audioXpress Magazine June 2025

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audioXpress Magazine June 2025

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.

Tailwinds And Headwinds
Increasing investments from China in audio companies.
Editorial By J. Martins
Being responsible for a technology magazine implies a comprehensive effort to understand the industries and applications served. And that means understanding the users, the market segments, and trade. That is why sometimes I have to push myself to the limits and literally travel around the globe to gain a better perspective on all those things. The audio industry currently benefits from very strong tailwinds due to a convergence of technology advancements and very strong market dynamics in consumer electronics and automotive. At the core is a renewed enthusiasm for voice recognition and voice interfaces, together with significant progress in language translation. Those are powered by advancements in neural networks, machine learning that have led to Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs). All those achievements require and benefit from robust audio systems at the applications level — many of which are just being devised or are in the early adoption stages. As I previously wrote, I believe language is the largest market opportunity for the audio industry — essential for augmented reality and any applications that augment our human abilities. What I have characterized as human extensions.
---> Tailwinds And Headwinds.

Departments
5 Supporting Companies

Automotive Audio
8 Market Update: When Everything Is New!
By Roger Shively and J. Martins
The excitement witnessed around automotive audio
continues to accelerate in 2025. Propelled by the
whirlwind of new vehicles and radical concepts,
offering new levels of premium audio experiences,
there's been no shortage of surprises. And AI-based
audio enhancement and speech and audio processing
is shaking up everything.

24 Evolution Of Automotive Audio Tuning And Testing
By Jacob Soendergaard and Jesse Gratke
This article discusses the evolution of methods used
to benchmark automotive audio and advanced audio
processing in modern vehicles equipped with high
channel counts and headrest speakers. It highlights
the advantages of utilizing head-and-torso simulators
(HATS) and introduces the multi-dimensional audio
quality score (MDAQS) assessment for evaluating
audio quality.

30 Audio System Design In The Age Of Software-Defined Vehicles
By Paul Beckmann and John Whitecar
As the automotive industry is undergoing a shift
toward Software-Defined Vehicles (SDVs), this
transformation is leading to a re-evaluation of audio
architectures to meet new technical demands and
consumer expectations. This article explains how the
Audio Weaver modular audio processing framework
enables adaptable audio systems for SDVs.

36 Car Cabin Sound Personalization
By Alexander Goldin
Millions of dollars are invested to create the best
possible sound experience inside cars. This article
describes a way to address hearing loss as a
foundation for personalization inside vehicles.

40 Standardized Automotive Audio Measurements
By Steve Temme
The Audio Engineering Society (AES) Technical
Committee on Automotive Audio published a white
paper proposing a standardized measurement
configuration for in-car audio systems. This article
builds on that work, using the same configuration to
make a more comprehensive suite of measurements,
including seat-to-seat spectral uniformity, THD, and
impulsive distortion.

Features
52 The Ear That Talks
By Eric Carmichel
The occluded ear simulator (OES) test solution described
here was designed to develop and assess negative
feedback (NFB) and hybrid ANC systems. Because the
OES produces “selfcontained” sound, it's easy to produce
realistic self-voice and other stimuli that's independent
of external sound sources typically used to evaluate a
device under test (DUT). When placed in a test box,
feedforward and hybrid ANC can be evaluated.

60 The Little British Monitor's Technical Design
By Simon Ashton
The Little British Monitor (LBM) from AudioSmile integrates
advanced technologies and innovative design techniques
to achieve superior performance. In this article its creator
walks us through some of his unique design choices
and how they impact acoustic performance.

Columns
Sound Control
48 Level, Aim, And Timing
By Richard Honeycutt
Architectural acoustics is mainly concerned with three
objectives: getting the right level of sound in the right
places and at the right times. Although controlling noise
(unwanted sound) originating from either exterior or
interior sources is equally important, this article will
focus on these main objectives.