Hebron, Ken. – NuVo has priced the components in its long-awaited wireless multiroom-audio system and has begun shipping the products, which will be displayed at CES.
Using Wi-Fi-equipped amplified zone players, the NuVo Wireless Audio System streams Internet radio sources, music stored on networked PCs and NAS drives, and USB hard drives and USB sticks plugged into a zone player.
The lineup consists of two zone player/amplifiers, a wireless gateway that connects to a home router to dedicate bandwidth to the system, and apps to control the system from iOS and Android tablets and smartphones. A dedicated $399 wireless hand-held control is also planned for shipment at an unspecified date.
The company, recently purchased by home automation supplier Legrand, also offers a companion rack-mountable three-zone wired-Ethernet amp/switcher to add networked sources and other sources to previously installed multiroom-audio systems.
The zone player/amps are the 2×20-watt $479 P100 and $599 2×60-watt P200, which adds Bluetooth with aptX. The Gateway costs $199, and the three-zone 6×20-watt wired-Ethernet P3100 amp/switcher is $1,499.
The P3100 amp/switcher distributes music from networked PCs and NAS drives, Internet music sources, connected USB hard drives and USB sticks, and three analog-input sources over speaker cable to already installed architectural speakers. It can be integrated with the wireless receivers to create a multiroom-audio system with a mix of wired and wireless zones.
The wireless zone players and the networked rack-mount amp/switcher stream the Pandora, Rhapsody, SiriusXM, and Tune In music-streaming apps. The devices also decode MP3, WMA, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, Flac and WAV audio.
Content streamed via Bluetooth directly to the P200 zone/amplifier can also be directed over WiFi to other zone players.
The system integrates with home automation systems.
