It could be said this is the calm before the storm. InfoComm 2026 is in the books, collectively, we are staring down a major U.S. holiday with July 4th approaching, and CEDIA Expo 2026 is starting to come into view.
This week’s KMB Communications Tech Review will have a heavy focus on residential technology with the commercial market recovering from a week in Las Vegas for InfoComm.
With the stage now set, this week’s news comes from AV Nirvana, Future Audiophile, SVConline, SCN, Guitar World, and LinkedIn. The companies covered within these news items include Tonewinner, IsoAcoustics, Teenage Engineering, Fender, and Apple.
KMB Communications Residential Technology Roundup for June 22-26
Starting the week off is a post from AV Nirvana. The story focuses on Dirac’s continued market growth through partnerships. AV Nirvana reports that Dirac has partnered with the Chinese company Tonewinner to include its room calibration technologies in the manufacturer’s AT-600 AV Processor.
The immersive audio processor provides 16 channels, and processing modes such as Dolby Atmos and DTS. The unit supports HDMI 2.1, and Dirac modes, including Dirac Live Room Correction, and Dirac Live Bass Control.
Arguably, one of the most unsung manufacturers in home audio is the Canadian company IsoAcoustics. The company makes a range of acoustic products—most notably acoustical decoupling products. Usually, acoustical products are overly hyped audiophile money traps, but that is not the case with IsoAcoustics. Validating the performance of its products is the fact that a growing number of pro audio users are now utilizing its products.
Showing the residential market the new IsoAcoustics GAIA I isolation feet, Future Audiophile recently reviewed the solution. Without giving too much away, let’s say that unlike many of those overhyped audiophile add-ons, the IsoAcoustics products impressed the reviewer.
Years ago, it would have sounded crazy to tell someone you had a home recording studio and today of course, someone can make their own recordings with GarageBand and an interface that costs less than $100.
Perhaps vinyl production is making the same transition. SVConline published a story on the audio manufacturer Teenage Engineering’s at-home record cutter called the APC-2. The story says the record cutter is part of a collaboration with the analog-audio company SuperSense to allow anyone that wants the ability to produce physical media in the form of vinyl at home.
SVConline adds the 308-pound unit measures 51 inches x 23.6 inches x 15.7 inches, and pricing and the release date are still to be determined.
Global Technology Integration News Nuggets
Starting the KMB Communications look at news outside of the residential market, SCN’s AV Network website posted a story on the commercial AV’s industry’s efforts to become more eco-friendly. The article, “Sustainability: How Far Has Pro AV Come?” examines how manufacturers in the space are doing more to make a positive impact through improved packaging, and the work of the non-profit group, SAVe to help the commercial AV industry to become more green.
Making its usual appearance in the Tech Week in Review, LinkedIn picked up a story from Bloomberg that says when incoming CEO John Ternus takes over the company in September one of his immediate goals will be to revamp the design team.
According to LinkedIn Post and Bloomberg, Turnus must make, “Apple’s products cool again.”
Naturally, the team at KMB are huge music fans and … of course we’ve been following all the news Fender has been generating lately. The final KMB Communications item of the week dives back into the MI market (musical instrument) industry’s drama with Fender suing manufacturers that produce “S-style guitars (Stratocaster).
Guitar World has a post on the large Treppendorf, Germany-based retailer Thomann announcing a lawsuit against Fender.
The post points out that Thomann’s own Harley Benton brand is caught up in the Fender’s Cease-and-desist legalities and as a result it is standing up to the Los Angeles-based instrument maker on behalf of the entire MI industry.
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