Product Design | Audio Electronics | Acoustics | DIY | Audio Innovations
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ArkX Labs Launches Custom Wake-Word and Command Sets for Brand Voice Experiences |
ArkX Laboratories, a leading provider of far-field voice capture now features EveryWord Voice Control. The superior speech recognition technology, powered by Sensory, enables OEMs to create custom wake-words, small to medium command sets (21 dialects), and speaker verification models for voice interfaces when integrated with the high performance and production-ready EveryWord Audio Front End (AFE) or Voice Module. Learn More Here
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SPARK Microsystems Shows Way-Forward for Wireless Audio Over UWB |
SPARK Microsystems, a Canadian fabless semiconductor company specializing in next-generation ultra-wideband (UWB), has recently teamed up with the UWB Alliance, the international non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion and growth of UWB, in a joint effort to test the coexistence and aggregation capabilities of the technology in environments where other UWB or other wireless protocols and radio devices are in use. And wireless audio is among the most promising applications that SPARK Microsystems is testing over UWB. Read More
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Linear Systems Releases Low-Cost, Low-Noise LS844 JFET for High-Performance Applications |
Linear Systems announced the re-release of the low-noise, low-cost LS844 series dual JFET with immediate large-scale availability and large-volume pricing. The re-released LS844 is the latest evolution of a classic dual JFET developed and introduced by Linear Systems over 20 years ago. The company has refined the part’s design and fabrication processes to improve its low noise, matching and Common Mode Rejection Ratio qualities while retaining the linearity and other characteristics sought by audio and other circuit designers. Read More
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Dirac Spatial Audio Powers All-New NuraTrue Pro Wireless Earbuds |
Swedish digital audio processing pioneer Dirac and Australian headphone company Nura announced a collaboration on the upcoming NuraTrue Pro wireless earbuds, featuring Dirac Virtuo spatial audio. The latest earbuds from Nura mark the first collaboration between the two companies and demonstrate Dirac’s growing leadership position in the headphone market – after establishing its technology in the automotive, home theater, and mobile markets. The NuraTrue Pro earbuds are now fully funded on Kickstarter. Read More
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Bose Self-Fitting Hearing Aids Are Now Lexie Hearing Aids Powered by Bose |
Bose Corporation and Lexie Hearing, a direct-to-consumer hearing aid provider in the United States and 39 other countries, announced a partnership to bring Bose’s self-fitting hearing aid technology to the Lexie Hearing product line. The new Lexie B1 Hearing Aids will be marketed as "Powered by Bose," allowing wearers to fit, program, and control their hearing aids with clinically proven, audiologist-quality results — without a doctor visit, hearing test, or prescription. Read More
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JBL Professional Debuts the JBL VTX A6 Line Array Element and B15 Compact Subwoofer |
Harman Professional Solutions, introduced the newest members of JBL Professional’s flagship VTX line array series, the VTX A6 subcompact dual 6.5-inch passive line array element and the B15 compact, arrayable 15-inch subwoofer. The A6 and B15 bring JBL’s top acoustic technologies to compact form factors for small- to medium-size touring and fixed installations, providing versatile solutions for production companies, touring acts, rental houses, theaters, houses of worship and any space-critical applications. Read More
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Cirrus Logic Senior Technical Fellow John Melanson Awarded 500th US Patent |
John Melanson, senior technical fellow at Cirrus Logic, has been granted his 500th US patent, an achievement that places him among the world’s most prolific inventors. The Academy Award-winning engineer’s core contributions are within the field of audio and electronics, particularly the analog and mixed-signal technologies that have helped transform the analog world around us into the digital signals at the heart of today’s most advanced products. Read More
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AURALiC Announces New ALTAIR G1.1 and ARIES G1.1 Music Streamers |
Originating in Beijing, China, AURALiC is the company that managed to make innovative digital and analog components for the home networking aficionados - and not for cheap. The company builds products that make listening to digital streaming and high-resolution music a fun hobby, particularly for those who want all the options. AURALiC now announced updated ARIES G1.1 and ALTAIR G1.1 music streamers, improving on existing models by adding Apple AirPlay 2 . Read More
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Resonado Labs Licenses Res-Core Technology to GGEC |
Resonado Labs announced a licensing partnership with GGEC (GuoGuang Electric Company), one of the most renowned speaker manufacturers in the world. This partnership opens the door for Resonado to enter the smart speaker and television transducer market, further advancing the company's business into home audio integrations. Resonado’s flagship technology, Res-Core, will now be available for GGEC’s use as they manufacture advanced transducers and acoustic products for smart speaker and multimedia related systems. Read More
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Guest Editorial
Brad Grimes
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Spatial Audio Comes to Podcasting
Immersive, 3D Sound Isn’t Just for Movies and Gaming Anymore
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According to the Pew Research Center, about 25 percent of Americans, many of whom are young, get their news from podcasts. That’s right, their news. In fact, Edison Research has identified a category of podcast “super listeners” who consume an average of 11.2 hours of podcasts — including news — every week, which is up more than 14 percent from 2020. In short, podcasts are as popular as they’ve ever been.
What about music? On that front, spatial audio is beginning to attract listeners. Music recorded in 360 degrees for a new, immersive sound experience has started to take off. Since Apple introduced spatial audio to its Apple Music service, the company says more than half of its subscribers are enjoying the 3D-style sound, and that plays of spatial audio tracks quadrupled in just a few months.
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Podcasts are now being produced in spatial audio. As a great example, QCODE has produced "From Now," a podcast where sound becomes its own character. Mixed in Dolby Atmos, sounds are placed and moved in three dimensions. Image courtesy of Dolby Laboratories. |
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Now, these two great sound experiences are about to sound great together. With the listening public drawn to both spoken word podcasts and immersive music, audio professionals say the next big thing is spatial audio podcasts — storytelling engineered to place the listener right in the middle of things.
"It's if it's not already ready for primetime, it's very close," says Matt Yocum, an award-winning Hollywood sound designer who has been at the forefront of spatial audio podcasting. "Once people grow accustomed to hearing things spatially, a regular stereo recording will feel like a step backwards."
Before that can happen, pro audio needs to address two key challenges of spatial podcast creation: distribution and capture.
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Podcast creators like Matt Yocum (Sound Designer/Mixer of QCODE’s "The Left Right Game") are pioneering podcasts in Dolby Atmos. "Dolby Atmos really just opens up the world of possibilities for creating the immersive experience," he says. Image courtesy of Dolby Laboratories |
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An Evolution in Immersiveness
Consumers have already gotten a taste of immersive podcasts. Services like iHeartRadio introduced what they call 3D podcasts, and a slew of content creators have developed immersive audio titles. Yocum, for example, has done extensive work for QCODE, a new media company that creates many narrative podcast series featuring professional actors and intricate sound designs. “They want it to sound like a movie, just in podcast form,” he says.
But because most podcasts are distributed online and enjoyed through stereo headphones, these high-quality productions are usually re-rendered in a binaural format — basically taking a 360-degree recording and adapting it to stereo listening. The process preserves many of the spatial cues — sound seemingly comes from different directions, for example — but can’t represent the total spatial experience as intended by the content creator.
Yocum works with Dolby Atmos, which expands on Dolby’s popular surround sound technology by adding height channels, effectively creating 3D sound objects. Apple Music’s spatial audio feature supports Dolby Atmos so music listeners can hear songs spatially the way the artists produced them. Select Apple AirPods also support Atmos playback.
Generally, however, podcast distribution platforms can’t yet deliver native Atmos files, or other spatial audio formats. But the time is coming. “It will be nice to be able to deliver something like an Atmos file that will scale for any consumer playback system," Yocum says. "We're waiting for that scalability so we don't always have to deliver a stereo binaural re-render."
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Premium podcast studio Wondery is delivering its podcast series in Dolby Atmos. Wondery+ subscribers can fully immerse themselves into their favorite episodes and connect in an even deeper way to the story. |
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Beyond Storytelling
Yocum and others agree, the potential for spatial audio podcasts extends well beyond narrative storytelling. Any podcast that would benefit from communicating a sense of place is a candidate for spatial audio: news podcasts recorded on-location, adventure podcasts from faraway places, even the popular interview-style podcast could be enhanced spatially if the site of the interview— on a stage, at a conference, in the field — adds to the listening experience.
"Audio does such a great job of taking a person to a place,” explains Rob Byers, who has worked with broadcasters and podcast producers including NPR and American Public Media and is currently Technical Director for Criminal Productions at Vox Media. “Spatial is great for any kind of storytelling or journalism. Not just fiction."
In addition to solving the distribution challenge, Byers expects podcast producers to innovate around sound capture. Currently, it’s possible to capture multiple channels of audio and build a spatial recording in post-production, but for many podcast formats, that could be a heavy lift. Not every podcaster today has an audio engineer at the ready.
"Most producers of narrative audio right now are doing it with a microphone in one hand and a recorder in the other," Byers says. "They're gathering pieces of audio, building it in post, and creating a scene. Capturing true spatial audio in the field is a completely different ball game."
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Nomono is a Norwegian startup working in the field of audio recording and collaboration tools. Nomono elected to help podcasters and journalists use their tools to tell audio stories using its integrated hardware and software solutions, and simplify immersive field recording and production, paving the way for a spatial audio future. |
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Adoption of technologies such as ambisonic microphones will certainly help. So will new takes on old recording devices, like wireless lavalier mics, which could capture various voice tracks while a secondary mic captures background sounds.
"The tools are there. They’re accessible," Byers says. “There will be a ramp-up period — like what’s the best way to capture the content in the field and learning the post-production side — but we’re used to that. Once some technology barriers come down, it's going to be easy to get spatial content to the listener."
Spatial Audio for Everyone
This democratization of spatial audio podcasting could be a boon for podcasting in general, which hasn’t seen much innovation in years, despite the public’s enthusiastic embrace of the format.
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"We’re sound people with a passion for building great products for like-minded pros, including podcasters, broadcast journalists, and media houses,” says Jonas Rinde, Nomono CEO. “Nomono simplifies podcasting with intuitive tools for capturing interviews from the field, collaborating on the editorial process, and improving audio quality. Our goal is to provide storytellers with an audio workflow that is smart, simple, and capable of delivering excellent sound." |
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"The podcast format has, in a way, stagnated. In many cases it’s two or three people having a conversation in a studio," says Audun Solvang, Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Nomono, which makes podcasting solutions. "Spatial audio will allow storytellers to reach the audience on a different level and be a tool for creating more diverse content."
Physiologically, widespread spatial audio will make podcasts more pleasant to listen to, not just more engaging. By separating sounds and voices and placing them spatially around listeners, producers can reduce listening fatigue, says Solvang, improving the podcast format even more.
For Yocum, taking tools he uses in film and, without much adjustment, applying them to spatial audio podcasts, is a boon for creativity. "The potential for this technology goes beyond high-production narrative experiences," he says.
Byers likes that new spatial audio solutions bring not just immersiveness, but also ease of use. So while spatial audio may be the next big thing, the barriers to entry are not unreasonable and podcasting in general will likely benefit. "Accessibility and equity are really important," he says. "If there's an advancement somewhere that makes podcasting easier for someone, that’s only a good thing."
Brad Grimes is a long-time technology journalist and former communications director of the Audiovisual and Integrated Experience Association.
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An Interview with John Whitecar
A Decades-Long Journey to the Future of Automotive Audio
By Adam Levenson
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Automotive audio industry veteran John Whitecar is currently the VP of Product Management, Automotive at DSP Concepts. John is a leading expert in his field, the holder of 35 patents covering audio, acoustic, and receiver signal processing technologies, and renowned for his important work with Texas Instruments, Tesla, and Ford, among others. In this interview prepared for audioXpress by Adam Levenson, John shares details of his work in the design of custom-mixed signal DSP-based automotive receiver ICs, which awarded him the Henry Ford Technology Award from Ford Motor Company. He also discusses why we are only getting started in an exciting era for automotive audio. This article was originally published in audioXpress, June 2022. Read the Full Article Now Available Here
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Beyma’s New 1” CD1ND Compact Polyimide Diaphragm Compression Driver and TD-194 Horn
By Vance Dickason
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This Test Bench focuses on Beyma’s new 1" CD1ND Compact Polyimide Diaphragm Compression Driver and TD-194 Horn, clearly a product oriented for demanding professional audio applications. From this company headquartered in Valencia, Spain, comes a new transducer from its extensive line-up of more than 30 compression drivers. The 1” throat uber-compact CD1ND compression driver delivers a “high-quality” cost-effective option for studio monitors or stage monitors, as possible examples. The Beyma CD1ND compression driver uses a 1” (25.1mm) diameter edge-wound voice coil, wound with aluminum wire on a non-conducting former, driving the field-replaceable polyimide diaphragm and lightweight FEA-optimized neodymium ring magnet motor structure. Rated for 20W AES power handling and a 2kHz recommended crossover frequency, the Beyma CD1ND was measured with the Beyma TD-194 90° × 40° constant directivity horn with a 1200Hz cut-off frequency. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, April 2022. Read the Full Article Now Available Here
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