audioXpress Magazine April 2026

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audioXpress Magazine April 2026

audioXpress remains the authority on audio and reproduced sound by connecting manufacturers and distributors with developers, buyers and consultants around the globe! It's readers are the audio product designers, consultants, integrators, DIY enthusiasts, opinion leaders and your best customers. All of them agree that the coverage of trending topics, unique in the audio industry, make audioXpress a must read.

Every month, audioXpress combines the best educational articles on topic such audio electronics, speaker and headphone design, amplifiers (from tube to Class D), acoustics, practical test and measurement, audio engineering praxis, and standards. audioXpress provides inside stories on new audio developments, on R&D Stories, the most complete objective reviews of innovative products and software, and selects some of the best DIY audio projects from worldwide experts.

Tomorrow Happening Today
Plus Fraunhofer Institute (IIS) for immersive sound upHear technology.
Editorial By J. Martins
What a start to the year this has been! 2026 is proving to be one of the most exciting times in memory for everyone involved in technology in general, and I don't recall having so many different fronts of innovation in audio to keep us busy as we've had recently. To begin, we had a busy time with three totally different trade shows, starting with CES in Las Vegas, NV, quickly followed by the NAMM Show in Anaheim, CA, and Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2026 in Barcelona, Spain, the largest in history, with a record number of exhibitors and attendees. While CES is focused on consumer electronics and the wider consumer technology space, NAMM offered a fascinating perspective on the practical use of technology by studios, musicians, and live production companies. And, ISE was completely focused on commercial installation systems and residential integration, showing a different side of professional audio. Yet, there was a clear thread of common technology trends and innovation across all these trade shows. One is the importance of artificial intelligence (AI) for the audio industry, with audio at the core of so many application segments, and audio helping bridge AI with the physical world through sensors, transducers, human interfaces, and interactions. And at the core, we have voice and language.
---> Tomorrow Happening Today.

5 Supporting Companies

Features
28 Three Viewpoints On Sound Reproduction 4th Edition
By Richard Honeycutt, Dimitri Danyuk, and J. Martins
audioXpress columnist Richard A. Honeycutt, technical
reviewer Dimitri Danyuk, and editor-in-chief J. Martins,
all have been exploring the recently published
4th Edition of Floyd E. Toole's Sound Reproduction:
The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers,
Rooms, and Headphones book. Three perspectives
about a publication that is "a valuable unified
reference," with expanded substance brought by the
additional contributions of co-authors Sean Olive and
Todd Welti.

32 AntennaWare BodyWave
Disrupting The Antenna
By Jonny McClintock
In 2022, AntennaWare, a Belfast, Ireland-based
startup, burst onto the technology scene with some
simply outrageous claims in an area of engineering
that hasn't seen any material gains or improvements
since the Cold War. The company offers antennas
that deliver superior wireless range and reliability in
wearables and in challenging environments.

40 New Expressions For First-Order Filter
Phase Response And Group Delay
Part 1—The Impact Of Filters
By Barak Shpiez
Textbook digital signal processing techniques are
shelved in favor of simpler analysis that relies on
trigonometry and algebra. This process reveals how
filters affect signals in a more tangible way while
revealing new forms of the phase response and group
delay formulas.

48 Phase And Delays
Part 3—Measurements And Negative Delay
By René Christensen
In the final article in this series, examples of several
frequencies that each have their own associated
phasor phase, and the resulting transient and steadystate
responses are illustrated and explained. The
concept of "negative" delay will also be explored and
initial statements about phase will be reviewed and
revised, and what to look out for when it comes to
phase and its interpretation will be given.

54 Designing A Three-Way Column
Loudspeaker Using Akabak
By Sergio Rodríguez Audu
As loudspeakers become increasingly sophisticated,
it is crucial to design them using specific tools to
achieve the desired response. This article explores
the total process of designing a three-way column
loudspeaker with a horn, starting with simulations
using R&D Team's Akabak software, and comparing
the results with measurements to validate the model.

Market Updates Departments
Headphones And Hearables
8 Rising Tide—Technology Consolidation In A Transition Year
By J. Martins
The market for personal audio is going through an important
transitional stage. Innovation and market dynamics remain
strong but there is a consolidation of the fundamental
technologies that are now allowing for better products, even
at entry-level prices. This article updates some major design
and technology trends with available examples.

Audio And Voice Front-Ends
18 Powering AI Voice And Smart Capture
By J. Martins
This report looks at the changes introduced by the
convergence of artificial intelligence (AI) with microphones
in audio and voice front-ends and explores relevant examples.

Columns
Hollow-State Electronics
62 The 6418 Subminiature Pentode
A Newly Popular Pencil Tube Makes (Sound) Waves
By Richard Honeycutt
Much of the impetus for the miniaturization of tubes came
from the consumer market. In this article, Richard Honeycutt
explores a resurgence of products using the 6418 pentode.