New York — Russound is hard at work developing new sales and marketing capabilities while creating new products that will incorporate the company’s wireless decentralized XStream multiroom-audio technology, company executives told TWICE.
CEO Charlie Porritt and newly hired sales and marketing VP Mike Detmer outlined their plans to TWICE and Residential Systems. Detmer has been on the job for 2.5 weeks at the Newmarket, N.H., multiroom-audio company.
Detmer, an industry veteran with more than three decades of consumer electronics experience, said his appointment “will free up Charlie” to focus on logistics and enterprise resource planning while he focuses on “elevating the marketing and sales team capabilities” to deliver more effective and more consistent sales and marketing.
Added Porritt, “There will be a lot of refinements and improvements in different areas.”
Before Detmer was hired, the company was already well on its way in designing new products that will integrate XStream technology, Porritt said. Russound wants to take XStream technology “throughout the product line.”
Russound plans to announce new products in July and expects to show at least some of the products at September’s CEDIA Expo. Russound hopes at the Expo to show some new products with XStream technology, Detmer said.
The company hinted at a multizone controller incorporating XStream technology.
Current XStream products include the tabletop $849-suggested XStream X5, a networked music-streamer/amplifier that can be used to create a decentralized 16-zone wireless-audio system if 16 X5 devices are added to a home network. The device incorporates a stereo amplifier to connect to passive speakers, preamplifier to connect to an outboard amp, Wi-Fi, Ethernet port, AirPlay, DLNA networking and embedded music-streaming services. It also features analog RCA and optical digital inputs to connect to a local source such as a TV.
The X5 can be controlled from an iOS or Android app, and users get the option to add control from one of three locally wired keypads already available from Russound for its centralized wired multi-room audio systems.
Other XStream products include the XStream X1 four-zone $319-suggested X1-TX8 wireless transmitter, a $399 X1-RX220 amplified receiver with 2×20-watt RMS amp, and a non-amplified $249 X1-RX2 receiver to connect to existing stereo systems.
The four-zone transmitter, which can be controlled from a Wi-Fi-equipped mobile device, features three line-level stereo inputs and a fourth input that lets installers choose between line-in or optical digital in.
The X1 products can be used with a C-Series multizone controller/amplifier to wirelessly expand an existing wired multiroom-audio system.
