Denon announces "significant upgrades" to the Heos wireless multi-room audio system through the addition of Bluetooth and fast 802.11ac wifi connectivity, as well as support for high-resolution audio streaming.
Such features will first be available in new versions of the Heos 5 and Heos 7 tabletop speakers, followed by upgrades of the Heos 1 and Heos 3 speakers. The upgrades involve a new Heos HS2 platform featuring a more powerful processor (specifically a 1.2GHz ARM A9 processor) allowing the decoding of uncompressed WAV (PCM), ALAC, and FLAC files up to 24-bit/192kHz, with DSD and AIFF playback coming later via firmware update.
The addition of embedded Bluetooth eliminates the need for a USB Bluetooth dongle for streaming from compatible mobile devices, while 802.11ac wifi complements the dual-band 2.4/5GHz 802.11 a/b/g/n wifi found in current models. Heos speakers handle audio from a variety of sources, included the Pandora, Spotify, TuneIn, Amazon Music, SiriusXM, SoundCloud, Tidal and Rhapsody streaming services.
“We are pleased to introduce this new upgrade to our Heos platform that brings high resolution audio playback, built-in Bluetooth, and a significant increase in processing power that will intensify performance and support new features that we can’t wait to bring to the HEOS family!” the company says. “Consumers are embracing our HEOS line of products, and we are looking forward to making the platform even better with new software features.”
Denon is still to announce European shipping dates for upgraded Heos products.
