It's something you see at every live music event, people holding their phone above their heads to record the sights and sounds of the gig in progress. Often people are capturing video and almost completely indecipherable audio on a device that just wasn’t designed for this kind of recording - a fact they will only discover when they choose to rewatch the video later. And usually... only once before deleting.

While the video portion of a recording might be acceptable quality - depending on where you’re standing and what is happening with the lighting - any audio recorded on your phone from a concert is going to be terrible. Cameras on devices have emerged as a key selling point for phones in the last decades, with huge amounts of time and research put into making them smaller and better, year after year. However, both speakers and microphones on phones have received nowhere near as much attention. But this isn’t just due to lack of interest, it's due to fundamental design limitations that are much harder to work around.

The difference between light and sound is specifically that the miniaturization of photography is much easier considering the tiny wavelengths of light itself. Sound wavelengths in the lower hertz range on the other hand can extend over meters, and so creating an input that can capture them and be extremely small is an enormous challenge

This audioXpress Market Update addresses "True Wireless Earbuds Evolving Toward Hearables" - an overview of what is happening in this vibrant product category in 2021. In a market that is predicted to continue to grow and surpass other consumer electronic product categories, this article provides an overview of the state-of the-art technologies and platforms, as well as some reference approaches in product design. As both headphones and true wireless earbuds continue to gain augmented audio features, benefiting from the latest advancements in audio processing, active noise cancellation, spatial audio, and other innovations, we will see even more acceleration in building up the basic blocks toward hearables. This article was published in audioXpress, April 2021.  Read the Full Article Now Available Here

This Test Bench characterizes the CD-11Nd compression driver and the TD-194 horn from pro sound OEM, Acustica Beyma. Designed for use with 1" throat horns, the CD-11Nd has a 25.4mm (1") throat diameter driven by a 44.4mm (1.75") diameter voice coil wound both inside and outside of a non-conduction Kapton-type former with aluminum wire. The diaphragm and surround are composed of a single piece of PM4, which is a proprietary high-tech polymer that, according to the company, has never before been used for audio. The CD-11Nd also incorporates a cast-aluminum cover with a black emissive coating on the cover and the plates. Other features include a FEA-optimized neodymium magnet motor structure, a program power handling of 140W with a 70W AES power handling rating, a 1.5kHz recommended crossover frequency, and 1W/1m 111dB sensitivity (measured on a Beyma TD-164 horn). The TD-194 horn has a 90° × 40° coverage pattern and is made from cast aluminum. For ease of mounting, the horn is square and the horizontal and vertical orientation is molded into the outer edge. This article was published in Voice Coil, April 2021. Read the Complete Article Online Here