Is the world preoccupied with football … while highly unlikely, presidential politics and the National Football League (NFL) seem to be dominating the current news cycle.
Admittedly, certain members of the KMB Comm staff are perhaps a little distracted with his team returning to league prominence led by MVP candidate Drake Maye, but putting aside the talk of championship games it is time to focus on the residential and commercial electronics market.
Major Brands Make Major News in Home AV Market
Sneaking into people’s newsfeeds between the NFL coaching hires and politics has been a couple of interesting consumer electronics items. Starting this week’s KMB Comm Technology Week in Review off is a Residential Systems story on the latest NAD integrated amplifiers. Building off the success of the NAD C 3050 integrated amplifier, the new C 3030 and C 303S offer retro-inspired industrial designs that include VU meters and a classic NAD logo.
The C 3030 is rated to deliver 50-watts per channel, and it offers options such as aptX Bluetooth and HDMI with eARC. Residential Systems says the C 3030S incorporates the same features as the C 3030 and it adds the company’s BluOS whole-house streaming audio platform.
Here is the entire Residential Systems’ post.
CE Pro has a story on Daisy’s Hagen Kappler outlining what integrators will need to do in 2026 to experience a successful year.
According to Kappler, integrators that produce reliable revenues via disciplined system installations, predictable service models, and control their costs will bolster their businesses.
The entire conversation with Kappler can be found here.
NAMM Show Headlines Commercial AV Activities
Currently, the annual North American Music Merchants (NAMM) show, which takes place in Anaheim from Jan. 20-24 is grabbing the spotlight in the world of pro audio. Brands including Fender, Avid, Mackie, DiGiCo, Suhr, Friedman Amplification, and Apple are all in attendance.
Looking at some unrelated NAMM pro AV news, Commercial Integrator recently posted an item on QSC’s new Q-SYS Full Stack AV Platform. The story says the Calif.-based manufacturer has expanded the product line with options that include the Q-SYS RoomSuite Modular Systems, Q-SYS Connect for Zoom Rooms, and MPA-Q Series network amplifiers.
The Commercial Integrator story goes into greater detail on all the new products within the line. That story can be found here.
KMB Comm Week in Review Look at National News
This is a residential technology story that is big enough to cross into a national news item. Picking the story up from eCoustics, Sony and TCL have announced plans to expand their relationship.
The story points out that Sony, the fifth largest TV manufacturer in global market share and TCL, a company that is trending to be the second largest TV manufacturer in global share are set to increase their partnership in which TCL will take over Sony’s home entertainment product manufacturing, including TVs and home audio.
As part of the agreement, TCL eCoustics reports, will hold a controlling 51% stake in the partnership to give TCL control. The complete story can be found here.
Concluding this week’s KMB Comm look at technology news, LinkedIn is reporting the streaming service Netflix now has more than 325 million paid subscribers. Through its subscription base, the story continues, the streamer is growing 16% year-over-year to $45 billion.
The problem, however the article points out is that growth is becoming more difficult for Netflix as the potential buyer of Warner Bros. Additionally, the LinkedIn post says that Netflix is planning on increasing its spending on original content by 10% to gain more U.S. original content viewing time.
KMB Communications hosts a podcast called AV Trade Talk. Listeners can check out the podcast to learn about the latest happenings in the custom installation electronics industry. To listen to the KMB AV Trade Talk Podcast, click here.