British company Pure took to the CES Unveiled ballroom to showcase two of its home audio offerings that will be soon making their way stateside and into consumers’ hands. With the new and upgraded products, Pure is aiming to integrate the experience of a high-quality home speaker dock with internet radio, a touch screen interface (on the Sensia 200D Connect), and even a splash of social networking. The company has so far stayed mostly across the pond, but both of these new and improved offerings will soon be available to U.S. consumers.
With the Contour 200i Air, which has an MSRP of $329, Pure introduces us to its first Apple Airplay-enable device, making it an easy choice for iPad, iPhone, and iPod owners who crave wireless streaming ability. The Airplay dock connects to a user’s home WiFi network (or ethernet) to create a seamless listening experience from device to speakers. The dock offers 36W RMS of digital quality audio as well as DSP-corrected high-efficiency audio amplifiers and 3.5-inch dual full-range speaker drive units. The dock is also designed to work with the Pure Lounge app, which offers access to thousands of internet radio stations, podcasts, ambient sounds, and music available through a Pure Music subscription service.
Secondly, the company showed off its new and improved Sensia, the 200D Connect ($449), which is the first of its kind to integrate a high-resolution color touchscreen and smart user interface into the classic speaker dock setup. While this version does not use Airplay, the dock has built in WiFi that will allow users to access music wirelessly from a home computer or shared network. User’s can also stream music from the Pure Music subscription service, listen to one of thousands of internet radio stations, or connect an iPod or other media player.
Through the touch-screen interface, user’s can sift through weather reports, interact with both Facebook and Twitter, follow select RSS feeds, and even view photos stored on the device or through Picasa. The Sensia 200D Connect features 30W RMS of digital sound, full-range speakers, and DSP-tuned high efficiency class-D amplifiers for a room-filling sound. The dock also has extra features like dual alarms, a countdown timer, sleep timer, and a rechargeable battery for portability.
The Contour 200i Air will be available in North America starting in March of 2012, with the Sensia 200D Connect following soon after in April.
