INDUSTRY & PRODUCT NEWS

QSC Celebrates 50 Years and Major Product Milestones at NAMM 2018
From its humble beginnings as the maker of garage-made guitar amplifiers to today's leading brand of professional AV for live sound, cinema, and corporate installations worldwide, QSC has good reason to celebrate reaching its 50th anniversary. During NAMM 2018 the QSC founders were honored with a NAMM Milestone Award for 50 Years of Service in the music products industry. The company also celebrated the achievement of one million K Series loudspeakers sold, and introduced new products.   Read More


Pascal Moves into Expanded Headquarters with State-of-the-Art EMC Test Laboratory
Following a year of continuing accelerated growth, Danish pro audio amplifier electronics manufacturer Pascal A/S kicked off 2018 with a transition to newly expanded headquarters and facilities, featuring a state-of-the-art EMC test laboratory. Completion of the 55% expansion of its headquarters, on the outskirts of Copenhagen, was the closing high note of 2017, a year in which the company, once again, eclipsed its growth targets.   Read More


HiFiBerry Partners with Bang & Olufsen on New BeoCreate Board
HiFiBerry, the Swiss developer of digital-to-analog converter (DAC) components for DIY, OEM, and integrators announced a new interesting solution to provide advanced capabilities for speakers, developed in partnership with Bang & Olufsen. HiFiBerry's new BeoCreate board is designed to give a new lease on life to legacy audio speakers, such as the popular BeoVox CX50 and CX100, "up-cycling" them to be compatible with the best of today's wireless and Internet-connected technology.    Read More


XMOS Showcases Advanced True Stereo Voice Interface Solutions
XMOS will be showcasing its portfolio of far-field voice capture solutions for voice-enabled stereo smart TVs, soundbars, set-top boxes, and digital media adapter markets at GSMA Mobile World Congress 2018, Barcelona, February 26 to March 1. XMOS will be demonstrating commercial solutions in development, and proof of concepts that capture voice commands accurately from across the room even when the audio appliances are playing content at high volume in complex noisy acoustic environments.   Read More


Your Audio Systems Launches Software Development Solution for AES67 and AES70 Embedded Devices at ISE 2018 
In preparation for its Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) debut, Swiss-based Your Audio Systems announces the first major demonstration of Orchestra, an embedded Linux software solution for AES67/AES70 professional embedded devices, now available for OEM implementations. The company will exhibit Orchestra in the OCA Alliance stand (7-R240) in the Amsterdam RAI, Amsterdam, from February 6-9.   Read More


Celestion Debuts F12-X200 Full-Range Guitar Loudspeaker Designed Specifically for Use with Amp Modeling
During NAMM 2018, Celestion announced the F12-X200, the first guitarist's speaker designed from the ground up for use with profiling amps, modeling software, impulse responses, and all technology for emulating coveted guitar amps and speaker cabinets. The new F12-X200 is effectively a coaxial design, combining a compression driver and a 12" woofer in a pressed steel chassis with a 2" round copper voice coil and ceramic magnet, able to reproduce a full range of frequencies from 60 Hz to 20,000 Hz, with a power rating of 200 W at 8 ohms.   Read More

The Freedman Group Acquires FuzzMeasure and Launches RØDETest Division
RØDE Microphones announced the establishment of a new Scientific Test and Measurement division, named RØDETest, which will house RØDE's future line of measurement microphones and software. With the announcement comes the news that The Freedman Group has acquired FuzzMeazure, the audio and acoustic measurement software created by Chris Liscio of SuperMegaUltraGroovy.   Read More



Mike Belitz, CEO and President of Ultimate Support, Acquires Radial Engineering, Ltd.
Mike Belitz, President and CEO of Ultimate Support Systems, has acquired Radial Engineering, Ltd. The announcement was made at NAMM 2018, confirming the acquisition of one of the most respected and trusted brands in the industry. Radial Engineering is a manufacturer of professional audio products based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with products that are sold under brand names such as Radial, Tonebone, Primacoustic, Reamp, Hafler, Dynaco, and Jensen Transformers, Inc.   Read More




João
Martins
Editor-in-Chief




Editor's Desk


NAMM 2018 First Impressions: Wow!

"Wow! What a show!" I couldn't help thinking, over and over again while I walked consecutively between Hall A and the new ACC North halls, part of the Anaheim Convention Center expansion. Going back and forth was unavoidable, since we defined our own schedule before checking which companies exhibited where... Our bad.

I know that, for years, I wrote about the enormous growth potential for the NAMM Winter Show if the promoters would increase further participation from the audio industry, realizing the full potential of what was already one of the best and most vibrant industry trade shows... But what I was certainly not expecting was that, due to something as a simple hall expansion (of course, we know this was years in the planning for the Anaheim Convention Center and for the NAMM Show...) things would change so dramatically.
 
The enthusiastic involvement of professional audio companies and the NAMM cooperation with other industry associations, such as the Audio Engineering Society (AES), Entertainment Services and Technology Association (ESTA), A3E - Advanced Audio + Applications Exchange, as well as the enthusiastic promotion by media partners (such as audioXpress and Voice Coil), were the vital trigger to this major expansion.
 
Effectively, this was like the NAMM show gaining the full scope of an AES West Coast convention with the exhibits in the new Level 1 hall, plus the AES@NAMM sessions at the Anaheim Hilton Hotel, while the new Level 2 hall looked effectively like a condensed version of a Prolight+Sound show (the sound part of it...). All this, while the traditional Hall A gained a new life with more space for exhibitors in the home recording and stage product segments, and the NAMM show in general benefited largely from wider walkways, and more dispersed noise clusters.
 
The synergy between the participating sectors was evident, as well as the positive energy generated in the visitor flow between halls, even if some companies - the last-minute planners - were regretting their locations and wishing to be somewhere else. The good news for the NAMM Show is that we found companies in the new Halls that clearly would benefit from being in Hall A and companies in Hall A (driver manufacturers especially) that would do better in either Level 1 or Level 2 of the new ACC North halls and expressed that wish to audioXpress. Also, the new Anaheim expansion provided excellent spaces for demonstrations and even great locations in the "sky bridge" connection, which can be leveraged in the future by industry associations, specialized technology companies and even media partners (audioXpress would love to have a booth in those spaces in the future...).

The expansion of the show into the new Anaheim Convention Center North building saw increased pro audio and event technology participation contributing to a 9% overall growth of exhibitors at the show.
 
No doubt, an unforgettable NAMM 2018, for which the promoters must be commended and a very promising start for an entirely new expansion opportunity for the audio industry in general. Was it all perfect? Not at all. The unexpected security measures implemented to access the Anaheim Convention Center, with the bag screening and the metal detectors, caused an unexpected break in the natural flow of visitors and unbearable delays in access to the halls. Given that many activities for the NAMM Show take place in the outside areas, and the Hilton and Marriott hotels, the additional security measures made that flow almost impossible, and almost destroyed one of the most pleasing aspects of the NAMM Show. This is possibly one of the most important things to rethink for next year's edition.
 
The overall sentiment for this NAMM Show 2018 was expressed perfectly by Adam Hall's global marketing director, Nikke Blout, which stated: "I think that NAMM is really the true epicenter for our business, which is event technology. We are involved in all of M.I., pro audio, stage equipment, lighting, and we love the mix of customers. We also love the mix of global reach. The overall vibe of working with NAMM is very good... moving forward I see the NAMM Show being of more strategic importance to us."

"NAMM members, alongside our partners and guests, deserve all the credit for creating such an incredibly powerful industry gathering," affirmed Joe Lamond, NAMM President and CEO.

In its early report of the 2018 show, NAMM indicated 7,000 brands and nearly 2,000 exhibiting companies, with 115,085 registered visitors. International attendees increased by 8% with representation from more than 100 countries, totaling 19,356 registrants. NAMM shows - like CES - are the kind of events that don't need to brag about statistics, since in fact they are more worried about controlling who has access, than simply flooding the hallways - and we know it happened in previous years. We have no doubt that, given the positive expansion, there will be plenty more exhibitors, brands, and visitors next year. The challenge, in fact, is how to accommodate that highly predictable growth.
 
The NAMM Show returns to Anaheim January 24-27, 2019.

Music, pro audio, and event technology industries came together in Anaheim, CA, last week for the annual NAMM Show.

As usual, please refer to our online news updated for specific information on new products, solutions and technologies presented at NAMM 2018 , as we also continue to expand our coverage of all the AISE 2018, CES 2018 and, starting next week, Integrated Systems Europe 2018 announcements. From our part, we are doing our best to go through it all and trying not to collapse from all the traveling and miles walked!



                       

From the Vault
Preamp Muting Circuit
By Mike Danbury
 
Oftentimes a muting circuit for the output of a preamp is left out of DIY applications as an unnecessary or annoying part of the project. This is usually due to the lack of awareness that a simple circuit can perform such a duty. Anyone who occasionally forgets to turn the power amp on last, or switch it off first, endures the annoying thumps and noises that often occur from the preamp upon power cycling. This article proposes a simple circuit for preamp muting. No extraneous sound with this simple muting circuit. The article was originally published in audioXpress, March 2010.   Read the Full Article Now Available Here

Voice  Coil Spotlight
Optimizing Loudspeaker Directivity through the Crossover Region 
By Charlie Hughes (Excelsior Audio)
 
I've designed a lot of crossovers during the last 30 years. I'm sure many of you reading this article have also designed a crossover for a loudspeaker system. Even if you've just dialed in the filter parameters for a DSP, you've designed a crossover. An important question to ask is, do you know what the crossover filters are doing to the response of the loudspeaker system? Some of you might have measured the frequency response of the loudspeaker system to determine what's happening through the crossover region. However, most designers only look at the loudspeaker's on-axis response. It's equally important, or perhaps more important, to know what's happening off axis. Let's see how loudspeaker modeling can be used to help with this. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, August 2017.   Read the Full Article Online

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