At KnowledgeFest this month, Focal showed table top home audio components aimed at car audio retailers who want to expand into home products that don’t require installation.
“We’re opening it up to certain car audio dealers as an over-the-counter product,” said Nalaka Adikari of Orca Design & Manufacturing, which distributes Focal. The products include a standalone table top sound bar, a sound cube, a headphone amplifier /streamer, plus four headphone models.
For customers that already own Focal car audio products, it makes sense to offer them products for the home, including for the many home offices and home gyms that were set up during the pandemic, said Adikari. It also provides the dealer with added revenue without burdening already over-taxed installers.
“Wheels and tires are labor intensive, but this consumers can plug in themselves. It’s an easy sale to the right customer. If they like music in the car, they want that in their home office, home gym or even garage,” said Adikari.
The systems will ship to dealers in the next 90 days. They include the 3-way sound bar called the Naim Mu‑so (Naim is a Focal brand). It has built in digital signal processing and is designed to stream from tablets, USB sticks, phones and MP3 players.
Mu-so (2nd Gen) is Multi Room ready, and works with streaming services such as Tidal and Spotify. It is compatible with AirPlay, and has USB, HDMI, Bluetooth, and many other connections.
A cube version, called the Mu-so Qb will also be available with many of the same features .
Also available are high end Focal headphones as well as a Unity headphone amplifier/server. The self-contained Unity requires no separate computer or streaming device. Users plug in their headphones and connect the system to WiFi for streaming from services including Apple Music, Deezer, Spoitfy, Qobuz and TIDAL. The Unity can also connect to other components including Mu-so, turntables or USB drives.
Pricing will be announced.
