San Francisco — The Wireless Speaker and Audio (WiSA) Association has expanded its membership roster by six companies, with more member announcements planned in the coming days.
The association now has 30 member companies.
The newcomers are OEM/ODM supplier Claridy Audio, OEM/ODM supplier Elytone Electronic, wireless-audio supplier Enclave Wireless Audio, consumer/professional audio supplier Fostex, OEM speaker maker Innovo Concepts and speaker supplier Monitor Audio.
WiSA technology is promoted as delivering interference-free, wired-quality wireless audio in the 5.2-5.8GHz U-NII band to stereo and home theater speakers within a room up to 29.5 feet by 29.5 feet. WiSA technology delivers up to 7.1 channels of 24-bit/96kHz uncompressed audio.
The association certifies products as compliant with the WiSA standard to ensure interoperability among brands.
The technology is promoted as eliminating cable clutter, enabling more flexible placement of speakers by eliminating speaker-cable runs, and overcoming the sound quality, interference, latency and cost challenges associated with other wireless technologies designed for multichannel home theaters.
Two suppliers — Bang & Olufsen and Sharp — offer WiSA-certified products. B&O offers active wireless speakers, TVs with embedded WiSA, and an outboard WiSA-certified transmitter to add to its surround-decoding TVs. Sharp plans September shipments of the industry’s first Blu-ray/SACD player equipped with WiSA wireless-audio technology. The player also incorporates WiHD wireless-video technology to transmit wireless 1080p video to a TV.
Sharp’s wireless high-resolution audio player will retail for $4,999 UPP.
Other WiSA members include Pioneer, Klipsch, Definitive Technology and Polk.
The association plans to extend its technology for multiroom-audio use and expects products for the residential and commercial industries could be available in mid-2015.
