music, whether it be from iTunes or whoever it may be.  But people have sort of been landlocked with this material.  What do they do with it?  They put it on a player, they could listen to it on their network, on their computer — okay, that's all right.  There have been some bridging devices.  They haven't really caught on that well. 

But the AV receiver's an entertainment device.  It always has been.  They're the center of the theater, the center of the audio world, whether it was back in the '80s or now.  And having that capability to connect it to a network and have one remote control and, regardless of how many hard drives or areas that I have in my home where I may have audio, I can bring it down to one location.  And add to that the ability that now we can actually let it out to other zones via analog, so you know, my girlfriend could listen to it on the patio, streaming audio while I'm watching a DVD in another room.  You couldn't do that this easily before.  We can now.  We've opened up its possibilities, so now it's a legitimate source that I can move throughout the house. 

And when you start to see more of the products — you know, we introduced the iPod client docks over the summer.  Those we expect to be used by a whole lot of people, because you don't have to replace your AV receiver. For $229 retail, there's a five-inch round iPod dock that does all the same functionality of streaming audio and photos and Internet radio that, you know, can do all a receiver does.  And it works with anybody's platform.  Has its own remote, has its own GUI.  So we're really going at it from both ends. The network tabletop systems, the S-52 and S-32, start shipping in October.  You plug one of these into the wall, it will wizard you through connecting to your network, and guess what?  You're streaming audio left and right without doing anything.  And we're actually partnering with Rhapsody on those devices.  So Rhapsody, you know, music service is an option the customer can buy into at the subscription rate like $12 a month. 

LU: It's a wonderful service.

JT:  And those devices connect right up so you don't even need your PC.  And we're actually looking into — it's not 100% confirmed yet — but we are looking into doing Rhapsody as an upgrade for the AVRs.  So 38's, 43's, we hope to talk about that later in the fall that we, you know, have come to an agreement with Rhapsody and we'll be able to update the receiver which, by the way, as some users have found out, the receivers are Web-updatable.  They've found the little button in the system setup that says "Firmware Update."  It's not live yet.  Our server is not live.  We'll make an announcement after CEDIA about that, but the point is there that, from the comfort of your living room, you can update the firmware.  If there is an update from us, if there's an upgrade from us, you can purchase the upgrade online and download it right into the receiver, which is great news so the receiver doesn't have to be removed or anything else.  We know a lot of enthusiastic people are trying to do this, but the server isn't running yet.  So a few receivers have crashed, but it didn't hurt the receiver.  It just powered off and powered on and was back to where it was again.  

And we’ll soon be introducing our new emote maintenance program, where Denon Customer Service or your custom installer can go into the receiver from any remote location via the Web.  They’ll have access to the receiver only — not your network, not your PC — to diagnose in real time what's going on with the unit, correct it, flip the switch, change this input, do this, do that, and put it back to the way it was by zipping in the original HTML file.  Customer service for us or for the dealer first gets the phone call, and we can actually type in the IP address, if given that permission by the customer himself, and we can look at it in real time and go, "Okay, yes, it's on.  It's the whatever."  And before that customer hangs up, odds are high that the problem is fixed.

LU:  That's going to be a great help.

JT:  So that's part of our goal of doing more IP devices in the future.  Even bigger news is that we’re finally introducing the separates at the CEDIA show.  We did show them in July to the press and to our dealers, but we didn't make a formal announcement.  We are at CEDIA.  The AVP-A1HDCI pre-amp processor and the POA-A1HDCI amp are going to be launched.  SRP's are currently $7,000 apiece.  That may change, but we do believe that's what it's going to be.  You know, it's been a long time since we were in the separates business.  It's been 10 years since the last pre-amp processors from Denon.  And we've got our sights set a lot higher this time around, so we are including networking in our amp devices, with Wi-Fi and all the same stuff as in the high-end receivers, but we're also going at a high-end market with XLRs on both the amp and the pre-amp. The design, the audio, the pre-amp section, the volume controls — nothing about the pre-amp is like anything we've ever built before. 

The amplifier will take people back a step.  It's a 150-pound behemoth, 10 channels, bridgeable, bi-ampable.  You name it, it can do it.  Even down to a four-ohm load bridge at 500 watts per channel.  So we're excited about that, to give old and new customers something else to take a look at.  And again, it has a lot of CI functionality that we're really working toward, hence it's in its name.  You can do a second theater with it, although this is a digital output only.  A little bit different way of doing it.  You need a separate receiver, but it will still do multi-zone, and if you stack everything, which a lot of integrators like to do in one location, use multiple control, you're good to go with that.

LU:  And when are those are going to ship?

JT:  This fall.  The same timing as for the Blu-ray product.

LU:  Thanks for clearing that up. [laughter]

JT:  And remember, need I say this, fall is September 21 through December 21.

LU:  That's right…

JT:  So we have no exact dates right now.  That may change after CEDIA.  We'll know more by then.

LU:  And the Blu-ray player and transport — 

JT:  Fall.  Everything else pretty much has a date.  We've got the iPod client, the table top systems, the new S-302, which will be out in September/October.  It’s the successor to our S-301, which Listen Up did pretty well with.  For $100 more at retail this year, we added Wi-Fi, full streaming network capability, analog-to-HDMI-to-1080p, which we didn't have before. A new subwoofer that's 20% smaller than before because we're using two new technologies called Audyssey Bass-XT from our friends at Audyssey, and Audyssey Dynamic EQ, two really groundbreaking technologies that we are incorporating into the S-32 and 52, but Bass-XT gives us the ability to get more output, efficiency, and go lower in a smaller subwoofer box than previously done.  So that's why we have this 20% smaller box. 

Dynamic EQ is the one people are really going to love, and this is a function that Tom Holman has been working on for many, many years.  And some of us in the business remember, let's say, ill-fated versions of it back in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, and that was the loudness contour or loudness circuit.  While it did work, it had many other problems with noise and, you know, it helped for background music, but for serious listening, it had many, many issues. Today, a similar need is still there. Most people don’t listen to their home theaters at theater reference volume — most of us average people have it turned down.  Well, when we do that, we get no subwoofer response.  The subwoofer dies. Tom and his group at Audyssey Labs have figured out a way, with Dynamic EQ, so that subwoofer is compensated to remain at the same level no matter what your volume control is.  So you still get that dramatic effect all the time. 

We're excited about that in those models.  Dynamic EQ is available in the receivers, believe it or not.  It's not selectable.  This is part of the Audyssey Pro program, which we've talked to ListenUp about and many dealers, and this is a special calibration system that custom integrators from Listen Up would come to the home, do a much more detailed calibration than what Audyssey and the receiver can do by giving up to 32 points more measurement, more filtering capabilities, more subwoofer calibration capabilities, because it uses the power of a PC externally to the receiver.  Then once it's decided, it's then injected into the receiver to hold all of that. 

There's the ability of multiple curves, where Audyssey and the receiver select one curve pattern for all the speakers, and that's stored.  There's no option to listen or look at another curve.  Audyssey Pro gives you three curves and allows you to demo them, so you go from one to the other and decide with your client which one sounds best.  And you know, you get before-and-after certificates of what the system did.  You also get the ability to turn on Dynamic EQ in the receivers.  So that's part of an incentive to contact a certified installer, Denon Certified Installer or an Audyssey Certified Installer, to have this calibration done.  We're excited about that collaboration as well.  It's a very value-added function.  It's not available to consumers directly.  They have to contact a certified installer.

Previous page of interview

Return to Denon Partner Store