Product Design | Audio Electronics | Acoustics | DIY | Audio Innovations
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GRAS Launches New Configurations for GRAS 45CC Headphone Test Fixture |
As the headphones market continues to grow, and more companies are working on frequency response correction and emulation for headphones, the requirements for reliable and calibrated test fixtures are also increasing. A recognized leader in the segment, GRAS Sound & Vibration has just launched new variations of its popular GRAS 45CC headphone test fixture, allowing for the incorporation of pinnae along with other new features. Read More
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Røde Debuts In Headphone Market with the NTH-100 Professional Over-Ear Headphones |
Røde has entered the headphone category with the NTH-100 professional over-ear headphones. The Australian company has invested a lot of time and R&D resources to enter this competitive market, and its first headphones are a refined attempt to hit the sweet spot in pro audio applications, particularly for home studio, podcasting, or web streaming. A completely original design with very high quality details and superior comfort, the NTH-100 headphones are set to become a new industry favorite. Read More
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Bluesound Professional Announces B170S Networked Streaming Amplifier |
Bluesound Professional continues to expand its concept of a modern music distribution ecosystem for commercial spaces and has now announced a high-quality, low impedance, and constant voltage amplifier with a BluOS-enabled music player. The B170S Networked Streaming Stereo Amplifier is a versatile amplified streamer that offers a complete stereo solution for commercial installations, including native integration of partner music services such as SoundMachine, Custom Channels, SiriusXM for Business, Qsic, Tunify, and others. Read More
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Sennheiser AMBEO Soundbar and Control App Receives Major Software Update |
The future of Sennheiser's AMBEO technology just received an important boost with the announcement of the all-new AMBEO|OS to provide AMBEO Soundbar users with an even more immersive 3D home audio experience. With AMBEO|OS, all AMBEO Soundbars will now support Apple AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, and Tidal Connect. Additionally, Sennheiser has completely updated its Smart Control app with an intuitive and new user experience to give Soundbar and headphone users effortless sound control and personalization. Read More
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Roon Announces New Partner Devices and Online Store |
Roon, the innovative music management, discovery, and streaming platform, has introduced its official online store, dedicated to showcasing the best audio products that work seamlessly with Roon. With more than 40 new audio devices that have achieved Roon Ready or Roon Tested status in 2022, Roon provides the largest ecosystem for listening to high-resolution music on the widest range of high-performance audio equipment – from stylish wireless speakers to high-end AV receivers. Read More
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Soundboks Announces Lightest Soundboks Go Bluetooth Speaker |
Soundboks, the Danish company that is also one of the most unexpected startups to ever succeed in the audio lifestyle space, continues to grow and just announced its second design in seven years. Being the famous inventors of the gigantic Soundboks Bluetooth speaker that required a reinforced dedicated backpack to be called portable, Soundboks has now announced the launch of the Soundboks Go Speaker. This lighter, battery-powered version is still a big speaker for the segment, and uses an efficient Infineon Merus two-channel Class D amplifier. Read More
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HP Announced Agreement to Acquire Poly |
HP Inc. announced a definitive agreement to acquire Poly, the company created from the merger of Plantronics and Polycom, and the last remaining one of the videoconference era companies. HP has been acquiring other companies in the audio space in order to expand its offerings to growing market segments, and this acquisition is intended to significantly reinforce its position as a leading global provider of workplace collaboration solutions. Get exclusive insights into the acquisition. Read More
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Vesper Launches Second-Generation Smart Piezoelectric Voice Accelerometer with ZeroPower Sensing |
Vesper continues to redefine its range of MEMS solutions for voice applications with the launch of the VA1210, Vesper’s second-generation analog piezoelectric smart voice accelerometer. The VA1210 offers higher sensitivity (+17dB) and higher (+6dB) SNR than the first generation VA1200 in voice pickup. Additionally, new intelligent features of Wake-on-Voice (WoV) and hardware voice activity detection (HVAD), introduced into the VA1210, enable a drastic improvement of voice quality true wireless stereo (TWS) earbuds . Read More
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Warwick Acoustics Promotes Patented Electrostatic Transducer Panels for Automotive Applications |
Warwick Acoustics has already achieved significant recognition with its unique electrostatic transducers, currently used in the world's best sounding headphones (unfortunately, they are also the most expensive and only available with a dedicated amplifier and electronics). Now, the UK-based audio technology company says that it is primed to disrupt the $8 billion in-car audio market with its ultra-light and low-power patented electrostatic technology, key in modern automotive systems. Read More
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Editor's Desk
J. Martins
(Editor-in-Chief)
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Bluetooth SIG Market Update
LE Audio Specification Almost Complete
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In 2014 and 2015, I wrote an extensive series of articles for audioXpress exploring the many different facets of wireless audio technology. I tried to explore some of the exciting pioneering efforts happening then, including an April 2015 article focusing solely on Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR), then an important provider of silicon and software solutions for wireless audio that was just about to be acquired by Qualcomm.
CSR's technology portfolio included technologies and solutions in many areas such as GPS/GNSS systems, DSPs, broadband receivers, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, FM, NFC, aptX, and Clear Voice Capture (CVC) audio codecs, imaging codecs, and microcontrollers. With its long history in digital audio and processing technologies and reputation as a pioneer in Bluetooth since 1999, CSR was clearly one of the most important solution providers for the consumer electronics industry.
In July 2010, CSR acquired a company called Audio Processing Technology (APT), founded in 1989 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. With that acquisition, CSR became a leading player in high-quality digital audio transmission, with licensing agreements with many companies of its apt-x algorithm (now aptX), a scalable and higher-quality audio codec that proved to be particularly suited to Bluetooth wireless audio due to its stronger error resilience, lower latency, and low power consumption, suitable for portable, and battery-driven applications.
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The latest 2022 Bluetooth Market Update provides updated forecasts and trends in key solution areas, and highlights use cases that will drive future growth. |
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Meanwhile, Bluetooth technology powered the global expansion of wireless audio to the consumer. The Bluetooth 4.0 low energy (LE) specification and Bluetooth Smart technology launched in 2014 focused mainly on power-friendly applications with wearables and Internet of Things (IoT), enabling for better control and faster file transfers in packets, rather than live streaming. And the emerging audio use cases clearly required something else.
In my seven articles on wireless audio, until 2015 I explored the roots of the key technologies that were already defining the future direction in home audio and personal audio, right at the moment when the powerful mobile industry was discovering the exciting possibilities to combine wireless audio solutions to expand the appeal of mobile phones.
For wireless audio, it seems like ages ago, but it was just seven years. In that time, Wi-Fi almost faded away from being the intense battlefield for conquering home audio and home theater applications (I'll get back to that in another article), as the sheer product volumes happening in the mobile and personal audio spaces boosted Bluetooth to become the most widely adopted technology for wireless audio.
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Estimated annual Bluetooth Audio Streaming device shipments from 2022 to 2026 |
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For reference, when I wrote that article series, Bluetooth 4.1 was just starting to be discussed. Bluetooth 5 was announced later in December 2016, and the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) officially adopted the new core specification that would finally enable a robust implementation for wireless audio applications. It was far from solving all the audio industry's concerns, but it was much more robust than what existed and it actually paved the way to huge growth in sales and, more importantly, consumer confidence.
And Bluetooth LE Audio, the Next Generation of Bluetooth Audio was announced in January 2020. Then the global pandemic hit, and much work has continued out of sight, but not much progress resulted in the more than two years since that historic announcement. More importantly, it becomes clear from the many developments that have occurred since then that the industry's expectations needed to be much more ambitious than what has been confirmed so far for the “under completion” Bluetooth LE Audio specification.
And that is why I highlighted my article about CSR/Qualcomm/aptX from 2015, because one just needs to compare the scope of what was announced over the last year by this company, including the announcements of lossless CD-quality streaming over Bluetooth at the Mobile World Congress 2022 in Barcelona, to understand that the Bluetooth SIG needs to move faster. |
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An estimated 374 million Bluetooth speakers are expected to ship in 2022, with 425 million forecasted annually by 2026. As overall demand and the desire for more flexibility and mobility increases, the adoption of Bluetooth technology in speakers will also continue to expand. |
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As it happens every year, this week the Bluetooth SIG published its latest Bluetooth Market Update, now available online. Once again, the Bluetooth SIG highlights the fact that the technology continues to target multiple potential applications, while recognizing the vital importance of wireless audio today. The ambition continues to be to expand into wearable devices, asset tracking, and network lighting control, in consumer, commercial, and industrial use cases - as determined by the companies that make up the dominant Bluetooth SIG membership.
The update confirms that 2022 will enable a 1.5x growth in annual shipments of Bluetooth-enabled devices, exceeding 7 billion by 2026. And the report also confirms that Audio Streaming is expected to remain the largest Bluetooth solution area.
"The upcoming release of Bluetooth LE Audio is expected to strengthen the largest Bluetooth solution area, Audio Streaming. By enabling higher audio quality, lower power consumption, and new audio experiences, such as broadcast audio, LE Audio will enable audio developers to meet increasing consumer performance demands across the audio peripheral market, including speakers, headsets, and earbuds. By 2026, annual Bluetooth earbud shipments will climb to 619 million, making up 66 percent of all wireless headsets."
"LE Audio will also enable new types of audio peripherals — such as a wider range of Bluetooth enabled hearing aids — and allow greater flexibility for better form factors. As a result, a 2.6x growth in annual Bluetooth hearable device shipments is expected by 2026."
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Will the advantages of the new Low Complexity Communication Codec (LC3), part of the new LE Audio Specification, be enough to satisfy all the audio use cases with Bluetooth? |
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In his presentation of the latest Bluetooth Market Update, Mark Powell, CEO Bluetooth SIG, Inc., states, "Thanks to the hard work of everyone involved, the LE Audio specification project is nearing completion. It is, perhaps, the most complex specification project the Bluetooth SIG has ever taken on, involving hundreds of people across multiple working groups and committees. We look forward to completing the project this year and ushering in the next 20 years of audio innovation."
This means that there is hope that we might still see the specification scope enlarging to accommodate higher quality audio use cases, but this also means any market adoption of LE Audio will not translate into actual products getting into the hands of consumers before the end of 2023, in the best case scenario. I can confidently predict that this opens up a world of opportunities for many divergent, proprietary, or even competing developments in the fast moving field of wireless audio and its multiple booming product segments. |
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The Metz Preamp
By Reinhard Metz
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A serious electronics enthusiast with an engineering background, when Reinhard Metz set out on this design the main goal was to create a straightforward stereo source selector, monitor selector, volume control, and line amp, and not much more. The resulting preamplifier was designed to achieve clean, long life, reliable source switching with an electronically controlled, non-deteriorating volume control, with impeccable sonic performance and low noise and cross talk. With eight inputs, including MM phono, plus four recording outputs and a front panel headphone output, this is a popular project to try out and experiment. The author offers PCBs, including a LED display board, and a programmed microcontroller. This article was originally published in audioXpress, August 2010. Read the Full Article Now Available Here
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A 25W OTL Tube Amplifier
By Tim Mellow
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If you have spent $500 or more on 5 meters or so of exotic loudspeaker cable, have you ever wondered about the 500 meters of standard copper wire in the output transformers of your tube amplifier? Audio output transformers are the prime culprits for the soft bass sound associated with tube amplifiers. An alternative is the output transformer-less (OTL) tube amplifier. More than a decade since the original publication by audioXpress, many readers still actively search for information and share the schematics of this OTL tube project. Tim Mellow's design explores a different output stage using a novel combination of local feedback and current drive in order to achieve good symmetry and cancellation of even harmonics. This article was originally published in audioXpress, February 2010. Read the Full Article Now Available Here
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