ZUMI is a brand of Wavefounder Ltd., an independent consulting business established in 2008 in Hong Kong, serving customers all over the world in the fields of acoustics, audio development, design and manufacturing. Wavefounder's head office is in Auckland, New Zealand, and the company's operations extend to Shenzhen, China, and Sendai, Japan. The company specializes in consumer audio related products covering the complete spectrum of acoustic engineering and acoustic component supply chain consulting.
Zumi Systems is based in Sendai, Japan and is lead by founder and CEO Simon Weston. Since 2018, Zumi created an entire new line of proprietary embedded system measurement systems, replacing the PC-based solutions used previously by Wavefounder. These systems are used for a vast array of applications and Zumi Systems continues to support all existing customers but generally do not offer new installations.
The company currently focuses on developing a full range of ZUMI audio measurement tools for a wide range of applications from lab to assembly line, making complex measurement jobs fast and easy. This includes a new range of portable, simple to use tools, without compromising on accuracy and capability, leveraging the power of embedded systems to condense all the hardware and software required into a single-board total solution.
The company's prior experience in implementing measurement setups for many different applications, allowed Zumi to understand what the key measurement setups are and what the essential test behavior is for various product categories. Zumi Systems' new generation of devices are stand alone complete solutions for audio measurements, designed from the core to interface and interact with products under test through Bluetooth Serial, UART, SPI, I2C and more. That includes one-button-operation solutions that are able to execute complex measurement processes, even for inexperienced operators.
ZUMI’s measurement systems integrate a Bluetooth module that acts as an A2DP source, HFP Audio Gateway and Serial Port. The module logic completely automates pairing and connection to target devices transparently to the user. For both assembly line and development applications ZUMI provides built-in handling of ANC related measurements and automated interfacing with ANC chipsets that support digital communications.
All products are built as use case specific instruments. Although ZUMI's solutions allow complete configuration control by the user, the majority of use cases are handled perfectly by the built-in test profiles. This philosophy provides a proven advantage in real-world applications, allowing ZUMI devices to be ready to go at all times without any precision time to configure for a given job.
Recently, Zumi Systems developed a complete range of headphone measurement solutions, starting with the integrated ZUMI HP70 measurement instrument, pictured above. This fully integrated system for headphones and earphones features Bluetooth and cabled inputs, and supports both ANC development and production applications. The HP70 system executes complete quality control (QC) measurements as well as being suitable for product development situations. It incorporates the capability to automatically process ANC measurement and trimming, allowing designers to easily characterize the ANC system for filter development.
Also completely new is the ZUMI EP8, an earphone tester developed to specifically address the requirements for testing and quality control of wireless earphones. The instrument is packaged in a compact portable format making it an extremely convenient tool without compromising on measurement performance. The EP8 combines measurement, evaluation and quality control for earphones and is suitable for true wireless stereo (TWS) and Bluetooth models, making earphone performance measurements effortless. A complete package for earphone test, no other components or equipment needed.
Currently under development is the ZUMI DT70, a portable tester for headphone drivers, providing complete driver measurements, quality control assessment, sample evaluations and production driver binning.
Zumi Systems also developed the ZUMI CSE7 core system motherboard, used for system integrators in custom built test fixtures. The PCBA form of the CSE7 allows direct integration into measurement jigs for a variety of custom applications, ideal for electronic system filter measurement and the measurement of audio spectrum characteristics. The core system features 4 input channels and 2 output channels allowing multiple signal paths to be analyzed simultaneously and to easily add quality control settings to device testing fixtures. The most common application is to implement frequency response checking for audio electronics that include analog or digital filter systems.
ZUMI’s core technology is based around harnessing the power of embedded systems and encapsulating all audio measurement components into a single unit, designed expressly to take advantage of the modern advancements in microcontrollers and the enormous processing power and speed new chips are capable of. In general, ZUMI implementations include microphones, pre-amplifiers, digital sampling, computation, UI display, output amplifiers, mass storage, wireless transmitter etc. in a compact package. All measurement tools are built to be case specific and therefore are able to become highly refined for the specific purpose.
All ZUMI measurement systems run on an ARM Core based microprocessor and use embedded C code, without the need for a fully featured operating system. The code architecture is designed to facilitate the execution of measurement processes that involve interaction and communication with external devices. The paradigm is pre-action, measurement, check criteria, post-action. With this architecture, ZUMI's systems can be ideally suited for applications where some form of DUT configuration is needed before a measurement, and a DUT's configuration is modified based on measured results.
www.zumisystems.com
