Zuma Offers Integrated Smart Home Ceiling Speaker and Light

Zuma is a new company announcing a new ceiling speaker and light for the smart home. The integrated concept, which the creators believe generates a more immersive experience, has been developed over three years by an expert team, led by leading industrial designer and entrepreneur Morten Villiers Warren, now also the founder and CEO of Zuma, the company.

If there's one thing we know when live events return after the pandemic is that sound is going to be spatial and immersive. No more left/right. And there are many new companies working to make the creation and implementation of spatial audio a reality. Spatial is one of those companies, now announcing an immersive experience product line as a service, to bring bring realistic, interactive soundscapes to real-world spaces. And it's a serious venture with major clients.

French designer and manufacturer of high-end electroacoustic systems Amadeus and the Krug Champagne winery in France have set up a tasting room with an immersive audio system with highly customized speakers for specially composed music to accompany wine tasting. France's advanced acoustics and music technology research institute IRCAM was intimately involved with Amadeus to create an immersive 'Audio Tasting Space' at the House of Krug, Reims France.

Sensory evaluation is a field of study that bridges physical measurement and human perception, helping us to improve product design and aural environments. Richard Honeycutt reviews this extended work, which was edited by Nick Zacharov, exploring the latest sensory evaluation techniques, specifically applied to the evaluation of sound and audio. This article was originally published in audioXpress, February 2020.