LATEST ADDITIONS

Ever since I left the world of car stereos, Pyle Audio has fallen off my radar. When offered an opportunity to listen to their latest soundbar, the PSBV600BT ($300), I have to admit that I was intrigued. I knew this company had a long history of making good speakers for the automotive world, but haven’t heard any of their home products. This was going to be interesting.

PRICE $2,148 as reviewed

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Stellar audio performance
Simple, intuitive app
Minus
No desktop controller
Fewer streaming services than Sonos

THE VERDICT
It’s not the first wireless multiroom sound system, but it certainly ranks among the best.

When I asked the folks at Denon why they felt the need to develop a multiroom, streaming music system, this was the answer they gave: “Probably for similar reasons why we developed the LP turntable and didn’t continue to manufacture gramophones.” That wasn’t quite the answer I was looking for, but it was an interesting way of putting a tangible perspective on the past 100-plus years that Denon has been involved in the audio industry.

In this day and age, it’s the rare person who sits at home enjoying selections from his or her collection of bulky spinning cylinders; streaming songs is what’s popular now. In fact, our collective propensity for listening to audio from the Internet or music stored on NAS drives and computers has resulted in wireless speakers of various kinds becoming the product du jour of nearly every audio manufacturer on the planet. So the question I really should have asked was how Denon thought they could build a system that would rise above the flood of streaming music speakers and systems on the market—and, specifically, how in the world Denon thought they could compete head to head with the Goliath of streaming music systems, Sonos.

No, you can’t get Ultra HD via antenna yet, but the technology has just gotten its first successful test broadcast in Baltimore. The test used Technicolor’s ATSC 3.0 test platform to send UHDTV through an experimental transmission system from Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of more than a hundred U.S. TV stations. The platform is based on open standards including SHVC video compression, MPEG-H audio, and MPEG-MMT signal transport. It is designed for phones and tablets as well as traditional antenna-TV reception.

Got a tech question for Sound & Vision? Email us at AskSandV@gmail.com

Q Why can’t audio devices be daisy-chained via Bluetooth? I have a NAD Viso 1 speaker dock and a NAD 3020 integrated amp, both with Bluetooth. The units are located in different rooms. Why can’t I send the same signal from my iPhone to both units at the same time?—J. Alan Greer