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Hitachi launches three new wireless speakers with AllPlay
Hitachi isn’t exactly a household name when it comes to audio, but they hope to change that with the announcement of three new wireless speakers in their W Series that won’t cost you your favorite limb. Their goal was to make high-quality players for local and cloud-based music, so naturally the ability to stream music is front and center.
The speakers come with Qualcomm AllPlay baked in which gives iOS and Android devices the ability to play music seamlessly over your home Wi-Fi. Since AllPlay works over Wi-Fi, the speakers have the ability to stream high-res music files up to 192kHz and 24-bits which is a nice option to have. Spotify, iHeartRadio, Rhapsody, and others are all supported by the speakers and can be controlled and customized via a free downloadable app.
Besides AllPlay, the speakers can also connect to a source device by using Bluetooth 4.0 or a 3.5mm auxiliary cable. If you have a compatible device you can also use the built-in NFC to connect simply by tapping the device against the speaker. The software in the W series speakers will be automatically updated over-the-air so that’s one less thing you need to worry about in terms of maintenance. Like other home audio wireless speakers these need to be plugged in with an AC adapter, so I wouldn’t plan on taking any of these to the beach with you this summer.
The largest model is the W200 and it will retail for $199. It’s uses 22W to power the two full-range drivers with bass reflex as well as two tweeters. The W100 speaker on the other hand only has one tweeter to go along with the dual full-range drivers, so it needs only 12W to power it’s three drivers. The last of the trio is the smaller $150 10W speaker which has only one full-range driver helped by a passive radiator. All three models will be available sometime this month.