Audio Video News

Onkyo and Integra have released a firmware update that adds Chromecast audio streaming and Google Home voice capability to a dozen products.

Products with “Chromecast built-in” support both Ethernet connectivity and dual-band 5 GHz/2.4 GHz Wi-Fi and allow users to share a music, Internet radio, podcasts, and other programs from Chromecast-enabled apps. Streaming audio from mobile devices via Chromecast is described as “intuitive and instantaneous.” Tapping or clicking on an icon in Chromecast-enabled apps sends audio to the receiver or speaker system wirelessly at sampling rates up to 48 kHz.

With Chromecast, users can use other apps, answer calls, send email, and play games while streaming music from one or more souces simultaneously. No special device setup, password entry, or pairing process is required to connect and stream via Chromecast, provided both devices are connected to the same Wi-Fi network.

Chromecast built-in is supported on a variety of iOS and Android devices, Google’s Chrome browser, Mac computers, Windows PCs, and Linux PCs.

The firmware update also adds compatibility with the Google Home speaker and future audio devices that will support Google Assistant. Using spoken words, users can ask Google Home to find music from supported streaming services and play it back through the updated Onkyo or Integra product. Operations such as volume adjustment and song selection can also be performed using voice commands.

For Onkyo, the firmware update applies to the recently announced TX-8270 stereo receiver, the PR-RZ5100 AV preamp/controller, and 10 AV receivers: TX-NR676, TX-NR575, TX-RZ3100, TX-RZ1100, TX-RZ810, TX-RZ710, TX-RZ610, TX-NR757, TX-NR656, and TX-NR555. The update also applies to the HT-S7800 5.1 home theater system, SBT-A500 soundbar system, and a new speaker, the NCP-302.

For Integra, the update applies to the DLB-5 soundbar system and eight AV receivers: DRC-R1, DRX-R1, DRX-7, DRX-5, DRX-4, DRX-3, DRX-2, and DSX-3.

In addition to Chromecast, Onkyo’s new NCP-302 Wi-Fi-based multiroom wireless speaker ($349) supports Bluetooth as well as the DTS Play-Fi and Blackfire FireConnect streaming platforms and is preloaded with Spotify, Pandora, Tidal, TuneIn internet ratio, and other apps. The speaker is available in black and white.

For more information about built-in Chromecast capability, visit google.com. A list of Chromecast-enabled apps is available here.