Indianapolis, IN. Klipsch Inc., renowned for more than half a century as a leading manufacturer of speakers and cabinets for high-end home audio, is steering a new course towards the car audio market. Klipsch has announced an agreement in principle to purchase car sound manufacturer Pyle Industries from Pyle’s parent company Harman International.

“The addition of Pyle to Klipsch will add strength to our manufacturing capabilities and allow us to enter the automotive and OEM businesses,” says Fred Klipsch, Chairman and CEO.

Pyle is based in nearby Huntington, IN. They are known for the Pyle Driver car speaker line. Initial plans call for Pyle’s manufacturing operation to remain independent, with sales and marketing moving to Klipsch headquarters in Indianapolis. The acquisition is expected to be complete sometime in September.

Hope, AR. Klipsch Professional recently announced the appointments of Ian Thacker as President, and Tom Gallagher as Director of Sales and Marketing. The appointments were announced by Louis Schiller, Chairman of parent company Consolidated Technology.

Thacker’s previous company experience includes 13 years as the Klipsch distributor in Australia and the South Pacific, and 3 years as Director of Sales, Marketing and Production. He was promoted to the position of General Manager last year.

Gallagher joins Klipsch Pro from Mackie Designs. He is an audio industry veteran, and has previously served in various sales and marketing positions with Klipsch, Electro-Voice, and Aurasound.

Ludwigshafen, Germany. BASF Aktlengesellschaft has announced that it will sell its BASF Magnetics GmbH subsidiary to RAKS Group, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of audio and video cassettes. The deal will be completed on January 1 1997. The parties do not plan to announce the terms of sale.

BASF Magnetics has production plants in Willstatt and Munich in Germany, as well as in France, Indonesia and Brazil. Its products include audio and video tape for radio and television, audio and video cassettes for home use, diskettes, computer tape and computer tape cassettes.

In addition to its main business manufacturing audio and video cassettes, and CD’s and CD-ROM’s, the RAKS Group operates its own music and film production facilities, and its own TV channel.

Austin, TX. Crystal Semiconductor today introduced the CS4226 surround sound codec. The CS4226 is the first single-chip codec to support Dolby Digital Surround (AC-3) and Dolby Pro Logic applications.

The CS4226 incorporates stereo A/D converters, six D/A converters (each with independent volume control), a mono A/D converter and an S/PDIF receiver. The A/D converters feature 95 dB dynamic range and the D/A converters perform to 108 dB signal-to-noise ratio and 98 dB dynamic range. A 3:1 multiplexer prior to the stereo A/D converter provides selection for three different stereo audio sources.

The on-chip S/PDIF receiver supports reception of both stereo PCM audio data and compressed 5.1 channel AC-3 and MPEG audio data. This capability enables the CS4226 receiver to directly connect to both CD players and DVD players with digital outputs. The receiver also contains selectable de-emphasis filters for 32 kHz, 44.1 kHz, and 48 kHz applications.

Crystal says its new part can replace as many as nine discrete, integrated circuits in an AC-3 home theater product. Competitive solutions typically consist of an input multiplexer, stereo A/D converter, three stereo D/A converters, three volume control devices, and a digital audio receiver IC.

“The CS4226 plus an external AC-3 decoder offers the highest integration solution currently available for combined Dolby Digital Sound and Dolby Pro Logic receiver applications,” commented Roger Dressler of Dolby Labs.

The CS4226 is available in a 44-pin thin quad flat pack. It is priced at $32.00 in quantities of 1,000. Samples are available now with production quantities planned for the fourth quarter of 1996.

Last week, Crystal introduced another single-chip audio sub-system, the CS4238B, which implements QSound® Labs’ QXpander™ technology.