Your Speaker Focus Edition of audioXpress Is Now Served!

Our Speaker Focus edition offers a review of the two new SB Acoustics Speaker Kits, while Don Keele, Jr., reminds us of how things evolved, revisiting an EV 30W subwoofer project, and we interviewed Zoltán Bay, creator of the revolutionary Bay Radial Speaker! The September 2017 edition also features two great DIY projects: The Thinman Speaker by Ken Bird and a Hybrid Electrostatic Speaker with Tailored Dispersion by Charlie Mimbs.

Another week, another speaker design is promoted on crowdfunding platforms. While some ideas are better than others, there's nothing like taking an existing technology and giving it an updated use for modern needs. That's what IC One Two (IC12), a company from Australia, is realizing with their new Expanse Speakers range. A modern take on the best acoustic properties of electrostatic transducers in two affordable systems for desktop and home-theater use.

The Shure booth at the 139th International AES Convention in New York was constantly surrounded with visitors and press waiting for a chance to try out the new and intriguing KSE1500 Electrostatic Earphones, which are complemented with an extremely well design portable headphone preamp, made available separately as the SHA900, also able to power other headphones and earphones.

You can inexpensively calibrate a microphone. How? In this article audioXpress author Ron Tipton discusses two methods of “secondary” calibration: the electrostatic actuator and microphone comparison.

With an impressive design and combining aptX Bluetooth wireless audio for the first time in a portable speaker featuring electrostatic technology, BenQ’s eVolo is one of the most impressive proposals in this booming market. eVolo also signals BenQ’s entrance in the personal audio market segment.

After extensive research of different subwoofer brands and models, Dutch company Essence Electrostatic chose SVS sealed subwoofers to pair with its new Model 1200 and 1600 Electrostatic Speakers. As a result, the SVS SB-1000, SB-2000 and SB13-Ultra subwoofers will now be available from the Essence website and its audio/video dealers worldwide.

Each year’s “speaker special” issue is a favorite among audioXpress readers. This 2012 edition features in-depth articles about speaker technologies and design projects, without completely ignoring other interesting topics such as tube amps. This year’s special speaker section features informative articles about a detailed loudspeaker design project and an intriguing electrostatic speaker experiment. We also included a third must-read speaker-related article, but it isn’t in the special section because it focuses on enclosures rather than speaker design.