First HD Radio Audio Component Due June

By Joseph Palenchar -- TWICE, 4/6/2005

Buena Park, Calif. — Yamaha will become the first supplier to offer an HD Radio home-audio component in June when it ships the $1,899-suggested RX-V4600 A/V receiver with embedded HD Radio tuner.

Other dedicated home HD Radio products are in the works from Rotel, Audio Design Associates (ADA) and Day Sequerra, all of which plan home HD Radio tuners. In addition, Boston Acoustics plans the industry’s first tabletop radio equipped with an HD Radio tuner.

The tabletop radio is due in the next couple of months, said HD Radio’s inventor iBiquity Digital. ADA said its tuner, due by year’s end, is a module that drops into a modular four-zone TuneSuite distributed-audio tuner. The module was originally targeted for first-half shipment at around $600. TuneSuite retails for $2,800 with included analog AM/FM module and XM Satellite Radio module.

Day Sequerra’s M1 tuner ships in June with included HD Radio module at a suggested $2,995, with additional HD Radio modules due in July at $699. The M1 accepts up to 10 modules, including planned NTSC and HDTV modules. Rotel plans a dedicated tuner due around the fall, iBiquity said.

Onkyo USA has been considering HD Radio cards for its card-based $5,000 flagship receiver, Integra-brand card-based receiver and Integra Research-brand card-based preamp/processor, but updates on the three brands’ plans was unavailable.

For its part, Yamaha will embed an HD Radio tuner in its A/V receiver, which will receive digital AM and digital FM stations’ primary programs as well as digital FM stations’ multicast programs. The receiver offers Circle Surround II decoding of future HD Radio programs and current cable/satellite TV programs encoded in the format.

About 275 U.S. radio stations are HD Radio broadcasters today, and almost 2,500 have committed to deploying the technology within the next few years, iBiquity said.

The three-zone RX-V4600 also features component-video up-conversion, a two-in-one out HDMI switching interface, dual i.Link inputs for DVD-Audio and SACD player connection, and automatic room acoustic compensation.

The RX-V4600 is compatible with the latest sound formats, including Dolby Pro Logic IIx, Dolby Digital EX, Dolby Pro Logic II, DTS-ES Discrete 6.1, DTS Neo:6 and DTS 96/24. It also delivers THX Select2 processing.