ISE 2025 First and Lasting Impressions

Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2025 celebrated another milestone in the event’s history, with the highest number of exhibitors and a 15.5% increase in visitors from the previous year. The show was mostly about solutions, signal connectivity, networking, and control technologies. Fewer opportunities for product launches, and an attendance increasingly dominated by end users.

NAMM 2025 was better organized, and even with additional challenges from the Los Angeles fires, it was a better trade show, and a better people’s event. In-person events like the NAMM Show are needed more than ever. And NAMM 2025 was an excellent trade show, thanks to the renewed efforts of its promoting association and its new President and CEO, John Mlynczak.

Roger Shively shares his Automotive Audio perspective of CES 2025. An evolutionary year, more tempered after the explosive nature of the software-defined vehicle becoming reality last year. Narrow and Deep AI, Machine Learning, and Generative AI had their roles in developing and maintaining most of the software and platforms for automotive audio at CES 2025. The “Ploughman's Lunch” of Automotive Audio, Shively was going to call his chronicle from the automotive-filled West Hall and the Beach Lot across the street.

A Celebration of the Art of the Possible. CES 2025 was extremely successful. Even with the impression of fewer people because of the show being even more dispersed. In this first impressions report we discuss how Edge-AI (on-device) is transforming what is possible in audio processing. And of course there was MagSafe and Qi2. USB4. Bluetooth LE Audio. Auracast. Wireless Multichannel. And much more. This is necessarily a brief first impressions editorial to follow up on a very intense edition of CES, where the business-to-business aspects of the show have intensified as predicted.

In a future where one envisions being able to pop in and out of Auracast experiences as one goes about their day, the method of doing so must be as easy as possible. From assistive listening to mainstream audio experiences, from hearing aid telecoils and TV streamers, Andy Bellavia explains how to make Auracast work better for everyone.

Or why not all grounds are created equal. How to mitigate grounding issues in audio equipment, understanding resistance, inductance, and capacitance of ground wiring, and voltage differences between points. Also, how not add to the construction complexity.

Mike Klasco writes about Niron Magnetics' first commercial pilot plant in Minnesota. The opening of this 70,000 square-foot Minneapolis facility took place in October 2024 and is a key milestone in Niron Magnetics's path to scaled production of its Clean Earth Magnet technology and the company’s ability to bridge the acute supply and demand gap for permanent magnets. A significant step forward in the company's mission to produce sustainable, rare-earth-free permanent magnets.

Notes from the AES Convention in New York. After three days of the annual flagship event of the Audio Engineering Society, there was an evening haze settling along the city skyline, with starlight behind the Javits Center and the Hudson River. Yet the last night in Manhattan turned into a clear one. Registrations were reportedly up this year for the AES Show, with the opening ceremony on Day 1 at full capacity, occupying all 300 theater seats, and upwards of 6,000 visitors to the convention during the three days.

If we have a vehicle we value, at one point we have the car sent over to the shop for service. The same thinking applies to golden ears, from product development teams getting the product’s tonal balance DNA sonic signature, as well as chasing down buzzes and resonances. Cleaning out your ears is a sensible procedure before critical listening. This article explores self-assessment tailored to the user’s sound profile, hearing enhancement solutions, and newly available solutions for ear hygiene and visual ear care tools, such as the Bebird EarVision package.

After a five-year gap for in-person conferences from COMSOL, the 2024 event in Boston, MA - part of a planned series now expanding to Europe (Florence, Italy) and Asia (Shanghai, China) - was a very successful return. audioXpress was invited to attend, as more and more audio developers and manufacturers use COMSOL's Acoustics Module, Structural Mechanics Module, and the AC/DC Module, among others integrated in the leading Multiphysics modeling and simulation software.