Product Design | Audio Electronics | Acoustics | DIY | Audio Innovations
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Philips Brand Re-Enters the North American Audio Market with Impressive Audio Product Line-Up |
TPV USA, in a global licensing partnership with Philips, announced the North American launch of five premium audio products as the 2021 holiday season approaches, building on the company's growing momentum as a leading and award-winning provider of audio entertainment in Europe. TPV USA brings its much-acclaimed premium wireless headphones, soundbars and wireless speakers to North American consumers. Read More
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AudioTelligence Launches Blind Source Separation Audio Technology for Smartphones |
Cambridge audio software specialist AudioTelligence has announced the launch of Aiso, a new consumer technology and family of products for smartphones based on its proven blind source separation audio technology. The company's approach allows removing any voice interrupting a smartphone video recording or call in real time, without losing what the main speaker is saying. The software-only solution is available for licensing for Android smartphones. Read More
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Audio-Technica Announces Second-Generation Flagship Wireless ATH-M50x Wireless Over-Ear Headphones |
Making the extremely popular and familiar ATH-M50 headphones go wireless was one of the smartest decisions made by Audio-Technica in 2018. Since then, the ATH-M50xBT has made this familiar headphone design even more popular among both core professional users and mainstream lifestyle enthusiasts who like to be seen with "what the pros use." Of course, technology has evolved since 2018, and the new ATH-M50xBT2 would be justified simply for adopting Bluetooth 5 and USB-C charging. But it offers even more. Read More
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GN Introduces Jabra Enhance Plus True Wireless Earbuds for Discreet Hearing Enhancement |
Building on years of research and engineering in sound and hearing, GN extended its Jabra Enhance line of discreet hearing enhancement solutions with a new design that draws directly from the experience of standard true wireless earbuds. The new Jabra Enhance Plus combines hearing enhancement, music streaming, and calls in state-of-the-art miniaturized earbuds with a signature design, to help millions of users meet the challenges of daily life. Read More
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Q Acoustics Introduces M20 HD High-Resolution Wireless Audio System for Music, Movies, and Gaming |
British audio specialist Q Acoustics introduced the M20 HD wireless music system, featuring aptX HD Bluetooth connectivity for wireless streaming of high resolution-quality stereo audio from devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, and network streamers. Designed to deliver superior audio, the M20 speakers feature advanced driver technology, reinforced P2P (Point to Point) cabinets, and an elegant, classic design to create an affordable but class-leading wireless stereo experience. Read More
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Expert Imaging and Sound Association (EISA) 2021-2022 Awards in Audio |
Even under the very unusual circumstances of a full year without trade shows and a global pandemic continuing to disrupt the industry and many manufacturers' plans, EISA, the Expert Imaging & Sound Association, revealed the winners of its 2021-2022 Awards. Technical experts from 60 leading specialist magazines and websites in 29 countries across the world have recognized and awarded no fewer than 86 products as the best in their categories, awarding performance and innovation in Consumer Electronics. Read More
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Orchard Audio Starkrimson Streamer Ultra Combines 500W Stereo GaN Audio Amplifier and PecanPi Streamer |
Orchard Audio announced a new powerful integrated product that will contribute to expanding the brand's market even more. The new Starkrimson Streamer Ultra combines a complete audio streaming and network player, and an amplifier all inside a minimalist enclosure. In a single chassis, the New Jersey-based company offers the Starkrimson Stereo Ultra next-generation GaN amplifier integrated with the versatile PecanPi Streamer. Just add speakers . Read More
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Mackie Announces Thump GO Battery-Powered Portable Loudspeaker |
If cars, scooters, and bicycles can be battery-powered, why not professional audio? Expanding on the latest trend to allow sound to go wireless and move freely with AC power restrictions, Mackie announced its new Thump GO Portable Battery-Powered Loudspeaker. This is a new 8” Bluetooth-equipped model, designed in the legacy of Mackie’s renowned Thump speaker series, but with enhanced portability. And it's just one of several new product announcements from the revitalized brand . Read More
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Editor's Desk
J. Martins
(Editor-in-Chief)
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True Wireless Development
A New Avenue for Advanced AI-Enabled Designs
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As most of our readers are aware, two weeks ago Knowles announced the availability of a new development kit for True Wireless Stereo (TWS) earbuds, centered on the capabilities of its AISonic family of audio edge-AI processors. This is a very welcome support for the audio industry given the need to differentiate true wireless earbuds in a segment that is still growing but is now more competitive than ever.
With this new solution, OEMs gain access to a fully operational TWS development kit, which includes pre-tuned and pre-configured earbuds designed by Knowles. The earbuds come designed with Knowles SiSonic MEMS Microphone Arrays, voice vibration sensors for high-quality audio capture, and a choice of premium speaker driver assemblies, including Knowles’ balanced armatures that are able to support high-resolution audio specifications.
The fact that a highly respectable manufacturer of balanced armature drivers, micro-acoustic microphones, and precision device solutions designed a development kit for the TWS product segment is interesting in itself, since it lays out many of the options and choices available to developers.
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Knowles announced a new TWS development kit that compiles all of Knowles’ technology solutions – audio edge processor to run voice algorithms, mics, and balanced armatures – alongside several algorithm partnerships to bring advanced AI features to TWS and shorten the design and market cycle for OEMs. The available specifications for these pre-tuned and pre-configured earbuds designed by Knowles are now available. |
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Many established manufacturers still trust they can leverage their brand and premium audio quality as core principles for the segment. But even entry-level products now need to feature advanced processing features, and premium designs are leveraging sophisticated voice algorithms and AI-enabled conversation enhancement. And this Knowles development platform essentially supports both, lowering the costs for development.
The real appeal resides in the possibilities enabled by the new Knowles AI-enabled platform, already supported by key audio processing solutions and software partnerships. Development kits can accelerate the product development process, shorten the design cycle, and enable development teams to focus on differentiated innovations. And exploring AI-powered edge processing solutions is now the new frontier for cutting-edge features in voice recognition and optimization, adaptive filters and noise cancelling, hearing enhancement, and much more.
The processing platform at the core of this TWS development kit is based on Knowles' IA8201 AISonic audio edge processor, optimized for advanced voice and audio processing, and Sony Semiconductor's CXD 3781 codec - which provides integrated hybrid noise cancelling, AFE, ADC, DAC, and filters - paired with a premium Bluetooth Audio System-on-Chip (SoC). To enhance voice quality and intelligibility, Knowles has partnered with Alango Technologies, which offers its Voice Communication Package (VCP) with multi-microphone beamforming, and its OnlyVoice technology, which intelligently combines external beamforming with internal sensor-based voice processing.
Also ported to the IA8201 processor is AITransparency+, a solution from UK-based startup Chatable, specifically designed to enable “conversation enhancement,” exploring on-chip, proprietary Deep Neural Network architectures to enable selective acoustic enhancement of conversational speech signals without perceptible latency.
As Raj Senguttuvan, Director of Strategic Marketing, Audio and Sensing Solutions at Knowles describes, "The TWS development kit is scalable, rich, and open to customization, allowing customers to leverage pre-tuned algorithms from Knowles’ partners or quickly tune their own algorithms for other use cases. The open, flexible nature of this kit supports existing and emerging TWS premium features and next-generation applications, leveraging best-in-class audio and hearing technologies with flexibility for future innovation."
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Raj Senguttuvan, Director of Strategic Marketing at Knowles Corp., provided additional details about the TWS development kit announcement. |
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More to Know
Following the announcement, audioXpress was given the opportunity to discuss more specific details of interest for manufacturers and developers. We noted key questions about this new development kit that we think could benefit our readers and that Raj Senguttuvan was kind enough to answer with as much detail as possible, at this stage.
My main doubt was related with the choice of the specific Bluetooth platform - knowing that specific Bluetooth SoCs have implications in terms of ODM partner choices for manufacturers. I was also curious about eventual support for the newly announced Bluetooth LE Audio specifications, which is obviously at the top list of priorities for developers starting a new project this year. Even if based on upcoming updates, developers need to plan for that important transition.
Raj Senguttuvan confirmed that the new Knowles AI-enabled True Wireless Stereo (TWS) Development Platform includes an advanced Bluetooth Audio SoC from Qualcomm. However, he also details that Bluetooth LE Audio was not yet addressed in this specific evaluation kit.
RS - The initial release will include two versions of earbuds – one with a full-range balanced armature (BA) and the other with a hybrid driver paired to the processing platform. Both earbuds will have three Knowles Everest DMICs with high SNR, low distortion, and a flat frequency response. The evaluation kits will also include a STM LIS25BA accelerometer.
The platform is designed with a QCC 5141 Bluetooth Audio SoC. The software integration support was provided by VVDN, our ODM partner and a Qualcomm-approved vendor. The Knowles’ TWS Development Kit is designed to provide TWS manufacturers a platform for the evaluation of advanced features using pre-tuned algorithms from Knowles’ partners or quickly tuning their own algorithms to shorten design cycles for their own technologies coming to market. It is not, however, a ready-to-go reference design. Because of this, the product can be customized based on the goals of a development team. Manufacturers can choose to convert the evaluation kit into a reference design or a product by working with VVDN or their own ODMs. Knowles will continue to support existing and emerging TWS premium features and next generation applications, leveraging best-in-class audio and hearing technologies to evolve the kit for future innovation.
I also asked about the Knowles IA8201 AISonic audio edge processor and the available software partnerships, and what level of customization is supported, including for Active Noise Cancellation (ANC).
RS - We have already integrated voice wake-words on IA8201 AISonic audio edge processor with Sensory for other applications, so that technology carries into the evaluation kit’s core design. For this initial release, we have worked with Sony, Alango, and Chatable. We believe the processing platform has sufficient horsepower and memory required to advanced algorithms from partners and will continue to add new features through partners. Output processing for features like Spatial Audio is one area we are exploring currently.
Advanced audio edge processing is achieved via the AISonic platform. We will release periodic software updates when new features or algorithms are added to the platform. The software updates can be accessed through https://solutions.knowles.com.
As of right now, there’s no additional select partners for ANC or DSP algorithms to be mentioned. However, we are looking at adding additional features to the kit. I mentioned output audio processing as an example, and as the TWS space continues to percolate into new use cases and markets, we can expect more opportunities.
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This scalable TWS development platform enables advanced emerging audio use cases, designed with multi-microphone arrays, voice vibration sensor, and a choice of premium speaker driver assemblies from Knowles. Click for the original announcement. |
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Next I had a series of questions about TWS product differentiation, and what the selected Knowles microphones and drivers in the kit could support.
- Support and compensation for loose-fit form factor
RS - The initial two-earbud versions released with the kit work best as tight fits. We are in the process of developing loose-fit earbuds and tuning the system for best-in-class performance.
- High resolution audio
RS - The QCC 5141 Bluetooth Audio SoC along with premium Knowles BAs deliver Hi-Res Audio.
- Spatial Audio / Immersive (including head-tracking support)
RS - We are working on this feature and will report back as developments come.
- Hearing Enhancement - ability to load compensation curves, personalization, situational awareness, etc.
RS - The platform currently does not support any hearing enhancement features. However, one of our partners, Chatable.AI, has developed an AI-based Conversation Enhancement feature that uses deep neural network architectures, performing over one hundred million AI calculations per second to make conversations more vivid, especially in crowded or loud environments. We continue to closely monitor the advancement of hearing enhancement features in TWS (meant for users without hearing impairment), and the integration of such features is on our roadmap.
Finally, I asked Senguttuvan about the company's commitment to support manufacturers adopting the development kit and address the current supply chain disruptions.
RS - Knowles, along with our partners, look forward to providing engineering support to manufacturers as they seek to evaluate this kit, and bring advanced features to the market. We understand that TWS manufacturers may have their own ODMs that they work with to get products to market. While there are too many unknowns for us to specifically comment on regarding the supply chain issues facing different suppliers and ODMs, we commit to doing our best to bring partners and customers together and helping them facilitate their product development process.
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As OEMs push more advanced features to create product differentiation and address consumer’s changing preferences, the True Wireless market is now a major growth segment for the audio industry. |
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Repurposing an Old Tube Preamp for Line-Level Duty
By Bill Reeve
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As part of our Glass Audio Special, always filled with practical projects for our readers and tube-enthusiasts, Bill Reeve wrote a great modification and restoration article that shows how to preserve the best features of unused tube equipment. The article describes a tube preamplifier that the author wanted to position at the input to his home power amplifier, eliminating the need to adjust his 1972 McIntosh MX10 tuner and 240 power amplifier’s volume to high when he wants to fill his home with music. In this case, an old Shure Model 65 stereo conversion preamplifier using two dual-triode 12AX7 tubes provided an excellent platform for the project. This article was originally published in audioXpress, May 2020. Read the Full Article Now Available Here
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Eighteen Sound NSD1424BTN 1.4” Pro Sound Compression Driver
By Vance Dickason
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In the May edition of Voice Coil, Vance Dickason characterized a new 1.4” compression driver design from Eighteen Sound, the company that is now operating as a separate division of B&C Speakers, following the acquisition in 2017. Eighteen Sound sent the NSD1424BTN, which for the measurements was combined with the Eighteen Sound XT1464 elliptical-shaped 60°x50° horn. This ultra-compact compression driver is driven by a 62mm diameter voice coil wound with aluminum wire on a non-conducting Nomex former with a proprietary treatment. This assembly drives the proprietary True Pistonic Motion (TPM) Tin (nitrate compound)-coated titanium diaphragm, and also incorporates a proprietary phase plug design (3P) that has short openings and a high flare rate to reduce distortion and improve mid-range detail. Other features of the NSD1424BTN include a computer-optimized neodymium multiple magnet motor structure, a copper pole piece shorting ring, a continuous power handling of 140W with a 70W nominal power handling rating, and 1.2kHz recommended crossover frequency (with a minimum 12dB/octave high-pass network). This article was published in Voice Coil, May 2021. Read the Full Article Now Available Here
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audioXpress features great articles, projects, tips, and techniques for the best in quality audio. It connects manufacturers and distributors with audio engineers and enthusiasts eager for innovative solutions in sound, acoustic, and electronics.
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