Making a strong statement of confidence in the longevity of its products, StormAudio has announced that its MK2 line-up of products is now covered by a five-year warranty.
The MK2 product line was a major addition to the company’s portfolio in March 2020. The new DSP-based processors have increased computing power to support higher channel count, new immersive formats such as DTS:X Pro and IMAX Enhanced and other EQ and calibration features.
One year on, StormAudio has decided to retroactively cover all MK2 products with a five-year warranty, signifying the company’s commitment to longevity and sustainability, along with its modular architecture with option slots to make it possible to add modules that will meet the requirements of any installation and enables the same product to host new technologies over time.
The French audio company has also revealed a host of new products and features that will be made available to all customers through upcoming software updates this year.
Audio over IP (AoIP) has traditionally been used mostly in the professional AV industry, with its complexity making it difficult to implement into custom installation devices. However, StormAudio is working on the creation of an optional module for its products to add full compatibility with the AES67 / Ravenna protocol on 32 inputs and 32 outputs, making the ISP platform universal and compatible with both professional and residential applications of AoIP. This technology will be included in two new models: the ISP.32 Digital AoIP and AoIP Upgrade module, both of which are currently being tested with various sources and endpoints before their launch at the end of Q2 this year.
In 2019, StormAudio launched its high-end AV processor supporting eARC, on of the key HDMI 2.1 features. Through a partnership with Cypress Technologies, StormAudio is now developing a new HDMI card fully compatible with the HDMI 2.1 / HDCP 2.3 protocol. The intention is to offer this new card as an update to all MK1 and MK2 owners in late 2021.
Beyond natively decoding a large number of channels, with the multiple formats available on the market and their different recommended speaker placements, it is not uncommon to have silent speakers when playing certain content. When this is not by choice, it can be frustrating to not use all the speakers to improve immersivity. To combat this challenge, StormAudio has developed a proprietary engine called StormXT that works hand in hand with existing upmix algorithms to extract relevant audio signals from nearby speakers and redirect the to silent speakers. This new feature will be coming to the ISP platform free of charge in 2021.
In some installations, speakers are sometimes not placed in their ideal locations often due to a room’s physical constraints or because of differences between different codecs placement recommendations. Working to solve these challenges, the company has developed a proprietary solution which will be offered to customers as a software upgrade on the ISP platform. More information about this will come later this year.