Patent Review: The Zoltan Bay Loudspeaker Patent

In this article, James Croft reviews a loudspeaker patent granted in 2015 to Zoltan Bay (Tiszaalpar, Hungary). The invention, which is the foundation for the BRS tweeter used in a remarkable series of Bayz Audio loudspeakers, basically describes a horizontally, omnidirectional transducer, using a multiple set of four to eight rolling, half-cylinder film diaphragms arranged in a circle to form a generally omni-directional radiator. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, September 2015.

In this article, James Croft dives in an interesting loudspeaker patent (US20150146910A1), awarded May 28, 2015 to multiple inventors from the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft Institute in Munich, Germany. The patent describes a diaphragm drive system with a conventional electromagnetic motor and corrective piezoelectric elements that drive the suspension from a sensor that detects the nonlinearity and provides the corrective signal. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, September 2015.

Recently, Dinaburg Technology, based in Dallas, TX, was issued their first US patent for an electro-dynamic loudspeaker with an integrated coaxial passive ring radiator. Mikhail Dinaburg, noted physicist and the patent inventor, uncovered some missing elements in previous coax and passive radiator work and set out to prove it. Dinaburg’s patent discloses techniques for higher performance sound reproduction, enabling lower distortion, extended frequency range, higher efficiency, and improved speech intelligibility. The invention has wide applications and scales from a earphone driver to near-field studio monitors, ceiling speakers, under couch subwoofers to the largest concert subwoofers.

Looking at differentiated spatial audio designs? Via Licensing Corporation announced the creation and availability of an MPEG-H 3D Audio patent pool with eight participating members. These initial participants include Dolby, ETRI, Fraunhofer, Orange, Royal Philips, Sony Group Corp., VoiceAge, and WILUS. The new pool enables manufacturers, developers and implementors to license MPEG-H 3D Audio standard essential patents under fair and reasonable terms.

Outline s.r.l., the innovative Italian manufacturer of professional loudspeaker systems and a pioneer in line-source and adjustable line arrays systems for large scale applications, continues to invest in new loudspeaker-related technologies. The Brescia-based company now announced that its FPGA-based Newton audio system control and networking processor has been awarded an Italian patent. The company has also filed the appropriate application for an international patent.

Following a recent exchange with loudspeaker designer and inventor John J. Gaudreault, we decided to revisit the very original Planar-Pivot (Planot) Transducer, and make available the two related articles that were published by Voice Coil in its May 2011 edition, and the respective Patent Review by James Croft published in the August edition of that same year. Hoping this will inspire some commercial implementations of this interesting concept, available for licensing.

Noveto is the Israeli company that successfully demonstrated its sound-beaming technology for web conferencing and automotive zoning applications at CES 2018, and more recently partnered with electronics giant Foxconn to bring to market its own audio chipset. Now, the company launched a limited pre-sale Kickstarter campaign to bring to market a proof-of-concept of its technology with the SoundBeamer 1.0 integrated speaker.

James Croft looks at an interesting new patent covering a “Compact Stand-Alone Stereo Loudspeaker” by inventor Jes Mosgaard from Libratone A/S (Denmark). This patent submitted in 2010, was granted in 2013, and describes a compact and portable stereo loudspeaker system that is capable of providing a spacious sound field using an internal stereo pair of loudspeakers arranged in a dipole configuration. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, February 2015.

James Croft reviews a patent claimed by Polk Audio and granted in 2015, describing “a single-enclosure loudspeaker system that projects multichannel surround sound into a listener’s room, and so replaces multiple conventional surround channel loudspeakers.” The patent also describes, in one embodiment of the invention, that the “surround channel program material is pre-processed by an integrated wireless transmission device that performs certain digital signal processing and channel mixing steps in advance of wireless surround signal broadcast to a receiver.” This article was originally published in Voice Coil, January 2015.

Every month on his Voice Coil's Acoustic Patents column, James Croft (Croft Acoustical) discusses different loudspeaker patents and inventions that are relevant to the audio industry. In the January 2015 edition. Croft reviewed a “Loudspeaker for Eliminating a Frequency Response Dip” patent, granted in November 12, 2014 to Harman International Industries, describing “a speaker system that includes a speaker enclosure having a front end, a rear end, and a first transducer. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, January 2015.