Dirac and NXP Announce Collaboration to Support i.MX 8M Chipset Family with Premium Digital Audio

Swedish sound pioneer Dirac and NXP Semiconductors announced a collaboration to combine one of the world’s most powerful audio chipsets with a market-leading digital audio platform. By equipping the NXP i.MX 8M family of chipsets with Dirac’s digital audio platform, OEMs can enable their devices with maximized, immersive, and adaptive sound across their complete range of products. The strategic partnership announcement was made at CES 2020.

Dirac Research, the Swedish pioneer of digitally optimized sound solutions, announced the debut of its breakthrough Dirac Bass solution that enables smartphones, smart speakers, and wireless & portable speakers to reproduce deeper bass with higher transparency than ever before. Dirac will feature a new Dirac Bass demo experience developed in partnership with leading micro-speaker manufacturer AAC Technologies, showcasing the next-generation of mobile audio performance at MWC 2019, in Barcelona.

This design by Joseph Norwood Still is a control unit that the author described as offering “lifelike concert-hall performance for a modest cost”. A great tube-based amplifier for phono and line sources, featuring a very subtle bass enhancement control using negative feedback to enhance only selected frequencies, below 400Hz. As the author described, a great project for discriminating audiophiles.

Based on the breakthrough research that created Forte’s Harmonic Interference Free (HIF) technology, the company’s founders saw the potential to create the audio product of their dreams —headphones that deliver amazing sound quality without the hefty price tag. An Interview with Forte Founders Scott Chen and Travis Blane.