The Future of Seamless Audio According to Qualcomm

An exclusive interview with Dino Bekis, Qualcomm's Vice President and General Manager, Wearables & Mixed Signal Solutions Business Unit, where he shares fascinating insights into the company's roadmap and future developments, leveraging the best of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi in wireless earbuds and headphones into a seamless, high-quality audio experience. We also learn about Qualcomm's unique vision for its latest generation Snapdragon Sound platforms, and XPAN technology, allowing wireless hi-res audio without bandwidth constraints or compromising battery life.

Many of the tweeters we use today have sprung from the imagination of a Danish fellow, Peter Larsen, affectionately known in the speaker industry as “Tweeter Peter” from his days at JBL in the 1990s. Peter and his wife, Dorit, are also business partners in Loudsoft, the esteemed developer of speaker design software and test instrumentation. Mike Klasco writes about Peter Larsen's significant contributions to the loudspeaker industry and the FINE range of Loudspeaker Design and Test software tools that he created.

Precisely a month since I was at the Barcelona Fira attending the mammoth of a trade show that is Integrated Systems Europe, here I was back in Barcelona for an even bigger and busier event, the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) promoted by the GSMA. 109,000 attendees and 2,900 exhibitors. In this first impressions report I discuss Bluetooth, why there was no Auracast, how Qualcomm made a splash with XPAN, and why are mobile operators obsessed with AI and Robots.

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.