Audio

Wired Earbuds Are Cool Again

By Peter Cooney / May 10, 2023
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Wired earbuds were becoming a thing of the past – until now? There is still growth in the TWS market, which is why sometimes the prospect of wired earbuds goes amiss. However, the concept does make complete sense if you think about it. The Magnesium V3 Entry level IEMs piqued my interest this week. Ear […]

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Haptics Touchpad Ecosystem Continues to Grow

By Peter Cooney / April 26, 2023
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The usage of haptic touchpads in laptops continues to surge forward, with new devices launched regularly and an increasing number of suppliers to the market. This recent press release highlights the use of Taifang’s ForcePad 2.0 solution in LG’s new gram laptops. Taifang is one of many touchpad module vendors that have been advancing the […]

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Will Apple abandon button design change?

By Peter Cooney / April 26, 2023
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​This article and its source refer to rumours that the iPhone 15 Pro will abandon its use of a solid state button with haptic feedback. The use of this type of virtual button has been expected for a few years and SAR discussed this in its haptics focused research (see Haptics Hardware). If the rumours are true, this […]

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xMEMS brings speakers plus programmable vent to production

By Peter Cooney / April 20, 2023
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​The SAR audio team visited xMEMS during our recent short tour of the Bay Area. During this time we were treated to a demo from the xMEMS team of its most recent products. SAR has been covering MEMS speakers for a few years now and are well versed on xMEMS products and their competitors (see MEMS […]

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Google ends updates and effectively kills third-party assistant smart displays

By Peter Cooney / April 13, 2023
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​The news from sources that Google will be ending software updates for Google assistant on third-party smart display devices is hardly surprising. According to 9to5Google, Google will be halting all updates for its assistant on Lenovo, JBL and LG smart display devices. It’s important to note that these devices will still continue to function with […]

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Knowles Releases High-Performance Digital Voice Vibration Sensor for High-Fidelity Voice Pick-Up in TWS

By Peter Cooney / April 13, 2023
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Knowles announced its new product to compete in what is commonly known as the “bone conduction” sensor market for TWS (this should not be confused with bone conduction headphones, which transmit audio). This sensor is used to pick up the vibration of the human skull and to assist with voice pick up in noisy or windy […]

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PSB Speakers, Sonical and MQA announce partnership to create next-generation headphones

By Peter Cooney / March 29, 2023
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This is another story about the use of UWB for audio streaming, this time with a few more companies added to the mix. Sonical is central to this, offering its CosmOS for use in PSB Speakers’ headphone (due Q1, 2024). Also included is AntennaWare‘s UWB antenna and Qorvo UWB radio chip. MQA has also jumped […]

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ST Strengthens position in the TWS sensor market

By Joe Murray / March 28, 2023
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STMicroelectronics has announced its latest headphone-focused UI chip, the LSM6DSV16BX, an integrated product that is intended to replace 2 or more components in a TWS device. This combines 3-axis wide band accelerometer and 3-axis gyroscope with an audio accelerometer, electrostatic sensor (Qvar) and processing. It enables multiple functions needed in many TWS devices: Bone conduction for voice activity detection […]

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NuraTrue Pro earbuds offer custom sound and exceptional spatial audio

By Peter Cooney / March 27, 2023
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​We hear the term ‘spatial audio’ being used a lot in in the tech world. It’s also sometimes referred to as ‘3D audio’, or ‘immersive audio’. It can get quite confusing, especially when there are two technologies which could both be referred to by any of these terms. As these technologies are relatively new, there are not […]

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Will UWB change the world of headphones?

By Peter Cooney / March 27, 2023
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Bluetooth will continue to be the primary technology for wireless audio for many years to come. Its massive ecosystem of devices and the continual improvements made by its 1000s of members makes it a formidable force. It does have inherent limitations however, as it is trying to do many things well. One area where Bluetooth […]

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