Samsung to Use SRS Labs' WOW Technology For Its Latest Digital Audio Players

March 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SRS Labs today announced that its patented stereo audio enhancement technology, SRS WOW, continues to be chosen by leading manufacturers of consumer electronics products to deliver the best quality audio experience. Samsung Electronics, the number one manufacturer of digital audio players in Korea, has expanded their use of WOW in their popular line of Yepp digital audio players. WOW creates powerfully vivid and immersive 3D audio with accompanying deep, rich bass over headphones and earbuds, despite the small sized speaker drivers. Not only does WOW deliver a fully engaging listening experience, but it does so without any accompanying listener fatigue and without the need for additional equipment from the manufacturer. The newly released Yepp models, which are now shipping in a variety of countries around the world, include YP-60 and the YP-T5, to be unveiled in April 2004.

Last year, Samsung and SRS Labs signed a global licensing agreement, which allows for the inclusion of WOW audio technology across multiple Samsung divisions. These new MP3 players are the latest products from the digital media division to be manufactured under this agreement and join the YP-35, YP-55, YP-780, and the MCD-CM600 players that were launched last fall.

Steven Kim, director of Korean regional sales for SRS Labs, said, "Samsung is recognized as a technology innovator, leading the digital audio market in Korea and we are very pleased that they have continued to standardize on SRS WOW for their Samsung digital audio player line. The combination of their innovative designs and our powerful audio features provide consumers around the world with the best quality portable audio experience. We look forward to continuing to collaborate on future projects."

Industry experts estimated that in 2003, the global portable audio player market generated over $1.3 billion and is poised to explode to over $4 billion by 2007, with an average growth rate of more than 30 percent. As the use of portable digital audio products becomes more mainstream, consumers will continue to demand higher quality from the headphone listening experience. SRS WOW gives manufacturers the ability to deliver a headphone audio experience that rivals the deep, rumbling bass and full, rich enveloping sound that consumers have come to associate with home theater surround sound systems.

SRS WOW is a complete and scaleable suite of 3D audio, bass enhancement and mono and stereo speaker technologies that can be customized by a portable audio manufacturer to improve the quality of any audio played on an embedded mobile device. WOW solves several of the mobile audio player's most serious challenges including the delivery of 3D stereo audio separation and the creation of deep, powerful bass for music played over headphones or earbuds. In addition, WOW's ability to lift the audio image up and outside of a listener's head eliminates fatigue, which is a common problem when listening to audio over headphones for long periods of time.

Currently available on the world's leading semiconductor and software platforms such as Analog Devices, ARM, Cirrus Logic, SigmaTel, Telechips, Texas Instrument's OMAP, Intel's XScale, Microsoft's Windows Media Player, Motorola Coldfire and OKI, WOW is the first choice for manufacturers to include in their product designs due to its flexibility, ease of integration and consumer demand for better audio performance. It works with any media player that can pass PCM data to the WOW library where WOW performs its patented processing techniques and then sends out processed PCM to the DAC and amplifier.

For more information about SRS Labs, Inc. please visit www.srslabs.com.

Source: SRS Labs, Inc.