According to market research firm IDC, the market for MP3 and other compressed audio players is expanding, both in terms of vendors and the type of new, innovative devices being produced.

According to IDC, worldwide compressed audio player shipments will continue to grow at a torrid pace, increasing at a compound annual growth rate of 51%, from 3.3 million in 2000 to nearly 26 million in 2005. Compressed audio player shipments in the United States will follow a similar growth path, jumping to 18 million in 2005 from 2.8 million in 2000.

“The market for compressed audio players will continue to grow, and it will grow significantly beyond devices resembling the original, portable Rio-like units,” said Susan Kevorkian, analyst for IDC’s Consumer Devices program.

“Because of the cost and capacity constraints of flash memory, an increasing number of vendors and consumers alike are turning to cheaper alternative media to transport their music. This is opening up opportunities for more interesting and innovative products to develop. Toward the end of the forecast, alternative media devices will have a strong worldwide presence.”

IDC says portable systems will continue to dominate the market. By 2005, this segment will comprise 61% of both U.S. and worldwide compressed audio player shipments and more than half of the worldwide market value.

“New product innovations have brought exciting changes in storage capacity and functionality,” said Bryan Ma, senior analyst for IDC’s Consumer Devices program.

“By 2004, we expect portable hard-drive-based jukeboxes to outship basic portables. In addition, MP3 decoding capabilities are increasingly being added into traditional portable CD players, thus enabling them to outship basic portable compressed audio players in the United States by 2003.”

Despite the dominance of this category, IDC believes growth in other form factors, including automotive, home networked receivers, and streaming Internet radios, will occur, although much more slowly. Sales of compressed audio players will continue to be lopsided in favor of the United States; however, non-U.S. markets will gain momentum. “The key factor to watch for in non-U.S. markets is PC penetration,” Ma said.

AMEK, the British-based manufacturer of professional audio mixing consoles and signal processing devices, is launching two major console developments at the 2001 NAB Convention (Las Vegas, April 23 – 26). The 60-channel Media 51, a new, large-frame version of AMEK’s mid-price multi-format analogue console, is joined by the new Galileo 360V multi-format console, which extends the choice of AMEK’s surround sound production consoles and represents a top-end solution for film dubbing, music recording and broadcast. Also on show are the Recall RN live event and on-air production console, the small-format BB100 broadcast console for production and on-air use, plus the System 9098 and Pure Pathâ ranges of outboard signal processors, including the new Driver in a Box.

The Media 51 is increasingly being utilised in post-production environments; its compact size and unique spread of features also proving popular for outside broadcast and mobile facilities. It is AMEK’s first mid-priced analogue mixer for more than 5 years, with the new 60-channel version extending its range of applications still further. The first entry-level multi-format desk to feature Mr. Rupert Neve’s audio designs, the Media 51 is principally designed for recording facilities in the broadcast and post-production sectors, and is equipped to handle 5.1, 7.1, LCRS, LCRSS and stereo formats. The console’s comprehensive package of features includes AMEK’s Supertrue™ V4 console automation as standard, providing fader, switch and event automation, Virtual Dynamics®, Recall, & Visual FX™. Supertrue is now cited as having the largest installed user base of any console automation system in the world.

The Media 51’s master module offers comprehensive surround monitoring facilities, including multiple solo, cut and metering modes, easy insertion of encode and decode processors, extensive downmixing and stem monitoring capabilities, master Playback/Direct (PEC/Direct) switching, and comprehensive speaker control. An optional motorised joystick panel can be fitted to the console, offering multiple panning modes in formats up to eight channels wide with four switchable divergence settings, and an ‘expand’ feature that provides image enhancement at high frequencies in stereo or wider formats.

Also making its debut at NAB 2001 is an enhanced version of AMEK’s successful Galileo console. The Galileo 360V is a powerfully-equipped multi-format production console, which addresses the growing need for multi-channel audio in post-production, film dubbing, music recording and broadcast production. It provides comprehensive mixing and monitoring facilities for surround formats up to 8 channels wide, with a high degree of connectivity and control. Sitting towards the top end of AMEK’s product range, the audio circuitry has been designed to offer the best sonic performance and features a Microphone Amplifier designed by Mr. Rupert Neve, plus the proven musicality of the AMEK 4-band fully-parametric equaliser. At NAB, the Galileo 360V is being demonstrated with the AMEK Supertrue V4 moving fader, switch and event automation. As standard, it is also fitted with automated dynamic panning, via two integral joysticks, and high resolution master bargraph metering.

New from AMEK’s Pure Path series is the Driver in a Box (DIB), which provides eight high-quality, transformer-coupled line amplifiers in a 1U rack, and is designed for driving long cable runs in broadcast and live performance applications. Primarily a unity gain device, the Driver in a Box offers a gain trim control for each balanced and floating channel – allowing matched output levels to be set. Each channel also has a dedicated Phase selector, and a “SILK” setting, which emulates the sound of Mr Rupert Neve’s original circuit designs. DIB’s versatility also makes it suitable for a variety of traditional audio engineering tasks including line transmission, line reception and distribution amplification. As well as providing audio enhancement of mixers or digital audio workstations, DIB can also finds applications as a mix amplifier, Mix Minus system or, when used in conjunction with the Channel in a Box, a Pure Path mixing system.

On show at NAB will be other examples of AMEK’s signal processing modules – all designed by the company in conjunction with legendary audio equipment designer, Mr. Rupert Neve. These include the Pure Path Channel in a Box – a complete input channel strip, with independent mic and line inputs, 4-band EQ and compressor – plus the extremely popular System 9098 range. The System 9098 units encompass a dual channel Compressor/Limiter, a Dual Mic Amp module and an Equaliser – with four band EQ, filtering and a comprehensive microphone input section.

With a proven track record across a wide variety of applications, AMEK’s Recall RN represents one of the most flexible production consoles available, satisfying the demanding criteria of both on-air broadcast and television production, in addition to front-of-house operation for live event sound reinforcement. Notable projects using the Recall’s fast-reset facilities include prestigious music events – such as the Grammy® Awards, the Eurovision Song Contest and the MTV Music Awards – plus large-scale music concerts and fixed installations, including Sydney Opera House® and Opera De Paris. Recall features audio circuitry by Mr. Rupert Neve, and AMEK’s Showtime™ fader, switch and event automation, which permits fast, precise and flexible control of console settings, while reducing an engineer’s routine-task workload to give greater freedom for concentrating on the more creative aspects of their work.

The small-format BB100 audio console, for production and on-air applications, is available in configurations from 10 to 32 inputs, with zero, four or eight mono subgroups, and offers fully-balanced input and output connections, plus four internal Mix Minus feeds. It is easily configurable for a variety of custom options, through the use of internal factory-set links.

Palo Alto, CA (NASDAQ: EUPH) (February 26, 2001):  You’re a busy A&R executive in New York and your band is recording in Australia. You can’t be there but you want an efficient, dependable way to keep track of the project. Couriers ferrying DAT tapes just won’t cut it – so what do you do?  Multiply this scenario by the over 10,000 new album releases created every year (with 10 to 12 songs on each release) and the size of the production problem solved by Euphonix new applications:  E-deckä and Listen-In becomes clear. This new software system simplifies and speeds up the process of reviewing everything from the earliest demos to final mixes and the delivery of production parts, saving both time and money.  The system offers a secure, easy-to-use link between the engineer in the studio with artists, producers, managers and record label personnel.

E-deckä enables audio files of mixes (from stereo up to 5.1 Surround mixes) to be accessed and auditioned any where in the world via a secure server and a personal computer. Listen-In enables real-time remote live studio monitoring of sessions also through a PC.

“Now the distance between creative people will cease to be an issue,” noted Euphonix CEO Steve Vining.  “From the earliest stages of a project – reviewing publishing demos, scratch arrangement mixes through tracking and the final mixes can be easily accessed and auditioned by anyone in the production team in a completely secure environment.”

In the studio, mix files are recorded and encoded and then uploaded to a secure server on the Internet.  Anyone with the appropriate password including A&R staff, producers, engineers, songwriters, managers and artists download and play the mix files. Final mixes can then be moved directly to a record label for archiving and manufacturing.

The application has been optimized to accommodate a broad range of connection speeds. Reviewers can listen to compressed files suitable for dial-up or DSL access, or uncompressed files, suitable for T1 or T3 access. To ensure optimal sound quality at slower connection speeds Euphonix chose Windows Media Audio as the preferred compression format. Windows Media achieves near CD-quality sound with smaller file size than MP3.

“For a professional application like this, audio quality is critical,” said Jonathan Usher, group manager for Microsoft Corporations Digital Media Division.  “The state-of-the-art compression from Windows Media means Euphonix can provide the optimal listening experience, whatever the bandwidth.”

Better than CD quality playback is accomplished via PCM stereo at rates up to 24-Bit/96kHz and even     24-Bit/96kHz DVD-Audio quality 5.1 surround mixes are available.  Playback of future audio formats will be supported through decoder plug-ins.  E-deckä also controls the Listen-In function, which allows remote monitoring of a live studio session in progress through a password-protected section of the software using Windows Media Server technology.

E-deckä functions in a completely secure environment thanks to the use of Rocket Network technology which provides the infrastructure that enables a worldwide network for audio production and session management.  Users of E-deckä have around the clock access to their creative projects, accessed via Rocket’s secure servers.

“E-deckä clearly offers tremendous savings in both time and expense by utilizing Rocket Network.  Our powerful security features insure complete content security and service quality that Euphonix high-end customers are accustomed to,” noted Pam Miller, President and CEO of Rocket Network.

“While Euphonix has historically provided leading-edge technology for the recording engineer we are now expanding our focus to solving problems for all the creative people in the entertainment industry.  Artists, producers, and label executives who need to make important production decisions on a daily basis will find the savings in time and expense that E-deck offers priceless,” said Scott Silfvast, Chief Technical Officer for Euphonix.

E-deckä / Listen-In

User Benefits:

• Saves time and money spent on traveling just to listen to a project.
• Simple to set-up and operate software to review and approve audio mix files.
• Play all popular audio file formats including Windows Media Audio, Mp3, WAV, AIFF.
• Studio version records 2-and 6-channel mixes and encodes files.
• Drag and drop files to play and store.
• Review 5.1 DVD-A mixes at full studio quality 24-Bit/96kHz.
• Easily organizes and previews digital audio assets.
• Easily transports master-quality audio mix files securely over the Internet for remote auditioning or manufacturing.
• Transfer audio files, text documents, and JPEGS for all production needs.
• Rocket Network compatible for robust, secure Internet connection.
• Windows 98/2000 compatible.
• Listen-In allows you to hear a live studio session in progress without travelling to the studio.
• Multiple people can Listen-In simultaneously from different locations.
• Listen-In capability uses Windows Media server technology to deliver near CD quality audio broadcast from the studio.

1) In the studio, mix files are recorded and encoded, then uploaded to a secure server on the Internet with E-deck Studio.

3) Mixes are moved directly to a record label or manufacturing facility for archive and production

Las Vegas, CA. 3D Audio is attracting a lot of attention at the COMDEX Fall’96 exhibition (Nov.18-22) in Las Vegas. The playing field is getting cluttered, as chip manufacturers and audio technology labs step up to grab a share of the add-on sound card market, which is projected to 160 million units by the year 2000.
[SoundBlaster Logo]

The Sound Blaster® standard developed by Creative Labs dominates the PC sound card market today, with about 70% of the installed user base. Most of Creative’s competitors are pitching “3D” sound of some form, supported by Microsoft’s DirectX and DirectSound API’s, to differentiate themselves from Sound Blaster’s dominance (the DirectSound API provides a hardware abstraction layer so developers don’t have to write hardware-specific code).

3D audio comes in several flavors. The standard implementation of 3D PC sound involves enhancement of the stereo field as heard through two speakers, and COMDEX has offered a look at new implementations of this approach from several companies, including Yamaha, Philips, Chromatic Research, S3, Oak Technology, SRS, QSound, and the Sound Blaster folks themselves (with “3D Positional Audio” on the new AWE64 series cards).

At the high end you get binaural simulation (requiring headphone listening for best results) of fully spherical sound localization. This requires complex realtime filtering of the audio signal based on detailed measurements of actual hearing response in the ear. For several years, this has been the domain of extremely expensive DSP systems: for example, a professional system introduced earlier this month at the AES Convention in Los Angeles by Central Research Laboratories (UK) was priced between $40K – $85K (US) depending on the I/O configuration.

At COMDEX, two manufacturers are demonstrating chips that offer HRTF-based spatialized sound for low-cost sound cards.

Aureal Semiconductor won good reviews for the sound quality of its chip set when it was demonstrated at the AES Convention, and the company is getting a similar response from the less-discriminating (audio-wise) audience at COMDEX. The chip set features Aureal’s ASP301, an optimized DSP engine that provides the company’s Aureal 3D (A3D) spatialization and accelaration support of the DirectSound API; and the ASP311 PCI bus interface chip. The chip set is positioned as an OEM upgrade to existing Sound Blaster cards.

A3D was originally developed under NASA funding, for use in flight simulators, and later developed commercially by Aureal subsidiary Crystal River Engineering (as the Convolvotron™). The 301/311 combo is capable of processing up to 32 DirectSound audio streams simultaneously, and up to eight independent 3D sound sources. Aureal is currently shipping reference design boards and samples, with production chips scheduled for February 1997.

Also at COMDEX, VLSI Technology Inc. introduced its SongBird 3D™ DirectSound Accelerator chip (VL82C829), featuring VLSI’s ActiSound™ positional 3D audio. Like the Aureal chip, this one functions as part of a set. The main SongBird processor is the DSP HRTF engine, with interfaces to Dolby AC3 and MPEG audio processors, plus a separate AC’97 codec made by Sigma Tel.

SongBird also comes with an audio hardware developer’s toolkit called SoundSuite™ (developed by EuPhonics Inc.). SoundSuite is supplied with DirectX drivers for the SongBird chip, supporting the Microsoft DirectSound API. The firmware provides 3D audio positioning, spatial enhancement, DVD audio decoding, wavetable synthesis, audio effects, and Sound Blaster compatible music synthesis.

A SoundSuite development environment is available now, and chip samples will be available in early 1997. The processor will be available in production quantities in the 2nd quarter of 1997, priced at $25 in lots of 10,000.