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Industry & Product News
A New Era of Sonos Speakers Starts Now
Sonos debuted Sonos Era 300 and Sonos Era 100, the company's next generation of connected, home audio speakers that also have smart features, but more importantly pave the way for a whole new chapter in sound and design innovation from the brand. The new Sonos Era 300 is a completely new design that is supposed to deliver some form of "spatial audio." The more compact Era 100 redefines the Sonos One concept with a more advanced design. Read More
GreenWaves Ramps Up Production of GAP9 Hearables Platform
GreenWaves Technologies, a fabless semiconductor company based in Grenoble, France, has received the funding needed to support the production of its second-generation GAP9 processor. As demonstrated at CES 2023, this advanced AI processor revolutionizes the next generation of true wireless earbuds, hearables, and connected devices with ultra-low latency noise cancellation, neural network-based background elimination, and 3D sound. Read More
XMOS Launches XVF3800 High-Performance Voice Processor for Enterprise and Consumer Voice Conferencing Platforms
Anticipating the company's presentation at Embedded World 2023, XMOS has launched the XVF3800, a quick-to-market, high-performance voice processor for enterprise and consumer voice conferencing platforms. The XVF3800 combines acoustic echo cancellation (AEC), multiple adaptive beamformers, noise suppression, AGC, and more, and will be available along with a development kit, the XK-VOICE-SQ66. Read More
STMicroelectronics Announces All-in-One Motion and Bone-Conduction Sensor for Hearables
STMicroelectronics has announced the LSM6DSV16BX, a unique highly integrated sensor that delivers important space savings inside hearable devices or general-purpose TWS earbuds, including for sports. The new device delivers longer listening experiences and superior hearing by combining a six-axis inertial measurement unit (IMU) for head tracking and activity detection with an audio accelerometer for detecting voice through bone conduction in a frequency range that exceeds 1kHz. Read More
RH Consulting Releases 2023 Report on Networked Audio State of Adoption
Audio consultancy and networking experts RH Consulting (RHC) have been counting networked audio products and licensees since 2013 to chart the adoption of audio networking in the pro audio, AV and broadcast markets. The 2023 edition of this report on Networked Audio Products, which has meanwhile been extended to also cover audio, video, and control products, is now available and confirms the growing strength of AES67 and ST2110 standards. Read More
Listen Announces SoundCheck Version 21 and New Portable Dual-Channel Audio Interface
Listen has now released SoundCheck 21, the latest version of its flagship audio test software. The update includes a new enhanced Loose Particles algorithm for transient distortion measurements in a wide range of devices. It also offers increased measurement capability with the new multichannel FFT analyzer. SoundCheck 21 also introduces support for AudioConnect 2, Listen’s new compact and high-resolution (up to 192kHz sampling rate) two-channel audio interface. Read More
Interested in a Consistent and Accurate Testing Solution for Bluetooth Headphones? Join this Webinar on March 29, 2023
Overcoming the problems of consistency and accuracy in volume production requires scalability and leads to many challenges. The Audio Product Development Alliance (APDA), dedicated to improving the knowledge and skills of professionals involved in the development of audio products, in partnership with the ALTI Association, present a webinar titled: "A Simplified Testing Solution for Bluetooth Headphones - Consistent and Accurate Production Line Results" on March 29, 2023 - 9:00 AM Pacific - (12:00 PM Eastern). Registration is free. Read More
Guest Editorial
John Marks

Test Tunes for Subjective Evaluation of Drivers and Loudspeakers
Here are some of the many audio tracks I often use for the subjective evaluation of drivers and loudspeakers. The theme is Voices: Male, Female, and Group. These tracks are available as a playlist on two high-quality streaming platforms:

Subjective listening tests to evaluate speakers and drivers requires familiarity with the recordings.
1. Donald Fagen, “Ruby Baby,” from The Nightfly (recorded 1981-82).

Sound Reinforcement professionals often use this track to fine-tune their PA setups in arena-sized Rock venues. If, in a 12,000-seat venue, it takes a little EQ to make the chattering “Party Noise” voices at the end of this song sound more intelligible and more distinguishable from each other; then, so be it. However, your loudspeaker design, in a normal room, should not need EQ. By the way, in 2010, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano put The Nightfly on its list of Top 10 Albums. Really. You can look it up.

2. Enrico Caruso, “Ideale” (F.P. Tosti)(single, recorded 1906).

Italian opera singer Enrico Caruso (1873-1921) was the first superstar of the crank-up phonograph era. That was, at least in part, because there is a serendipitous synergy between the acoustical-horn 78-rpm recording process and male operatic voices. The horn’s internal resonances give a little extra heft and power to male voices, while the lossy mechanical coupling to the cutting stylus of the energy captured by the horn reduces high-frequency vocal “brassiness.” Caruso’s 78-rpm records sold tons of acoustical phonographs! Listen for the unavoidable artifacts; but also prepare to be surprised at how listenable his voice is. (The orchestra is a totally lost cause, sad to say.)

3. Franco Vassallo, “Ideale” (F.P. Tosti), from Arcano, Songs of Francisco Paolo Tosti (recorded 2021).

One hundred-fifteen years after Enrico Caruso stood in front of an acoustical horn, baritone Franco Vassallo recorded the same song, but in 24-bit/96kHz high-definition fidelity. Listen for all the little details, and for the micro and macro dynamics as Vassallo’s voice swells and soars. Also, be on the lookout for any stray loudspeaker resonances. BTW, the piano sound is stunningly natural.

4. Frank Sinatra, “I’m a Fool to Want You” (Sinatra, Wolf, and Herron), from Where Are You? (recorded 1957).

For all his flaws as a person (and at least before he began believing his own press releases), Frank Sinatra was a true artist of the American Popular Song. The album Where Are You is supposed to have been inspired (or perhaps triggered), by Ava Gardner’s break-up with Sinatra. Where Are You? is really a song cycle about wandering around town late at night, while hoping to run into your ex.

If you pay close attention, you can hear that small bits of one song are often woven into the instrumental setting of a different song. The mono version has twice the data density of the stereo version, so that is what I am going with. Listen for transient dynamic linearity, timbral coherence, and the lack of crossover-region artifacts.

5. Gordon Lightfoot, “If You Could Read My Mind” (Lightfoot), (recorded 1969).

One would be tempted to say that singers/songwriters have been with us since the time of the Troubadours of the Middle Ages (btw, Lady Troubadours were called Trobairitzes). However, that would perhaps be unfair to King David. Either way, from circa 1960 to 1980, singers/songwriters, from Bob Dylan and Joan Baez to James Taylor and Joni Mitchell, owned the airwaves and the charts.

Gordon Lightfoot’s evergreen breakthrough hit (mercifully) was recorded before Aphex Aural Exciters, to say nothing of Auto-Tune. At 06 seconds after the start, Lightfoot quietly breathes in through his nose as he gets ready to sing. If you can hear that from several feet away, you are listening to a high-resolution loudspeaker.

6. Ella Fitzgerald, “Easy to Love” from Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook, (recorded 1956).

This mono track from 1956 is the decisive test for “phantom center imaging.” In addition, the timbre of Fitzgerald’s voice can reveal much about the all-important midrange in a music system — the midrange is where most of the real musical action takes place. Between verses, Ella briefly turns off-mic and politely swallows. If you can hear that from a listening distance of, say eight feet, then that loudspeaker is likely producing a finely detailed midrange that is also more phase-coherent than not.

7. Lisa Richard, “Never Have I” (Wakefield and Schwartz), from Virgin Tracks (recorded 2001-02).

From Ella Fitzgerald to Patricia Barber, audiophiles have craved a constant diet of Female Vocals. To the point that, at audio expos, some tracks get played and replayed to the point of it being just too much. Examples being “Famous Blue Raincoat” and “Ode to Billy Joe.” So, here’s a Female Vocal track that hardly anyone has ever heard. Really.

Reportedly, Jane Olivor commissioned this song. In any event, Olivor did take it on tour in 1982. However, for some reason, Olivor deleted it from the live LP of that tour, and she never made a commercial recording of it. Lisa Richard, having sung more than 1,300 live performances of Mama Mia, was putting together a self-produced solo album. The composer and the lyricist of “Never Have I” gave her permission to release a recording of the song. So, this is the first-and-only recording.

This is, in my opinion, the greatest “Jilted Girl” song performance in existence. Listen to the little break in her voice, as Richard portrays the Jilted Girl. The production values are of the 1990s “Everything, plus the Kitchen Sink” variety; but that only means that there is more art and craft to admire. Bernie Grundman mastered. The guitar solo by Danny Jacobs is amazing.

8. Patricia O’Callahan, “Real Emotional Girl” (Randy Newman), (recorded 2000).

The music business is fundamentally unfair. Therefore, it should not surprise anyone that cabaret singer Patricia O’Callahan really should be better known than she is. This, the title track of her first major-label release, shows off O’Callahan’s classical-voice training in the service of a chamber-music treatment of one of Randy Newman’s more somber, downbeat songs. This recording captures the rich harmonic complexity of O’Callahan’s voice very well.

9. Julia Fordham, “For You Only For You” (Fordham), from Porcelain (recorded 1989).

Julia Fordham embraced a variety of styles, from Singer-Songwriter to World Music to, every now and then, Retro. Her self-penned song “For You Only For You” has a bit of a Cole-Porteresque “List Song” vibe, as the singer names all the major rivers she has cried... “I cried the Solent, the Tyne, the Severn and the Rhine/The Thames and the Seine over again,” with a 1940s-style piano accompaniment.

10. Frederica von Stade, “La Delaïssádo” (Canteloube), from Frederica von Stade Sings Chants d‘Auvergne, Volume I (recorded 1982).

“The Abandoned (Shepherdess)” is a folk-song orchestration by Joseph Canteloube (1879-1957). Canteloube was a master of orchestration, creating lush textures that nevertheless managed not to eclipse the essential simplicity of the peasant songs he collected. Aided by Antonio de Almeida’s meticulously paced conducting, Frederica von Stade’s performance is a study in quiet intensity. Toward the end of the song, a piano at the rear of the orchestra adds some broken arpeggios to the mix. The piano should appear to be very much at the rear of the soundstage.

11. Cantus, ”Shenandoah” (trad., arr. J. Erb), from Let Your Voice Be Heard (recorded 2000).

A recording engineer I know told me that this was the best chamber vocal-group recording he had ever heard. Certainly, it is one of the best. The recording venue, of circa 500 seats, was chosen for its clear focused sound (in preference to a reverberant ”cathedral” sound). The 12 singers stood in a single-file arc in front of the microphones.

The microphones were a pair of spaced omnis six feet apart and nine feet off the stage floor, 13 feet from the singers. The omnis were supplemented by a (time-aligned) near-coincident ORTF pair 10 feet back from the edge of the stage. (John Atkinson recorded.) Listen for spatial and tonal realism. What singing!

12. Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Providence Singers, from La Koro Sutro (Lou Harrison), ”3a Paragrafo” (recorded 2009).

La Koro Sutro is a setting (in the constructed international auxiliary language Esperanto), for large unison chorus and percussion orchestra, of verses from the Buddhist ”Heart Sutras.” This particular recording (there actually is more than one) was made in Mechanics Hall, a historically significant concert hall in Worcester, MA. I have it upon good authority that Mechanics Hall is Yo-Yo Ma’s favorite place to record. Listen for how well the size of the recording venue (1,300 seats) is reproduced, as well as the placement and transient speed of the various shimmering percussion instruments.
About the Author
John Marks is a multidisciplinary generalist and a lifelong audio hobbyist. He was educated at Brown University and Vanderbilt Law School. He has worked as a music educator, recording engineer, classical-music record producer and label executive, and as a music and audio-equipment journalist. He was a columnist for The Absolute Sound, and for Stereophile magazine. His consulting clients have included the University of the South (Sewanee, TN), Grace Design, Fountek Electronics Company, Ltd., and Steinway & Sons. He keeps a blog called The Tannhauser Gate where he writes about worthwhile new music.
R&D Stories
On the Subject of Standards
Filling in the Gaps Left by AES67
By Ekin Binal (Crestron)
Is the AES67 interoperability standard a viable alternative as the core solution for audio-over-IP distribution? Crestron proved that it is with its DM NAX technology filling the existing gaps of network discovery and routing. Ekin Binal, Director, Product Management (AV Solutions) at Crestron shares the company's practical experience in embracing the AES67 standard for distributing audio over a network for residential audio installation. This article was originally published in audioXpress, February 2023. Read the Full Article Now Available Here
Voice Coil Patent Review
Low-Profile Loudspeaker Transducer
By James Croft
In this review, James Croft (Croft Acoustical) looks at a patent awarded in October 2016 to George Bullimore, on behalf of Tymphany. Considering the number of patents on shallow drivers, and the fact that the inventor also previously developed transducers for Harman International and holds other key patents, this is no doubt an interesting document to analyze in depth. In this case, the patent describes a low-profile loudspeaker transducer with “an arrangement of placing the motor up near or into the inside concave portion of a convex dome or inverted convex cone diaphragm,” and a low-profile structure “facilitated by an inverted placement of the spider suspension above the plane of the surround suspension to stabilize the voice coil during excursion while supporting a low profile structure.” This article was originally published in Voice Coil, May 2017.  Read the Full Article Now Available Here
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