HARMAN Luxury Update

by Dave Tovissi
Vice President and General Manager, HARMAN Luxury Audio

Due to the uncertainties and risks associated with the Delta variant of COVID-19, we have sadly had to make the very difficult decision to pull out of next month’s CEDIA Expo in Indianapolis. This comes after months of planning a booth construction to showcase the exciting new products ready to be announced.

We were highly anticipating the chance to meet in person with our dealers after many months of being hunkered down due to this pandemic. However, it was the right choice to put the health and safety of our employees and our customers first. Here is a glimpse of what we were planning on showing attendees at our booth.

The Breadth of JBL Synthesis Solutions
This year’s booth was redesigned to highlight the fact that JBL Synthesis can guarantee the performance of our systems regardless of the price. We were going to have two fully featured demo rooms at the booth. The first demo room represented a dedicated home theater showcasing the latest SCL loudspeakers and subwoofers.

The second was designed to showcase the versatility of our expanded line of off-axis loudspeakers in a dual-purpose living space and would have also showcased two JBL SDA-1700 Subwoofer Amplifiers. Designed to perfectly complement our SSW-4 in-wall subwoofer, this lower-priced amplifier will help dealers specify more of our award-winning line of JBL Synthesis subwoofers.

Tech Tip – The SDA-1700 Subwoofer Amp also can be used with our JBL Conceal Invisible Subwoofers.

Adding HDMI 2.1 SKUs with 8K Video Capabilities
Speaking of new product introductions, we were also going to have working samples of our JBL Synthesis SDP-58 Home Cinema Processor and the SDR-38 Home Cinema AVR. These products will start shipping in the first quarter of 2022 and will be the first products in the HARMAN Luxury Audio portfolio to include 8K capabilities.

Tech Tip – Both of these models feature fully fledged HDMI2.1 capability on all inputs and outputs, so installations are not limited by only being able to support 8k on a single input.

We will also be offering an 8K upgrade kit that can be used to upgrade our existing line of JBL Synthesis and Arcam AV processors and AV receivers. This kit will be available to authorized service center in the 1st Quarter of 2022 via our HARMAN Luxury Audio Parts Portal. Besides the cost of the HDMI 2.1 kit, the authorized service centers will also be adding a labor charge which will cover the costs of replacing the existing HDMI board and performing a software update to the firmware before repacking the units for shipment back to the customer.

Tech Tip– After the HDMI 2.1 board is installed and the firmware is updated, apart from the higher resolution support, the product will operate exactly as before, making re-integration into an installation effortless.

JBL: Celebrating 75 Years of Acoustics Excellence
Other products that we were planning to show attendees for the first time included the JBL SA750 Intelligent Streaming Amplifier in a retro-style, the JBL L52 Classic bookshelf loudspeakers which we launched earlier this month at the ProSource Summer Conference and the JBL L75ms all-in-one music system, with acoustics expertly designed by An Nguyen, our Distinguished Principle Engineer. Designed to attract a new audio customer, this amazing product reproduces high-resolution audio in a manner that has never been done before.

Tech Tip – Read more about the way An Nguyen engineered the acoustics of the L75ms in this month’s newsletter.

While we regret that we won’t be able to meet with many of you at this year’s CEDIA Expo, our sales teams are ready to meet with you virtually or when possible in person to talk about your business and determine how HARMAN Luxury Audio products can be an important part of your assortment.