Boston Acoustics Scraps Plans for New HD Radio Tabletop

There’s a $100 premium on building HD Radio functionality into a tabletop compared with an AM/FM-only model, and not enough people are willing to pay that, Eli Harary, BA senior vice president and general manager, told us. Dan Anagnos, BA vice president for product development and engineering, called HD Radio licensing costs so high his company can’t make money on receivers. HD Radio owner iBiquity Digital once subsidized BA’s Receptor, but subsidies end when a maker reaches “X” number of products shipped or sold, Anagnos said. BA planned a new Horizon HD Radio model for 2008, but has scrapped it as a result of the high license costs, and now has no plans to field one, he said.

BA’s Receptor “was a ground-breaking product, and we are glad it was successful,” iBiquity CEO Bob Struble told Consumer Electronics Daily. “We hope to work with BA on additional product in the future.” IBiquity disagrees with BA that “cost is a major issue with HD Radio implementations and we continue to see dramatic decreases,” Struble said. Dozens of makers are producing HD Radio receivers, with over 50 SKUs in the market, including many available at national retailers, Struble said. “Several units are now below $200 at retail, and one is even below $100,” he said. “These trends of more products at increasingly attractive prices will accelerate into the holiday selling season. And as one would expect, unit sales have risen dramatically in 2007.” Struble said he still has a Receptor in his office.

Eight Horizon speaker grille colors will be available at retail and on BA’s website, Harary said. It’s part of a program BA is calling “Boston POP,” for “personal option plan.” The arrangement offers buyers a chance “to make our products their own,” Harary said. Grilles will be sold individually, but BA hasn’t finalized pricing and won’t for at least another week, Harary said. BA, under Boston POP, plans to have 16 colors next year, Harary said. “Because all our Boston POP grilles will be available individually, you can in fact change the two surround speakers to be in one color and have the three in front be different,” he said.

“Hip-smart” design and heed to rising demand for products embracing personal expression will comprise BA’s new “forward-thinking values,” said Harary, who joined BA in May 2006 as the company shifted to its new D&M Holdings ownership. Its Horizon-series speakers aim to be “more youthful, more playful and a little less refined” than BA speakers historically have been, he said. Horizon has a range of 10 speaker sizes and configurations, from compact bookshelf models to full-size floor-standing units to home theater LCR models and powered subwoofers. “More refined” will be the mantra of a second speaker line, the Vista series, planned for CES introduction.

Harary shrugged off media queries on whether using “Vista” will land BA in legal hot water with Microsoft. BA’s use of “Vista” as a sub-brand was “totally intentional,” said Harary in Q-and-A. “The really interesting news is that that little company out there in the Seattle area, they actually trademarked Vista for computer software products,” he said. “We don’t make computer software products.” Vista speakers “have nothing to do with” Microsoft’s Vista, he said. “In fact, there are 937 registered trademarks using the name Vista.” BA wouldn’t discuss details of its Vista launch. But Anagnos showed us a prototype of a 500-watt amplifier circuit board his engineering team built for a Vista powered subwoofer coming next year.

“Countless millions” buy flat-panel TVs without getting “a badly needed audio upgrade,” Harary said. To rescue viewers “who suffer with AM radio sound from their new television speakers,” BA is introducing a $399 TV accessory, Tvee, for “TV entertainment enhancement,” Model 2, he said. Data show that in recent times 12.5 million American consumers bought a flat-panel TV without buying an audio system to go with it, he said. “You can hope that someone someday will finally address the problem,” Harary said. “Trying to get retailers to get customers to buy audio with their TV purchases really is a challenge.”

“It was time to solve that problem,” and BA did, Harary said. TVee isn’t a virtual-surround product, nor is it “five channels built into a little box,” he said. The system has a “sound bar” that can be placed above or below a TV or mounted on a wall, plus a matching wireless woofer that can be placed anywhere in the room to boost bass response. A single wire from the sound bar plugs into the TV’s line-level output. The sound bar also houses the transmitter for the woofer. The system can learn a user’s existing TV remote to control TVee volume and mute commands, eliminating the need for yet another remote control. Harary said TVee isn’t designed to replace a multichannel speaker system, and retailers will be encouraged to merchandise it as an accessory in the TV department, not in the audio department.