audioXpress.com - The Most Popular Stories of 2024

We looked at the popular articles of 2024 in audioXpress.com (including selected articles from audioXpress and Voice Coil magazines), and we created this Top 11 list of news stories and online articles. As the number of visitors and pageviews registered by audioXpress.com continues to break records every year, visitors from all over the world returned more often to read the more than 10,400 stories available. Which of the topics and stories published online in 2024 were the most popular? Here are the results!

In this issue we write about some of the most innovative Drivers and Transducers from the past two years. Read about dual-driver true wireless earbuds, and how to assess listening effort inside vehicles. Douglas Self shares his latest findings on Modern Op-Amp Distortion Tests, and René Christensen explores the analytical framework that sustains great simulation techniques. Reviews of the APL Virtuoso v2 Binaural Renderer, and the Purifi 1ET9040BA amplifier module.

As TIME revealed its annual list of the Best Inventions, which features 200 product, technologies and innovations changing our lives, there was a surprising mention of Brane Audio's Brane X portable speaker as a winner in the Entertainment & Gaming category. As audioXpress and Voice Coil readers learned earlier - and coincidently James Croft writes about in Voice Coil November 2024 - the company's Repel-Attract-Driver (RAD) that is part of the Brane X design, is indeed the first effective embodiment of a negative-spring woofer that bends Hofmann’s Iron Law.

In Voice Coil November 2024, Anthony Caiazzo details Countervail's patented fiber-reinforced composite technology, Mike Klasco revisits solutions to achieve increased bass response, while James Croft reviews two patents from Clean Energy Labs and Brane Audio that seem to have finally broken Hofmann's Iron Law. In Test Bench, Vance Dickason characterizes the new MT19CP-8 7.5" coaxial driver from SB Acoustics' prestigious Satori line.

Brane Audio, an audio company from Austin, Texas, is introducing a new portable speaker at CES 2023 which the company says is able to generate expanded low frequency response. The Brane X is the first speaker in its class to include a subwoofer, producing much more bass than comparable portable speakers thanks to the company's new Repel-Attract Driver (R.A.D.) that uses a novel "magnetic negative spring" supported by an axial magnetic bearing system. Brane Audio is offering private demos of its new speaker during CES.