Change and Opportunities in the Audio Landscape

On November 9, 2017, I attended the Futuresource Audio Collaborative 2017 conference, at the Ham Yard Hotel in London. With the topic "A Change is Gonna Come," the conference was a valuable and insightful event. To entice our readers to actually spend the hours listening to those interventions (and for those that don't have the time to do it), I will share some of the key highlights, adding some personal takes on the topics addressed.

Barely recovered from a week in New York - at least in terms of catching up with the product announcements - I have left this year's Audio Engineering Society (AES) convention with the feeling that it was just too short. Expectations couldn't have been higher. The 143rd International AES Convention (October 18-21, 2017) was sharing the Jacob Javits Center with the NAB Show New York. So naturally increased attendance was a given, and there were many "synergetic" opportunities to discuss common themes, such as media over IP.

It's been an interesting week! Just prior to the IBC 2017 show, Apple made its traditional event for the launch of the new iPhone 8 and iPhone X (and those Augmented Reality demos were amazing!), also debuting the new Apple TV 4K. And before Samsung and all the other Smartphone manufacturers start announcing their own versions of "X" models, we had a series of interesting corporate and technology announcements, culminating by Amazon's announcement of a series of new Alexa-based hardware devices...

audioXpress closely follows innovations in the truly wireless earbud space, because it simply is one of the most exciting categories in the audio industry right now. Within the headphones category, wireless earbuds are a fast-growing segment. But truly wireless earbuds can be much more. They are truly wearables, which can do a lot more when equipped with the latest connectivity and sensors. But let's forget for a moment the earbuds and focus more on the neckband and those around-the-neck designs.

I know that the current trend is all about smart speakers, but since we have discussed that topic extensively in recent editorials, I thought the time was ripe to discuss what is happening with headphones, a still-growing market segment showing some signs that deserve attention. In this article I wrote for The Audio Voice newsletter, I address ongoing trends in design choices, user preferences, frequency response curves, and personalization.

In previous editorials, I have highlighted the important role of smart speakers in promoting the user case for voice personal assistants (VPAs) and voice recognition applications - given the ideal combination of far-field microphone arrays with a complete audio ecosystem that encompasses digital signal processing, acoustic echo cancelation, noise cancellation, and many other technologies. This opens significant opportunities for the audio industry, given we understand the challenges.

The news was out in the British press and there's been a message sent by Arcam to its own distribution network, shared on social media. Apparently, Harman has decided to acquire the famous British audio brand Arcam for reasons unknown. No details are available about the transaction. On Arcam's twitter account the company confirmed the news, by stating "the current team carries on and joining Harman opens the door to major R&D and manufacturing resources for our future."

We are witnessing a pivotal moment for the audio industry with the prominence of far-field voice recognition and connected speakers now top of the mind for consumers. In the aftermath of Apple's recent HomePod speaker announcement, the home audio experience, by itself, was confirmed as the key selling argument, with its potential as an interface for interaction with consumer electronic devices and services, paving the way for the Smart Home.

InfoComm, is North America's largest audio-visual trade show, and the 2017 edition attracted more than 40,000 visitors for the first time in its history. That's 13% more than the last time it was held in Orlando, in 2015, and 14% more than InfoComm 2016 in Las Vegas, NV. As the InfoComm International Association confirmed immediately following its InfoComm 2017 event, the show was another record-breaking moment for this thriving sector, which now combines much more than AV commercial integration.

The audio industry was once again shaken to its foundations by Apple's announcements at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2017. The product updates and sneak peeks made at this Apple Special Event, on June 5, 2017, were extremely rich in surprising technology revelations, even though its implications might not become clear until a few weeks or months later. After all, the WWDC conference - a developer's conference - is traditionally where Apple builds the foundations for what will be its underlying short-term/long-term strategies, serving mainly to motivate developers and strategic partners.