KeepEars and AVAtronics Launch the Quietest Earbuds on Earth
Aviation pilots and professionals working in extremely noisy environments now have access to hearing protection and communication solutions that are able to reduce noise levels by up to 55 decibels. Two Swiss startups, KeepEars and AVAtronics have announced the successful prototype test and launch of the quietest earbuds on earth, able to be used as hearing protection and communications systems in extreme noisy environments, effectively canceling signals in a wide range of frequencies.
Big Fish Semiconductor and Dolphin Design Partnership Enables Mass Production for Bluetooth 5.2 Audio SoC
Dolphin Design, an advanced chip design company and leading specialist in Edge Computing and AI platforms, and Big Fish Semiconductor have entered into a long-term partnership. Big Fish Semiconductor’s U2 BLE 5.2 Audio AI SoC (TSMC 40nm uLP process ultra-low power audio chip), now in mass fabrication, is the first outcome of this partnership. The high-performance recording capabilities of the U2 BLE 5.2 Audio AI SoC are made possible by Dolphin Design's 24-bit delta-sigma audio ADC, which combines superior audio performance, small area and ultra-low power consumption.
Native Voice Reveals New Multi-Assistant Functionality for Skullcandy Push Active and Grind Series Earbuds
During Amazon’s Alexa Live 2022 event, Native Voice, an on-demand voice assistant library that enables users to communicate directly by voice with their favorite assistants, announced a partnership with Skullcandy that will allow users of their Push Active and Grind Series TWS earbuds to have their devices upgraded to include multi-simultaneous wake word functionality. Later this year, Skullcandy will push a firmware update adding Native Voice-enabled functionality.
Indian Institute of Technology Researches Eco-Friendly Sound Absorbers From Seaweed
From airplanes to apartments, most spaces are now designed with sound-absorbing materials that help dampen the droning, echoing and murmuring sounds of everyday life. But most of the acoustic materials that can cancel out human voices, traffic and music are made from plastic foams that aren’t easily recycled or degraded. Now, researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur have created a biodegradable seaweed-derived film that effectively absorbs sounds in that frequency range.
Test Bench: The AMT 23CM1.1-C Air Motion Transformer from Mundorf
The AMT 23CM1.1-C high-end Air Motion Transformer is the second model from the series launched by Mundorf. Following the explication of the U80W Mundorf AMT, published in the March 2022 issue of Voice Coil, Vance Dickason dives deeper into the series and proprietary diaphragm material used in all the Mundorf AMTs. Features for the Mundorf AMT 23CM1.1-C include a pleated AMT diaphragm, an optimized injection-molded rear chamber and flat round metal face plate, rated for 125W power handling with a minimum second-order 2.2kHz high-pass network. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, April 2022.
Practical Test & Measurement: ANC Headset Testing
Exploring some pressing topics in headphone technology, in this article Hans W. Gierlich addresses the requirements for effective performance testing of communication headsets that use active noise cancellation (ANC) technologies, test setups, testing equipment, and setup conditions needed to correctly assess ANC performance. From the right choice of artificial ears and the latest ITU-T recommendations in that domain, to ANC performance measurements and talk-though performance. This article was originally published in audioXpress, June 2022.
Dolby Introduces Dolby Atmos Album Assembler for Music Mixed in Atmos
Continuing to expand its own range of software tools available for content production, Dolby Laboratories announced the availability of the Dolby Atmos Album Assembler, a new tool for mastering music projects mixed in Dolby Atmos. With the Dolby Atmos Album Assembler, music creators now have a simple-to-use tool for sequencing Dolby Atmos tracks for delivery as a completed album. The tool is available for purchase for $99 through the Avid Marketplace and also available as a free 90-day trial through Dolby.
Zenso Partners with Audinate to Deliver DMeter App for Dante Audio
Zenso has partnered with Audinate to develop the first third-party software product that is designed exclusively for Dante audio networking systems. Given the significant number of users that work daily with audio-over-IP infrastructures and need to manage multiple audio channels, this innovative application offers real time audio metering for any Dante network, with no dedicated hardware required, and with support for up to 32 channels.
Picovoice Adds Voice AI SDKs for Italian, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese Languages
Picovoice remains committed to becoming the developer-first voice AI platform for adding voice to anything. The introduction of its Free Tier service provided more than 10,000 developers with state-of-the-art voice recognition. The launch of Speech-to-Text engines has made Picovoice the first and only ubiquitous end-to-end edge voice AI platform. Now, Picovoice introduced voice AI SDKs for Italian, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese. Now developers can train branded wake words and custom voice commands in eight languages.
Waves Cloud MX Audio Mixer Moves Live Productions to the Cloud
Evolving from software-based to cloud-based, Waves Audio, a leading developer of professional audio signal processing technologies and plugins, announced the availability of the Cloud MX Audio Mixer, a 100% cloud-based audio mixer for broadcast environments. This major technological achievement for Waves is a disrupting moment for the whole audio industry, even though the solution is for now being promoted for broadcast and media production environments, already more familiarized with cloud-based production.