High End 2024 - The Munich Show, the Trade and B2B

High End Munich 2024. Once again, one of best organized audio shows in the world, with a wide spectrum of very high-quality audio solutions presented, and an excellent business environment. All perfectly complements this international trade show, making it highly valuable for all. A true "marketplace" for the audio industry in the best sense of the term. These are my first impressions.

A new model of OTC hearing aids by LINNER is now available in the United States. As anticipated in July 2023, when LINNER announced it would be using a USound Conamara 6mm MEMS driver for a new OTC hearing aid design, the new LINNER Nova Deluxe is now available. This is the first single MEMS driver audio solution on the market, an achievement that attests to the power of USound’s MEMS technology.

The Sennheiser Group is investing significantly in its own plants, now fully focused on its range of professional audio products. The family-owned company says it's strengthening the independence of its production and ensuring its continued success. At its headquarters in Wedemark, near Hanover, investments are currently being made in state-of-the-art production technologies, particularly in printed circuit board assembly.

The SEAS T29X001 tweeter, from the company's high-end Excel line of transducers, is a wide surround format type, like the original Vifa DX/XT tweeters, and combines the latest Composite Sound metamodal thin-ply carbon diaphragm (TPCD) technology with the seriously outstanding SEAS Excel radially charged Hexadym motor structure. This new tweeter makes the Norwegian manufacturer effectively the first company in the market to offer the latest metamodal TPCD diaphragm solution.

Sonus faber and Lamborghini announced their first-ever collaboration to equip the latest Lamborghini Revuelto with an exclusive Sonus faber audio system. Merging best-in-class technology and design, the project embodies Italian luxury and was born out of the joint efforts of Sonus faber’s R&D and Design department – headed by Livio Cucuzza – and Lamborghini’s team.

iZotope, now a part of Native Instruments, announced RX 11, the latest version of the famous audio repair and forensics suite, now featuring new machine learning tools for tackling noise, and loudness management tools for music streaming. The new software update combines the power of visual-based spectral editing with new intelligent real-time dialogue isolation and music repair features, plus new purpose-built tools for fixing and polishing audio.

Spanning its multiple platforms and dedicated operating systems, Apple continues to offer valuable accessibility features to both overcome user disabilities and enhance individual experiences. The company announced new accessibility features coming later in 2024, including new visual, sound and haptic options that harness the power of Apple hardware and software, Apple silicon, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.

This article, written by the experts in optical MEMS microphones from sensiBel expands on the technologies that will undoubtedly contribute to making the next generation of hearables and advanced audio systems. As the Norwegian company enters the market with its first-generation products, the authors explain how 80dB SNR optical MEMS microphones will enhance Microphone Array Beamforming and the different types of beamforming algorithms.

Six years after launching the very first connected speaker from The Pearl collection, now enriched with another 9 connected audio solutions, Cabasse unveiled The Pearl Myuki. This new model is an ultra-compact, portable, battery-powered, connected, high-resolution-capable active speaker that benefits from the French company's best acoustic technologies. Cabasse anticipates availability from June 2024.

"Designing a preamp is probably the most challenging engineering task in the audio chain, and many designers have invested a lot of time and effort in it," wrote Erno Borbely in this original 1985 article for the Audio Amateur. "My reason for designing this preamp is quite simple: I wanted to have a top-quality preamp without paying megabucks for a Levinson or Accuphase unit. It is up to you to decide whether or not I have succeeded in achieving the same quality." This article was originally published in The Audio Amateur Issue 4, 1985, and is still frequently referenced.