Harman Announces Leadership Transition: Christian Sobottka Appointed as New President and Chief Executive Officer
Harman International, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, announced that Michael Mauser will step down as President and Chief Executive Officer, effective March 31, 2025. The Board of Directors has unanimously elected Christian Sobottka, currently President of Harman's Automotive Division, to succeed Mauser as President and CEO, effective April 1, 2025.
Honor Unveils AI-Powered Earbuds Open Advanced Design at MWC 2025
Honor introduced the Honor Earbuds Open – a unique open-ear design that rests directly on the ear and is able to cancel the outside world thanks to advanced AI audio processing capabilities. In fact, Honor calls this design the “industry's first open-ear 3-mic hybrid active noise cancellation system.” And the Honor Earbuds Open not only block external noise, but allow users to make calls privately thanks to its reverse acoustic system that reduces audio leakage. The user’s voice is perfectly captured even in noisy environments with a combination of a voice accelerometer, 3-mic array, and bone conduction sensor technology.
QCY and USound Announce New High Volume TWS Product Featuring USound MEMS Speakers Set to Launch in 2025
USound, the Austrian specialist in micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), announced a new design win with QCY, a recognized Chinese manufacturer of wireless audio products. QCY has officially announced the development of a new TWS earbuds design featuring USound MEMS drivers, set to launch in 2025. By partnering closely with Dongguan Hele Electronics, the parent company of QCY, USound was able to confirm that a new TWS model will soon enter production in 2025.
Silicon Labs Introduces New Concurrent Multiprotocol SoCs for Matter
Silicon Labs announced that its MG26 family of wireless SoCs is now generally available and ready to provide developers with the highest performance for smart home applications, while leveraging AI/ML processing capabilities. The company calls it the industry’s most advanced, high-performance Matter and concurrent multiprotocol SoCs to date, with double the Flash and RAM of other Silicon Labs multiprotocol devices and best-in-class security.
Loudspeaker Enclosures and Technologies. Voice Coil March 2025 is Now Available
in this issue, Mike Klasco offers a renewed perspective about speaker cabinets and enclosures. Nora Wong compiled a highly sought-after Speaker Enclosure Vendors Directory for 2025. In Part 2 of his article, Dario Cinanni concludes his exploration of the SpeakerLAB software to simulate and predict speaker efficiency. In Test Bench, Vance Dickason characterizes the Dayton Audio Ultimax II 8-22 8" subwoofer and the very unique GAIT BGD-D72-64-4-0A1 glass diaphragm super tweeter.
Infineon Expands Support for Apple Find My Network Connected Devices
Infineon Technologies announced the availability of its Apple Find My network accessory support for the AIROC CYW20829, PSOC 63 Bluetooth microcontroller (MCU), AIROC CYW5591x Wi-Fi/BT connected MCU, and AIROC CYW5551x devices within its ModusToolbox development ecosystem. This enables developers to easily build Find My network capable Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) devices, connected to this increasingly popular application.
Outboard DSP: An Introduction
In this article, Vance Dickason explores the use of digital signal processing, and specifically Outboard DSP, an increasingly viable solution to create a complete active crossover design, contained in a programmable unit that can be delivered with multiple presets for different usage scenarios or even configured by the user, according to the system in place. This inspired Vance Dickason to begin a series of product reviews of multiple outboard DSP processors, and this article is a preamble for the project.
Amazon Introduces Alexa+ Next Generation Voice Assistant Powered by Generative AI
Amazon unveiled its new voice assistant Alexa+, now fully enabled by artificial intelligence. This is the predictable next step to bring back voice interfaces and personal assistants, directly interfacing and powered by generative AI engines, which helps explain why Amazon called Alexa+ its new personal AI assistant. The promotion shows a more conversational and more capable natural language voice interface. Time for the audio industry to start looking again at voice front-ends and smart speakers?
Fresh From the Bench: QuantAsylum QA403 32-bit Audio Analyzer
The QuantAsylum QA403, the 4th generation audio analyzer from the company founded by Matt Taylor in 2012, has a lot to offer. In particular when a user gets tips and guidance from someone like Bob Cordell, no less. The QuantAsylum QA403 Analyzer was the result of a complete redesign imposed by the silicon shortages and supply chain disruptions, pre- and post-pandemic. It appears that the efforts made were well worth it. Jan Didden shares his impressions.
Celestion TSQ2145 and TSQ1845 Low-Frequency Pro Audio Drivers Now Available
Engineered for applications in subwoofers or as bass drivers in two- or three-way loudspeaker designs and large-format arrays for sound reinforcement, Celestion's Ten Squared (TSQ) Series launched in 2024 is now expanded with two large-sized woofers. Celestion announced the availability of both the 21" TSQ2145 and 18" TSQ1845 models of aluminum-chassis neodymium magnet low-frequency loudspeakers.