Escondido, CA. True Image Audio has announced the release of WinSpeakerz 95, an updated port to Windows ’95 of its well-known MacSpeakerz software from the MacOS environment. It’s a native 32-bit application that will run on any PC with Win’95, and it’s priced at $199 (U.S.), direct from True Image.

WinSpeakerz can show a speaker designer the precise audio performance that can be achieved by any driver in a number of different enclosure types. As well as enclosure analysis, the software offers an advanced array of calculators for designing passive crossovers, impedance compensation networks, and attenuators as well as rectangular, trapezoidal, and bandpass cabinets. Frequency scale end points are adjustable from 1 Hz to 100 kHz. The software can be operated in both metric and English units.

WinSpeakerz uses the metaphor of a workbench and projects to organize design work. Starting with a new project file, the designer opens the driver database and selects a driver to load to the workbench. At the workbench, the designer examines the performance of the driver in various enclosures. Promising designs are saved to memory locations within the project file.

Each project file holds 10 memory snapshots consisting of a complete driver file, full details on the enclosure, crossover, impedance compensator networks, and detailed notes on the system. System snapshots can be recalled to the workbench by clicking buttons on a toolbar, and compared directly with other stored configurations. This makes it easy for a designer to compare different drivers in a particular enclosure, or the same driver in various enclosures.

The program can print a number of different reports, including sorted lists of drivers you have selected from the database. Analysis reports and plots are printed by clicking a button on the toolbar. Most of the printed reports display an engineering title block with basic Project information.

The driver database has a full search-and-sort capability, as well as the ability to tag drivers with keywords. Each driver record can store over 90 different driver parameters, including details such as the driver’s bolt circle diameter, front and rear mount baffle cutout diameters and retail price. A comments field provides full text editing capability, so that the designer can keep detailed notes on each driver. Driver records can be added, edited and deleted. System snapshots are similarly deep in detail.

WinSpeakerz keeps track of the most recently-used project files, and offers immediate access to them under the File menu. When a project file is loaded, the workbench is restored just as the user left it. Other convenient features include the ability to have several project files open at once, tool tips, and print preview.

A demo of WinSpeakerz can be downloaded from the True Image Audio web site. Also at the web site, the True Image Speaker Design Forum, a message board with topics on vents, crossovers, and other speaker design topics. If you are on America OnLine, you can find the Forum at AOL Keyword: “TIA”

Milpitas, CA. Creative Technology Ltd., of SoundBlaster™ fame, and the world’s leading provider of multimedia products for personal computers, today announced extensive plans to move its product lines towards net and web worthiness.

The key audio product involved in this shift is NetSynth™, a Sound Blaster compliant software synthesizer licensed from Seer Systems. NetSynth plays high-quality MIDI on-line. It offers wave-table synthesis technology, 32-note polyphony, and high-quality reverb, so users can experience a sound fidelity not commonly found from Internet sources today.

It also supports physical modeling of audio, implementing waveguide synthesis via Sondius® technology from Stanford University. NetSynth includes one WaveGuide instrument, to demonstrate the richness available through this relatively new synthesis technique.

The software engine of NetSynth is also available to OEM’s supporting SoundBlaster cards as WaveSynth™.

Creative is also jumping in to Internet telephony, with WebPhone™, a point-to-point communication device that operates like a real phone over the Internet. It comes bundled with a SoundBlaster card. The WebPhone has an interface like a cellular phone, and it features full-duplex audio, speed dialing, voice mail, and e-mail capabilities.

Other audio technologies that Creative is touting as keys to its Internet push are its own 3D audio simulation and SoundFonts™, as well as RealAudio from Progressive Networks, which will be bundled with its Internet-ready products.

Now you can hear your piano doodling fly around your head when you get behind the keys of Kurzweil Music Systems’ new high-end digital ensemble piano, the Mark 12.

Kurzweil has incorporated SRS 3D sound technology (Sound Retrieval System) by SRS Labs in the Mark 12, creating “an exciting listening entertainment experience never achieved by any other digital piano.” With shipments to dealers commencing this week, the Mark 12 is the first musical instrument to incorporate SRS 3D Sound Technology.

Along with the 3D sound novelty, the Mark 12 features 325 sampled orchestral sounds, 128 editable auto accompaniments, 16-track 16-song recorder/sequencer and multiple reverb effects.

SRS 3D sound can also be heard in consumer electronics, computer, and video products by manufacturers such as Sony, RCA, Kenwood, Pioneer, Nakamichi, Sharp, Apple, Packard Bell and NEC.

Burbank, CA. Phoenix Media Group plans to begin live 24-hour-a-day broadcasts on the Internet. Phoenix currently offers an on-demand web audio outlet called World Wide Radio Network. Phoenix is working with Broadcast Technical Services of Rowland Heights, CA, to plan, design and install a full-time web broadcasting system based on RealAudio technology. The operation is expected to be ready to roll by mid-November.

Phoenix plans to carry entirely original content on the new service, with a format consisting of talk and music. “Think of it as an audio version of Time Magazine on the net,” says Phoenix CEO Ron Irwin. “We’ll have lots of music to start with, and a couple of 3-hour or 4-hour talk segments, with world-wide phone-ins per day. Eventually, I’d like to go to all talk.”

The web broadcast operation will be funded by advertising, including a mix of traditional radio-style spots, and infomercial material blended into the talk segments.

San Jose, CA. In related news, VLSI Technology, Inc. announces that it has licensed AC’97 technology from Intel. The AC’97 standard describes an interface between advanced digital audio peripheral components and Intel Pentium®-based computers. It will enable PCs to offer CD and broadcast quality 3D sound.

“AC ’97 is an important standard for next-generation 3D audio on PCs,” says Don Maulsby, V-P of VLSI’s Computing Products Group. “Signing up for AC’97 now will help us achieve our goal of introducing new 3D audio products at this year’s COMDEX trade show.”

The PC industry’s transition from 16-bit ISA bus synthesized audio to forthcoming 32-bit, PCI-based 3D audio creates significant opportunities for aggressive new players, such as VLSI, to capture a share of the emerging 3D audio chip market.