Site Hopes to Be a One-Stop Music Shop

Cashing in on the Internet music buzz, a subsidiary of Santa Ana-based SRS Labs Inc. recently unveiled a Web site that promises to be a one-stop digital music shop.

SRSWOWcast.com Inc.’s Wow Village (https://www.srswowcast.com) features live and prerecorded performances and videos, music chat lounges, concert halls and an artist “colony” that showcases the work of unsigned, independent artists.

“We want the site to be a blend of technology and community,” said Jennifer A. Drescher, vice president of marketing for the subsidiary, which owns the online rights to SRS’s audio technology.

The Web site is part of SRS Labs’ overall corporate push to broaden its market. For many years, the company was best known for its Sound Retrieval System, which tweaks audio recordings to create a surround-sound feeling from a two-speaker stereo.

But the 1998 acquisition of Hong Kong-based Valence Technology Inc. gave SRS the ability to build the hardware and computer chips needed to show off its technology and expand its product line. Last year’s creation of SRSWOWcast.com, a tiny five-person shop, is designed to find new applications for its core technologies.

The site features the company’s Wow product line, which includes a software plug-in that improves the quality of listening to music on a personal computer. The program, which works with WinAmp and other popular MP3 players, acts as a virtual equalizer and can help flesh out the sound of compressed audio files.