It's a home run! There's a lot of everything in audioXpress October 2022. Great exclusive articles, shared knowledge, great insights from audio experts, and lots of practical advice. As the cover clearly indicates, this issue once again focuses on audio solutions for residential integration. More specifically, the Home Audio Perspective to the Smart Home. audioXpress October 2022 is now available in print, to read online or download.
For its cover topic, the October 2022 issue of audioXpress focuses on the home space, and the range of audio solutions that are being offered for residential integration. In a Market Update titled "The Home Audio Perspective," audioXpress discusses the latest technology and design trends, and the range of audio solutions being offered for residential integration.
This update on Residential Integration also traces a strategic perspective on technology and market trends that are converging over the custom installation space in the transition to the Smart Home. Since the adoption of automation systems and home networks, residential integration has gradually evolved to connected systems and is now increasingly associated with the transition to the Smart Home. A transition that even motivated the Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association (CEDIA) to rethink its mission and recently rename itself as CEDIA Global Association for the Smart Home Technology Industry.
This issue of audioXpress offers many other great articles, starting with "The Story of aptX" as told by Jonny McClintock. Widely recognized as a high-quality audio compression algorithm, used in film sound to radio broadcast, studios and finally in Bluetooth, where its incorporated into billions of devices, the successful story of aptX technology is inextricably linked to the history of digital audio and a remarkable corporate journey, from APT to CSR and Qualcomm. This article offers an insider's overview of the aptX audio codec adoption and evolution, and how the technology was interlinked with the author's professional career for the past 28 years.
A hands-on "Fresh From the Bench" perspective is the other highlight in this issue, with longstanding audioXpress author and expert Gary Galo writing a great review of the latest Sumiko Olympia and Wellfleet phono cartridges, and RS78 78 rpm stylus. The new RS78 is Sumiko's first 78 rpm solution, meeting the needs of many vintage recording enthusiasts and can be installed on many of the brand's cartridges. In this review, Gary discusses the merits of these versatile and high-quality cartridges for those who require the best from their precious records, while diving on a fascinating exploration of 78 rpm recordings and playback challenges, as only someone with the deep knowledge and experience with collecting 78s and working in archives would be able to offer.
And while we sometimes tend to place the articles in our monthly columns toward the end of these content highlights, we need to highlight Richard Honeycutt's Sound Control article focusing on "Considerations Concerning RT Measurement." In this article, our acoustics expert explains the history behind the reverberation time (RT) measurement and its importance. He details the common techniques used to assess RT and associated metrics, as well as the ideal signal sources. He then shares his preferred procedure for measuring RT.
Diving straight into more hands-on articles, the October 2022 issue of audioXpress offers the first of another great article by audio electronics expert Frans de Wit. "Making a DC Power Supply with Audible Benefits" is the title of the challenge he tackles, following his two previous articles exploring multiple power supply circuits for high-end audio applications (audioXpress December 2021 and January 2022). The article details a high-quality power supply especially targeted toward preamplifiers, record players, and other low-power appliances, with full galvanic isolation from the mains, great protections from high frequencies, no crosstalk or ground loops. In this series, Frans de Wit handles the design and will later build and offer all the data needed to create the PCBs and metal work. And as with previous articles, all simulation data will be available.
For more DIY hands-on, our experienced speaker builder Ken Bird takes us along with him on his quest to build a loudspeaker made solely from drivers manufactured in the United States. His "All American Tower Speakers" use drivers from Oaktron, one of the oldest and most revered brands of US component loudspeakers since its creation in 1957. The brand was acquired by MISCO in 2016, which resumed manufacturing many of its value/performance-optimized designs, now available as Oaktron by MISCO. The system is a simple two-way tower mass loaded design, incorporating an Oaktron 165-WF08-01 6" woofer and 25-TD08-03 dome tweeter. The crossover is a two-way design incorporating an impedance compensator and crossing at 3.5kHz.
And for those who like audio electronics and tube amplification in particular, Christopher Paul proposes his article titled "Triode Common Cathode Stages, the Oracle Equation, and Theodosian Objections." With a title like this, you’re probably wondering what you’re in for. As the author explains, his article proposes a simplified equation of what may appear to be multiple mathematical factoids into a single concept, intended to help characterize and understand triode circuits, and to settle certain controversies. And if you have questions, Christopher Paul has opened a thread on DIYaudio.com.
Speaking of tube amplifiers, columnist Richard Honeycutt addresses more great classic tube circuits in his Hollow-State Electronics space. Following his July and September articles that examined the distortion performance of three classic families of amps, this new article recaps those findings and compares them to the Williamson and ultralinear amp circuit designs, as pioneered by Alan Blumlein or David Hafler.
Finally, in this issue, audioXpress concludes the article by Geoff Hill discussing the work taking place on loudspeaker measurement standards, and the progress the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has made with its update efforts, also resulting from the work of the Audio Engineering Society's Standards Committee. In "Replacing IEC 60268-5 - The Importance of Measurements," we learn how these new standards apply to measurements of sound in 3D space and in production environments, measurement of SPL using voltage sensitivity, and the measurements of microspeakers.
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