This week at CES we caught up with WiSA to talk about the SoundSend. WiSA, the Wireless Speaker & Audio Association, has worked with dozens of manufacturers to create a low-latency wireless home audio solution to market. We’ve covered and reviewed some of the products from Axiim and found that the technology offers a fantastic solution for making surround sound audio an easy addition to any home theater. Most of the WiSA partners are speaker manufacturers and they want to focus their energy on their core talent, not on making wireless audio transmitters. That’s when WiSA decided to create an easy-to-use wireless transmitter for them – it’s called SoundSend.
WiSA solutions target an interesting segment of the home theater market. These devices are for people who are fed up with the terrible audio quality from televisions but also don’t necessarily want to go the route of figuring out A/V receivers and then running a bunch of speaker wire all over the place. The SoundSend makes setting up a wireless surround sound environment as easy as plugging in a streaming stick. Unlike dealing with an A/V receiver, you can even use your television’s remote control to adjust the volume.
Setting Up the SoundSend
The SoundSend looks like a hockey puck and you can easily hide it behind your television. It only has two ports. You plug in a power cable and you connect an HDMI cable to the ARC HDMI port on your television. After that, a smartphone app handles the rest of the setup process. The SoundSend automatically discovers your speakers. The app allows you to customize speaker distance and volume levels individually, adjust EQ profiles, and more.
Audio brands you already know and trust make WiSA compatible speakers. You can even combine speakers from different manufacturers. Perhaps you want your front three speakers from Klipsch but you really love Enclave’s subwoofers. They all work together seamlessly.
The SoundSend can be purchased now (when is the last time you heard that in a CES news piece?) individually or bundled with speakers. It’s available on Amazon for $179.
For more information on WiSA, the SoundSend, and compatible products, head over to the WiSA site.
