Why is URC Getting into Surround Sound Business?

Stupid!  Just stupid!  They’re basically saying that programming their remotes to work with certain ecosystems can be too complicated…. so now you can buy our AV receiver to make this one ecosystem less complicated.  Well, this is the one ecosystem that is getting less complex by other manufacturers now that they have built in GUI’s and can easily be programmed to work with iOS or Android.

There’s no mention of price.  I suspect URC probably thinks they can charge a bit of a premium for this receiver considering the ease of programming.

Just stupid!  As they say, idle hands are the devil’s workshop.

So…. who is the OEM for it?  That back-plane looks all too familiar, but I can’t place it.

Looks like an Onkyo to me. Joy!

I don’t understand why OhMyGod thinks it’s stupid.  Let’s look at it a different way.  URC may realize that the writing is on the wall for wand style remote controls.  So they’ve come up with Total Control and now this new AV receiver.  I think it’s great, I’ve seen too many companies in this industry wither and die because they weren’t willing to diversify, change, and grow.  This industry is all about change.  You can’t let time pass you buy and hope customers still buy your products because of your past. (A big shout out to Russound and Niles).  This is a “what have you done for me lately business”.  The way I see it, URC is doing their best to compete.  On top of that, if it works and works well, I’ve got an AV receiver that will be dealer only, and I don’t have to worry about the BestBuy shopper.  Good for them and good for us.

This is a Sherwood unit.
Sleek, Sexy, and looks like it has about 5 inputs on it.
Hope they get HDMI 1.4 in it so when they ship it in in 2015 it might pass video

Just poking fun.
I hope they sell lots of them!!

When I first saw this at CEDIA I thought it was a silly idea. However, after understanding its real purpose it makes sense! We are starting to do multiple surround sounds in one home. URC stated they are not looking to replace the MAIN surround units in customers homes but looking for a way to have a SECOND surround and this is a perfect fit!

It is cumbersome to get all sources of a rack into more than one surround system or into a whole house audio distribution set up (Y cables, splitters, programming, etc).  This eases that pain with its network streaming capabilities into other URC DMS products. Brilliant.

My HUGEconcern is price. It was thrown around at under $2k list which means $1995. That WONT fly. When I brought this price point up to another URC employee I was told thats wrong and it will be under $1.5k. That STILL wont fly. This needs to be $1k or even $800 LIST. Then it could easily go into every install. Otherwise another $600 or $800 Integra will continue to be used as secondary surround zones. Over $1k will not bring success to this product IMO.

It is referred to as a receiver, but has no tuner. I guess that makes it a surround processor/amp (?)

Exactly Moon. Nothing on front except a volume knob, nothing for customers to mess up. It “receives” all the other input signal including other sources attached to DMS amps, no radio.

@Details Matter

It looks too much like a Harmon Kardon receiver.

Nope, no way anything over 1k will fly. I see the point, but at the same time i dont. Manufactures like denon/Marantz etc make drivers for crestron/amx/RTI etc. It needs to be competitively priced. Dual stream network audio doesn’t seem like that big of deal and something that other companies can easily take that idea and run with it.

Like OHMYGOD said receivers are getting less complex to “install” and “Program”

Very smart. Anyone who has to use AVR’s in a distributed scenario will get that. I have wished that Crestron would come out with an AVR in the $1500-3000 range for years.

It will make programming easier and allow you to offer more for less (money saved dealing with 3rd party products).

@ OhMyGod. One thing that you are missing…which is huge in multi-zone applications…

“And here’s another reason, according to Pittner: “The TSP-2000 gives the ability to send and receive multicast audio streams via its Ethernet port.”

Thus, there is two-way audio sharing between anything connected to the receiver and anything connected to URC’s multizone audio system—analog sources included.”

Having this built in is a big deal. It will be expensive to try and reproduce this with a hodge podge of 3rd party products & programming.

I’m with Sig, That piece has Harman written all over it.

That would actually be a good thing if it was HK upper end guts with some proprietary URC technology.
I’m going to give them a shot regardless but I really want to take one apart.

Whitevan, or we could just ask.

I already did Julie but I dont have the kind of pull you guys do so I got the shrug followed by “look at this”.

You asked for it WhiteVan. Want to do the first review? I know people.

I’m all over it.