Product Design | Audio Electronics | Acoustics | DIY | Audio Innovations
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Bang & Olufsen Launches Beosound A5 Portable Speaker
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Bang & Olufsen introduced the new portable Beosound A5 speaker. Designed in collaboration with the Danish-Italian design duo GamFratesi, the new Beosound A5 bridges northern and southern design cultures with powerful sound, meticulous craftsmanship, and product longevity for which Bang & Olufsen is renowned. A work of art, this speaker sets a desirable reference for the future of audio. Read More
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Alango's VoiceDefender on New Bang & Olufsen Beocom Portal Headphones Passes TEAMS Certification
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Alango Technologies, a leading developer and provider of signal processing and voice enhancement technologies, announced that its VoiceDefender DSP technology has passed the TEAMS certification on the all-new Bang & Olufsen Beocom Portal headphones. The hardware and software technology combination allowed rapid development of full-featured, high-performance headphones with pristine call quality in a boomless headphone design . Read More
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HEM Introduces New Ferrum WANDLA Flagship DAC/Preamp
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Polish audio manufacturer HEM continues to introduce new high-end audio products under its Ferrum brand. First it launched the HYPSOS hybrid power system, followed by the OOR headphone amplifier, and the ERCO USB-C DAC with headphone preamp, establishing a new reference in quality and price for a desktop high-end design. Now, the company has introduced the new WANDLA, a flagship DA converter that can also be powered by the HYPSOS. Read More
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Lyceum Introduces Advanced Data Ingestor for Audio Measurement Data Management and Collaboration
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Lyceum unveiled the Advanced Data Ingestor, a solution designed to streamline audio measurement data management and collaboration. This tool automates repetitive data cleaning tasks and provides a cloud-based platform for sharing “clean” data, significantly reducing the time-consuming process that engineers have faced for years. The solution facilitates real-time collaboration between manufacturers and product lead engineering teams, allowing for quicker issue identification and resolution. Read More
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PSI Audio Introduces New AVAA C214 Active Bass Absorber
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PSI Audio introduced the AVAA C214, a new active bass trap that evolved from its sibling, the C20. The new AVAA C214 active bass trap eliminates room modes from 15Hz to 160Hz without requiring calibration or tuning, while offering a more efficient form-factor for listening spaces due to the use of digital technology and smaller membranes. Easier to move and readjust when conditions in the room change, the AVAA C214 is the next evolutionary step for the company. Read More
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As Spatial, Simple, and Intelligent as It Gets. Nomono Sound Capsule Starts Shipping
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The Nomono Sound Capsule is a cloud-connected, self-contained recording kit for capturing audio in the field. The Norwegian startup executed on its unique vision to make audio capture and creation simple for any user. The portable, wireless, system simplifies audio recording, production, and collaboration for creators, and uses sophisticated audio processing and AI to help support podcasters, content creators, and journalists telling immersive audio stories. Read More
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International Parts + Supply (IPS) OEM Trade Show Takes Place Parallel to High End 2023
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Promoted by the High End Society in parallel with the Munich High End Show 2023 - May 18 to May 21, 2023 - the International Parts + Supply (IPS) Show is a new initiative focused on the supply side of the audio industry. Happening for the second time, the 2023 edition will benefit from an extended cooperation with the Audio & Loudspeaker Technologies International (ALTI) Association, which will promote a schedule of conferences and will host a B2B meeting area. Read More
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Lavoce Italiana Sets the Stage in North America
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Lavoce products are now available in North America directly from the company's group US division Elettromedia Corp. new sales and logistical center in Nashville, TN, to supply and support its manufacturer and distribution partners. Lavoce Italiana offers a full range of high-frequency and low-frequency transducers for professional audio, and a full catalog of guitar and bass speakers for the MI market. Its Italian R&D Center is based in Potenza Picena, Macerata, and all products are manufactured at its wholly owned modern production facility near Shanghai. Read More
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Guest Editorial
Mike Klasco
(Menlo Scientific)
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The Missing Link in Audio Products QC
Sanezoo AI Robot Guidance & 3D Surface Inspection
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Over the years I have been asked about automation of production line quality control inspection – from incoming parts to outgoing finished goods. While there are more than a dozen audio analyzer vendors that have QC test suites, most of these have scripts that at a touch of a button (or footswitch) will trigger a Go/No-Go test. But what is missing is getting the parts, such as a woofer, off the production line and into one of Geoff Hill’s Tetrahedral Test Chambers - which enable stable and accurate measurements of loudspeakers without using an anechoic chamber - or placing a headphone onto an artificial ear, or a mic onto a reciprocal test jig. In all those situations, an operator is required to repeat the same gestures countless times... for days, weeks, months, and years.
In the last couple of years, factories have learned that the Achille’s heel in a smooth production flow is the incoming supply chain and stable employee staffing. While getting incoming parts suppliers under control can be out of reach of most purchasing departments, streamlined production lines require workers who don’t get COVID, will work 24-hour shifts 7 days a week, and don’t ask for raises.
What if instead of end-of-line people moving product to the test jigs, sorting and binning, or packing, we could use a robotic arm using its vision camera not just for guiding the arm to pick up and place the component, but also inspect the paint finish and then, after the analyzer does its audio pass/fail, get the device under test (DUT) back onto the Good or Not Good bin or even pack it up. While there are reasons why this is rare for audio contract manufacturers, Sanezoo has been perfecting universal visual inspection and flexible bin-picking solutions that are viable for the situations described. In fact, Sanezoo’s artificial intelligence vision systems integrated into robot arms are already in use by VW, DuPont, Bosch, and others.
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At CES each year, Menlo Scientific has a technology showcase of solutions for the audio industry at the Venetian. Since by the new year most of us felt the dark clouds had passed, this year Sanezoo joined us in our CES suite and the ALTI convention floor hospitality suite to explore expanding its focus from the automotive industry to audio products, such as loudspeakers. Sanezoo’s platform enables manufacturing quality control and collision-free robot guidance by obtaining and generating data for continuous improvement of AI and analytical algorithms, thereby enabling better decisions, performance, quality, and safety.
Sanezoo’s focused use cases include 3D bin picking and precise placing to solve the unpredictability of loose parts and complex geometries of products on the conveyor belt, complemented with AI-Powered 3D surface inspection solutions on challenging surfaces. These applications are the result of passive 3D vision with intelligence powered by smart algorithms tuned for GPUs efficient at manipulating image processing due to their parallel structure and deep learning methods. The two image sensors of the 3D camera resemble two human eyes, while the intelligence resembles part of the human brain capacity.
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This is an image of the Sanezoo industrial machine vision systems featuring light with up to 144 individual sections, producing different images, each with a different lighting setup. Applied proprietary algorithms, developed by Sanezoo, produce various image representations of the surface, including fine 3D surface structure, and images with eliminated light reflections.
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A single-shot stereo camera enables a quick scan (<1ms), so that the scene can be moving in respect to the camera, and it is naturally fast. In comparison with other methods, it does not use a series of patterns shot at the scene. The vision system knows how the parts are oriented and picks and places them accurately as required by the next process steps. It does not have to use any special light, operating with lighting conditions from dark robotic cells to direct sunlight. It can also handle a variety of material, from shiny reflective metal to dark light absorbing rubber.
Part of the reason why robot arm vision picking systems have not yet been widely adopted by the consumer audio industry is related to the limitations in accuracy or speed of existing systems. With smarter vision and faster image capture, the optimum picking point can be identified with a collision-free path - with other parts, the container, the robot, and the environment - since the path is computed for each move. Typically, the 3D camera is placed on the robotic flange and can take a snapshot of the contents of the bin with a single shot. Dense high-resolution point clouds (3D representation of the scene) allow for precise 3D matching of the parts. The precision and speed are enabled by using a single passive 3D stereo camera, empowered with Sanezoo's smart algorithms and AI.
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Click to see the Sanezoo UNITY in action. Inspected surfaces show a fine structure so that small defects such as scratches and dents are easily detected and classified. The robot places the parts in a blister or discards them to a NOK slider.
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Of course, cost is another major consideration but is a fraction of what this level of sophistication was just a few years ago, and now without the flaws for a viable stable installation. An AI vision conveyor/bin-picking system that guides the robot arm is between $25k and $30k. This cost covers the eyes and some of brain of the system. This will mount to a 6 degrees of freedom (6DofF) robot arm.
The whole feeding robot cell for manipulating parts including the 6DoF robot, safety, PLC, gripping, automation, and mechanical parts as well as integration and programming will be around $100k. Then there is the cost of the audio analyzer along with another subsystem for cosmetic QC for surface visual quality control. Not cheap, but a fast worker that can go 24/7, will last for years, and won’t call in sick or quit has its appeal and ROI.
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Click to see the GRASP part picking and feeding robotic arm in action. A perfect solution for accurate part handling and feeding parts of any surface and any shape. In the station on video, each part is picked from the conveyor belt, then it is moved to the carousel module and finally, after processing, the part is moved to the pallet conveyor. The parts have hard-to-scan black matte finish.
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Vision System Challenges
3D laser or structured light vision systems normally involve a number of challenges, from creating point clouds with inaccurate points and many outliers (invalid points); can be too big and heavy for fixing on the robotic arm, while the process scene cannot be moving.
Many 3D defects cannot be seen clearly or detected reliably by 2D cameras and are invisible to 3D scanners. In addition, some surfaces are shiny and are almost impossible to be scanned or photographed without disturbing light reflections. Light reflections are usually handled by special lighting techniques, such as dome light. These approaches, however, sweep away the fine 3D structure of materials. This is undesirable for the detection of small surface defects.
Many surfaces are far from uniform. For example, metal milling produces a variety of trochoidal marks, which are not defects. Such difficulties are not possible to address without the construction of special sectional lighting and advanced image analysis techniques.
We mentioned milling marks on the surfaces are well distinguished, together with their 3D structure. This enables the system to be tuned for classifying the marks as OK or defective, which depends on the tool wear progress, as well as how other surface artifacts can be handled.
The individual use of artificial intelligence methods, in combination with standard approaches used in machine learning, does not produce as good results as when combined with the sectional light of the 3D fine surface inspection system. One of the proprietary developments is a suitable design of sectional light with enough sections in combination with the composition and analysis for effective defect evaluation.
The sectional light must be designed in terms of geometry and hardware design (suitable LEDs, microcontroller control, and timing) so that the light design and its selected sections correspond to the chosen analytical software methods. This leads to the design of a special industrial sectional light. Also, due to the need for precise arrangement, the light implementation cannot simply be assembled from elements easily available on the market.
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Example of a sealing surface inspection using the Sanezoo UNITY system, handling irregular reflections, reconstructing fine surface structures, and 3D mesh inspection.
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Detection of porosity in seal rings, very shiny turned and milled surfaces, inner and outer cylindrical surfaces, and examples of identification of imperfections and surface defects like porosity, burrs, scratches, and dents.
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Specific Implementations
The Sanezoo UNITY combination of light and camera captures and evaluates surfaces of any kind, regardless of reflection or ambient light. And it is safe, as it has no lasers or infrared while covering a wide scale of resolutions.
It can find small defects and discontinuities like scratches, cracks, pores, or other dents as well as various deformations, burrs, deposits, or inclusions. It classifies defects by type and severity with pseudo-defects and false alarms eliminated thanks to fine surface structure reconstruction where defects are emphasized and clearly distinguishable.
Another use-case where Sanezoo has a viable solution is GRASP, a universal part picking and feeding arm. This system can pick randomly scattered parts from a box or from a conveyor belt - firmly, and accurately. It knows how each part is grasped, by which picking point, and from which direction. Firm and precise grasping is important for speedy robotic manipulation and short cycle times. The fast cycle time - from the start of scanning to the path calculation - is less than 2 seconds. The need for programing and setting up the robot, 3D camera, and vision applications are all greatly minimized in Sanezoo solutions.
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Painted surface problems and pressure sensor membrane inspection.
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In the production of audio parts and products, these systems already have clear potential in multiple applications. Both inspection and perhaps assembly of speaker backplates into magnetic structures come to mind, with picking combined with fine surface inspection. The typical cold forged T-yoke pole pieces can be dinged during tumbling and the area that will form the magnetic gap is critical.
Sanezoo is currently looking to partner with audio testing equipment manufacturers and their system integrators to create the next-generation Acoustic Testing Robotic Cell (ATRC) for the robotic picking and handling of audio products, namely speakers and speaker parts, headphones, earbuds, and headsets.
For example, for headphone manufacturers the robotic arm could pick a product from a belt, put it on an artificial ear, and remove it when the test is done. For a cost-effective approach with higher throughput, the robot arm could place the DUTs into an acoustic chamber for testing in batches (two to four headsets at a time) with one acoustic tester switching from one headset at a time. Visual inspection is an optional module.
Sanezoo has an application-specific testing program for samples that can be sent to start the process. For more information, contact Lubos Brzobohaty.
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Practical Test & Measurement
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Transitioning Audio Tests from R&D to the Production Line
By Steve Temme (Listen)
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Production line audio testing poses many challenges such as noisy environments, harsh operating conditions, high throughput, relative limits, and more. In this article, Steve Temme, the founder and President of Listen, writes about the essentials of test and measurement applied to manufacturing environments and quality control. Production tests always benefit from proven practices and experience and that's what is shared in this article, outlining the main considerations to ensure a successful operation. This article was originally published in audioXpress, March 2023. Read the Full Article Now Available Here
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Rotary Transducer with Improved High-Frequency Output
By James Croft
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This article examines an important patent filed in 2014 by F. Bruce Thigpen (Tallahassee, FL) and granted in June 2016. Appearing both as the inventor and assignee, Thigpen describes a rotary sound transducer having an improved output at higher frequencies. Thigpen has been working on this type of device for more than a decade and has advanced what was already a very difficult engineering achievement, to a more sophisticated structure that apparently raises the general performance and high frequency limits beyond what was thought possible with this architecture. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, July 2017. Read the Full Article Now Available Here
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Audio Product Design | DIY Audio Projects | Audio Electronics | Audio Show Reports | Interviews | And More. Read Table of Contents
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of Audio Technology
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