It's been a precisely year since the global COVID-19 pandemic was declared and we all had to refrain from our normal routines and shelter in place, being restricted to working from home until now. At least for the audioXpress team - our work is essential for the industry but we managed the best we could from home, under the circumstances. A year past, and we are glad to be able to signal that during that year we've kept our publications and even grown our online audiences and achieved extremely positive results. Mainly, because we continued to offer the best content for anyone interested in following the audio industry, audio product development, audio innovations, and DIY audio.

A year ago, we responded to the lockdown and stay-at-home restrictions by allowing free digital access to all our print subscribers for the rest of the year, and we opened up the May, June, and July 2020 issues of the two subscription-based KCK Media titles - Circuit Cellar and audioXpress - to everyone for free. I still remember receiving multiple messages from appreciative readers also asking for access to Voice Coil, to which we gladly reminded them that the title was already free - all they had to do was register to receive it such a highly targeted and unique title (yes, you need to tell us that you are a working professional in the loudspeaker industry, or you are really, really, really committed to read about loudspeaker technology and you are extremely comfortable with Thiele-Small parameters, phase calculations and voltage curves).

Focused on a much wider range of topics than loudspeakers, audioXpress offers the same cutting-edge, highly technical level for everything audio, but delivering 68 full pages (or more) plus cover, all in full color, every month, online or print. Yes, for those who like to read on actual paper, audioXpress is still printed and delivered to your door every month. And this is obviously available at a price that is as affordable as possible, for full access, the whole year.

Inspired the upcoming Glass Audio May 2021 edition, its time to revisit the subject of great guitar amplifiers. In this article, Mark Driedger revisits “The Remaking of a Champ,” inspired by Kirk Elliott’s original article for Glass Audio (Volume 4, Number 2, 1992). The Fender Champ is considered “the” classic tube practice amplifier and it has been remade a few times over. Driedger was inspired to create his own version, including a provision to easily try different output tubes. Of course, many readers might be interested in reading the original, which is available online here and follow-up with this great project. This article was originally published in audioXpress, January 2016.  Read the Full Article Now Available Here

For this Test Bench, Vance Dickason characterizes the new BDT-2901 High-End Silk Dome Tweeter, from MISCO’s Bold North Audio Line. This is a high-performance 29mm soft dome tweeter, designed and manufactured in MISCO's St. Paul, MN facility. This driver was designed to meet requests for a precision tweeter with a low crossover point, ideal for use in a two-way system paired with a 6.5” or 8” woofer. The BDT-2901 tweeter uses a moderately wide 3mm surround suspending the 29mm Dr. Kurt Mueller (DKM) silk dome, and features a neodymium ring magnet motor structure, with a damped center core and injection molded rear cavity, plus an injection-molded faceplate with integrated phase correction device. The two-part damping core uses an outside felt “container” with the center filled with a high-density Dacron material. This means there is no pole piece behind the dome to create secondary reflections back into the dome, which is the aspect of high-end tweeters. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, December 2020.  Read the Full Article Now Available Here