Product Design | Audio Electronics | Acoustics | DIY | Audio Innovations
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What Listeners Are Seeking in 2021: Global Audio Consumer Research |
The use of audio devices has expanded since 2020. Many consumers today are heavily reliant on their audio products to aid connectivity, as well as for video watching, gaming, remote working, and music listening. The Qualcomm State of Sound research identifies audio device purchase drivers, and interest in current and future use cases, to better understand what today’s users look for in earbuds, headphones, and speakers. Download the State of Sound report here
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Bose Updates QuietComfort 45 ANC Headphones with New Aware Mode |
Eventually, even a leading market reference product needs an update. Bose introduced the new QuietComfort 45 headphones, replacing the legendary QuietComfort 35 II with improved noise cancellation and introducing a new Aware Mode, Bluetooth 5.1, with better voice isolation for easier conversations, and 24-hour battery life on a single USB-C charge. The design remains very close to the original. Read More
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Qualcomm Introduces aptX Lossless Audio Solution over Bluetooth |
Reacting to the fact that streaming music services have started to offer lossless music streaming options, Qualcomm has now extended its aptX Adaptive set of technologies - supported by its latest Snapdragon Sound processors - to also include a CD-quality lossless option over Bluetooth. The new aptX Lossless technology expands options available for Bluetooth wireless audio, combining codec, wireless links, and RF optimizations. Read More
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PSB Speakers Launches Flagship Synchrony Series in North America |
PSB Speakers, long renowned for excellence in loudspeaker design, announced its new flagship Synchrony Series consisting of the T600 Tower Speakers (US $7,999/pair MSRP), and the B600 Bookshelf Speakers (US $2,499/pair MSRP). The new tower and bookshelf speakers use an all-new driver platform, built-in IsoAcoustics isolators, and represent the finest application of the brand's "True to Nature" design philosophy. Read More
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Meze Audio Announces New Flagship Elite Planar Magnetic Headphones |
Meze Audio is a company from Romania with an indomitable passion for headphones and the highest quality audio reproduction. It has now announced the release of its latest Elite Isodynamic Hybrid Array headphones. The project extends the company's collaboration with Rinaro Isodynamics to perfect what it announced as being its most advanced planar magnetic headphones to date. Read More
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Focal Presents New On Wall 300 Loudspeakers for the Home |
After releasing its 1000 Series in-wall/in-ceiling loudspeaker in January 2021, French brand Focal has now unveiled the On Wall 300 line. Attentive to all uses and listening needs, Focal has thought out and designed the new On Wall 301 and On Wall 302 loudspeakers for both stereo and home theater use, offering high-quality products that can be installed on a stand or fixed into the wall. Read More
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Spatial and Steinway Lyngdorf Announce Native Spatial Audio for Immersive Sound Experiences |
Spatial, the immersive audio experience company, and luxury audio brand Steinway Lyngdorf, announced a native digital integration of Spatial’s real-time immersive audio Spatial Reality engine for Steinway Lyngdorf’s audio processors. The integration will provide object-based immersive sound with improved fidelity for music enthusiasts and home-theater system owners, and aims to promote next-generation high-quality home audio systems . Read More
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Synaptics to Acquire DSP Group to Strengthen Leadership in Low Power AI Technology and Wireless Connectivity |
Synaptics and DSP Group, both NASDAQ listed, announced the signing of a definitive agreement, unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies, whereby Synaptics acquires DSP Group at $22.00 per share in an all-cash transaction. Synaptics is the company from San Jose, CA, that in 2017 acquired Conexant, one of the industry's leading audio and voice technology specialists, and more recently acquired DisplayLink and the wireless connectivity business of Broadcom . Read More
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Guest Editorial
Mike Klasco
(Menlo Scientific)
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SEAS: The History of SEAS Fabrikker
A Loudspeaker History Book
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This is an engaging story of Scandinavian Electro Acoustic Systems (SEAS) and its place in the Nordic Speaker Industry, written by Danish loudspeaker engineer Claus Futtrup and jointly published by SEAS and Futtrup.
Nordic loudspeaker engineering is legendary, and many of the speaker drivers now manufactured in Asia started life on the back of napkins in various snow-covered brick buildings in Scandinavia. From soft dome tweeters to very linear magnetic designs, the audio industry owes much of these developments to the pioneering Nordic audio brands. Of course, there is more than speakers from the region. We should not forget the superb audio test instruments from Brüel & Kjær, GRAS, or Loudsoft, and Denmark’s lion share of the world’s advanced hearing aids.
Notable audio brands with Nordic DNA include Skaaning Audio Technology, Hiquphon, Ortofon, Peerless, Scandyna, Vifa, Scan-Speak, Peerless, SEAS, Dynaudio, Bang & Olufsen, or Dali, among many others. While most of these companies originated in Denmark, many have or had close ties across the Scandinavian region, including in Norway, where SEAS is located.
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Scandinavian Electro Acoustic Systems, or SEAS was formed in 1956 with two shareholders, Jan Wessel and C.C. Nørgaard Madsen. But the story of the company starts in 1948, when Wessel decided to start making loudspeaker units for his own production of radio sets and employed C.C. Nørgaard Madsen as a designer. Wessel was a Norwegian radio engineer, and the owner of Radionette, a receiver manufacturer later acquired by Tandberg, another major Norwegian electronics company.
Radionette's radio factory was founded in 1927 and noted for its unique capability for connection to the AC mains rather than battery power. These appliances started an entire revolution of the local radio market. Soon after founding SEAS, Wessel and Madsen decided to separate the loudspeaker and the radio business in order to be able to sell loudspeakers to other radio manufacturers in Norway and abroad. The company moved to the Norwegian town of Moss in 1951 and is still based in this town.
In 1961, Wessel and Nørgaard Madsen bought Videbæk Højttalerfabrik, a Danish company (also known as Vifa), from Nørgaard Madsens’ father, N.C. Madsen, which developed and supplied loudspeakers for Bang & Olufsen. The book provides the inside history (at least from the SEAS Norwegian perspective) of family interconnection (and in-fighting) to Vifa, Dynaudio, Scan-Speak, Tymphany, and even Morel in Israel. The most intriguing gossip was how the Danish affiliate managed to wrestle ownership and control from the Norwegian owners of what was to become Vifa, with the support of the Danish government and their local bank.
The story of these companies and the individuals who founded them is more convoluted than any TV soap opera, and like the soaps, continues even today. Most of the companies started small and have remained so, with gross sales in the range of US $10 million and staffs of 30 people or so. A few, in their golden years were mid-sized contenders with hundreds of employees, but the intense taxes and socialist government structures have been self-limiting.
Well, I am not going to be the spoiler, you will just have to read this well-written and engaging book with its insights in how these speaker guys navigated a boutique audio company to survive all these years under many changes of owners, mergers and acquisitions.
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SEAS employees' determination and hard work, the largest majority of them women, kept the company going through rough times. From left to right: Tone Sørensen (deputy manager), Karin Gjerstad (secretary) and Liv Stensrud (manager). These women fought tirelessly to save SEAS. Photo: Moss Avis, 12 September 1981 (Jon-Ivar Fjeld). |
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Back in 2014, I wrote a series of articles for audioXpress about this history. My knowledge was from my experiences in the selection process of acquiring a small but prestigious Scandinavian speaker company for a large Asian client. But most importantly, I also had an invaluable resource in Claus Futtrup who, for almost 30 years, had contributed to speaker technology.
His impressive career begins at Dynaudio, then Tymphany Denmark A/S and continued with Scan-Speak in post-Tymphany times. About 8 years ago Claus joined SEAS in Norway and as you read this he is settling in as the Acoustic Manager at Dali, finally back home with his family in Denmark. Closing out his time at SEAS, we now have been gifted with his comprehensive book, appropriately titled SEAS: The History of SEAS Fabrikker, which also offers fascinating details about the intricate connections between Scandinavian audio companies.
I remember a (much younger) Claus sending me an email that his team at Dynaudio liked an article on the acoustics of glue joints I wrote for Voice Coil – that must have been more than 25 years ago (and updated from time to time in Voice Coil magazine).
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The book is also available in English. |
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SEAS: The History of SEAS Fabrikker covers the years 1950-2020, when the company celebrated its 70th anniversary. You can buy the book from Audiatur Bokhandel AS - the bookstore ships internationally - and select distributors will also have the book available for purchase soon.
Claus Futtrup: SEAS: The History of SEAS Fabrikker, 2021
ISBN: 9788230348246
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Click on the image above to visit the Audiatur Bokhandel website where you can order the book. |
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Reducing Filamentary Triode Amp Distortion
By Larry Lisle
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In this article, the author defends that it’s possible to dramatically reduce the intermodulation distortion in Class A filamentary triode tubes by reducing the filament voltage. The theory being that the most important reason for the drop in distortion with the lowering of filament voltage is the reduction of the space charge. "This makes the potential distribution across the tube more linear. The space charge is the cloud of electrons that usually surrounds the filament (or cathode) of a vacuum tube. Some of these electrons are drawn away to the grid/plate system, but others remain in the vicinity of the cathode and actually can repel some electrons, forcing them back to the filament," Larry Lisle details. Explore the complete article, which also references valuable contributions available from the many tube-related books available originally from The Audio Amateur and Old Colony Sound Lab - now available here. This article was originally published in audioXpress, May 2005. Read the Full Article Now Available Here
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SB Acoustics’ Satori MW16TX-8 TeXtreme Woofer
By Vance Dickason
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This Test Bench article characterizes the much-anticipated SB Acoustics Satori MW16TX-8 TeXtreme Cone 6.5” woofer. This is the third TeXtreme diaphragm transducer to be explicated in Test Bench, following the Eminence N314X-8 compression driver in the May 2020 issue, and the SB Acoustics TW29TXN-B-4 dome tweeter in the September 2020 issue. TeXtreme diaphragms are definitely finding acceptance among loudspeaker manufacturers, somewhat like Beryllium did years back. The SB Acoustics MW16TX-8 is from the SB Satori line of high-end transducers and has a substantial feature set, featuring a completely open below the spider (damper) mounting shelf for cooling and curvilinear inverted single piece “bowl” shaped cone assembly. The cone is glued to a conventional-looking conic section of TeXtreme joining the cone to a normal-looking voice coil neck joint. Compliance is provided by a NBR surround, and the motor is an FEA-optimized neodymium magnet-type with milled plates and extended copper sleeve shorting rings. Driving the cone assembly is a 1.4" diameter voice coil wound with round copper-clad aluminum wire (CCAW) on a non-conducting fiberglass former. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, June 2021. Read the Full Article Now Available Here
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Advancing the Evolution
of Audio Technology
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.
Voice Coil, the periodical for the loudspeaker industry, delivers product reviews, company profiles, industry news, and design tips straight to professional audio engineers and manufacturers who have the authority to make powerful purchasing decisions.
The Loudspeaker Industry Sourcebook is the most comprehensive collection of listings on loudspeaker material in the industry. Purchasers and decision makers refer to the guide for an entire year when making selections on drivers, finished systems, adhesives, domes, crossovers, voice coils, and everything in between.
© 2021 KCK Media Corp. All Rights Reserved.
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