At this year's CES2016, Wanderer brought us many new products, in addition to intelligent speakers and traditional multimedia speakers, STAX, the top electrostatic headphone brand from Japan, also brought their new products. For the industry and products, what is the view of Mr. Zhang Wendong, president? Chengjian, editor-in-chief of Zhongguancun Online, also conducted an exclusive interview with him.
Zhongguancun Online Editor-in-Chief Chengjian (left) Wanderer President Zhang Wendong (right)
CES interviewed Wanderer President Zhang Wendong
What new products has Wanderer brought to consumers and the industry this year?
This year we have two main theme words, one is WiFi, and the other is our STAX stereo. Others are our traditional but THX certified products.
WiFi audio in 2015 is actually a very hot topic in the entire audio industry, so how is the Wanderer's WiFi product different from other competitors?
As you may know, we invested in a WiFi technology company that is very leading in the industry last year, which is why we invested, and with their assistance, combined with our industrial design and tuning skills, our products can now make users feel that they are both good to use and good to listen to.
So what improvements have the Wanderer's WiFi speaker on its own chip to bring a better experience to users?
In fact, it is nothing more than two points, one is in the optimization of the communication protocol, so that the stability of the transmission is better, the link speed is fast and the latency is lower, which is what we have done a lot of effort in this regard. On the other hand, the customer experience is the UI, and we also do it along the user's thinking, so that the user feels more comfortable to use.
For speakers, wireless and active have become the norm, many HiFi manufacturers have begun to launch such products, how do wanderers view the wirelessization of HiFi speakers?
In fact, everyone may not have a deep understanding of WiFi, but in fact, the bandwidth of WiFi can transmit higher quality music than traditional wireless, which is why many HiFi manufacturers use WiFi solutions as their own HiFi speaker wireless solutions. Then in this HiFi manufacturers to enable WiFi trend, we as a traditional active speaker manufacturers, whether it is circuit design, design or for WiFi technology understanding and use experience, we still have obvious advantages, in addition, WiFi is a big concept, for consumers someone needs a large speaker, but most consumers still need small and medium-sized speaker products, and this is where our advantage lies. So in the context of WiFi, we are promoting with these HiFi manufacturers, which is a good form and can also allow more consumers to contact such products.
Just now you also mentioned that now your wireless speaker has THX certified products, so do you think this certification is so important for consumer speakers?
It is true that THX used to be certified for large power amplifiers and systems, and over the years we have studied high-density small-volume amplifiers in depth, we can make such a relatively small-volume THX certified speaker. And in fact, our product volume is not small, if compared to the traditional multimedia speakers, in fact, it is much larger. But it's much smaller than traditional THX certified products, and that's our philosophy. Users need products that are easy to use, small in size, and excellent in sound, so if such a small system is certified by THX, consumers can experience the shocking effect in the simplest way. The low frequency of THX certified products can reach 30Hz, and the shock brought by such a low frequency to the user is very large. Small systems we think will also be a trend.
This year we saw it seems that STAX brought new products to be exhibited at CES?
This year's STAX is the first time to participate in the exhibition after moving into our new factory, this year brought two new traditional series of electrostatic headphones launched at the end of last year, which devolved the technology of flagship 009 to the following products, and also made many consumers feel amazing. The second is that we brought two small portable ear amps, and we improved the STAX 002, an electrostatic earbud, to give it a better sound. And its matching ear amplifier is also equipped with a decoder, users can choose such a static headphone pairing when going out on the street.
So will this new portable electrostatic headset meet consumers in 2016?
Yes, we will be listed simultaneously around the world.
Looking back at 2015, what do you think was the biggest highlight of the product from a wanderer's point of view?
Simply put, the transformation, this industry if you are still continuing to do their own multimedia, HiFi, there is no way out, you must with the development of the current technology to combine their own advantages for transformation, such as we will turn more to WiFi audio and high-performance headphone products, this is a good trend, including our miniaturized, fragmented, diversified home audio, such as our bedside audio series, such products are our traditional manufacturers must transform the direction.
Will Wanderers enter more intelligent territory in the future?
Of course, from the perspective of audio, in fact, audio is a product with a relatively high degree of intelligence in all household devices, and its operation interface after the link is actually relatively complex, so its degree of intelligence will be higher. From the wanderer's point of view, this year our WiFi speakers are already an intelligent direction, and a joint venture that we have invested in this year is also to produce intelligent products in other industries, and it is also the smartest product in that industry. We will also launch more intelligent products in the future, if the current products are not smart, then it is actually a product of the previous era.
