AES Convention– New York – October 16-19, 2019

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Although Listen won’t be exhibiting, president Steve Temme will be at the event and will be participating in two product development sessions detailed below.

 

Product Development: PD09 – Does Automotive Audio Need a Systems Approach?

Thursday, October 17, 1:30 pm — 3:00 pm (1E09)

Chair: Roger Shively, JJR Acoustics, LLC

Panelists: John Busenitz, Bose Corporation, Pietro Massini, Ask Industries S.p.A, Greg Sikora, Harman International, Steve Temme, Listen, Inc.

Some component specifications do not translate to good system performance. A good example is resonance frequency. This often does not correspond well to performance characteristics in the automotive environment. Some potential improvements would be low-frequency SPL, or a parameter combination such as Fs/Qts or EBP (Fs/Qes). The system performance goals should drive the transducer component specification. Hence, this workshop will host leading industry experts in automotive audio and test/measurement solutions to discuss pros and cons of component vs. system specifications.

 

Product Development: PD10 – Diagnostics for Production Vehicle Audio Systems

Thursday, October 17, 3:15 pm — 4:30 pm (1E09)

Presenters: Jonathan Gerbet, Klippel GmbH, Steven Hutt, Equity Sound Investments, Steve Temme, Listen, Inc.

Audio systems in production vehicles are known to exhibit vehicle to vehicle performance variance [1]. The root causes of variance can include loudspeaker driver manufacturing tolerance, mounting issues such as missing or misaligned gaskets, or wrong loudspeaker drivers mounted in the system. A diagnostics method to compare actual production vehicle audio systems is defined along with a method for correction and calibration of production vehicle audio systems. The diagnostics procedure may be implemented at production end-of-line, at vehicle distribution center or at a dealer service center in the field after delivery to a customer.

Full AES Schedule

AES International Conference on Headphone Technology – San Francisco – August 27-29, 2019

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Listen is a gold sponsor and exhibitor at the AES International Conference on Headphone Technology in San Francisco on August 27-29.

Listen founder and president, Steve Temme, will be presenting a poster session on ‘The Challenges of Testing Smart Headphones’ in which he discusses various test methodologies for measuring smart headphones and hearables, covering such topics as active noise cancellation, assisted listening, communications, augmented reality, background noise measurements and more. He will also be running a series of demonstrations on these topics at the Listen booth through the show to enable attendees to see more in-depth testing and analysis on specific areas of testing.

On display at the the booth will be a complete set-up for testing smart headphones and hearables, featuring Listen’s flagship SoundCheck software, along with an AudioConnect audio interface, SoundConnect 2 microphone power supply and a Kemar head and Torso simulator.

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AES International Conference on Automotive Audio – Munich – September 11-13, 2019

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Listen is a gold sponsor and exhibitor at the AES International Conference on Automotive Audio in Munich, Germany on September 11-13.

Listen founder and president, Steve Temme, will be presenting a tutorial on ‘Testing Voice-Controlled and Smartphone Integrated Infotainment Systems’ at 2pm on Sept 11th. In this tutorial he will discuss the challenges of implementing audio tests in cars when the signal path is often via a smartphone and/or the car’s own voice-controlled system, and demonstrate how modern test systems can use techniques such as frequency shift and resampling to enable accurate measurement of car audio characteristics ranging from simple frequency and distortion measurements to voice control and communications in the presence of background noise.

On display at the the booth will be various options for testing automotive audio including the SoundCheck test system, Listen’s own audio test hardware, and 3rd party hardware such as 6 microphone arrays and head and torso simulators. On the booth, Listen will also be demonstrating how SoundCheck fully integrates with, and controls, the Mentor A2B interface to enabled rapid automated testing of systems and components that use the A2B bus.

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ISEAT- Shenzhen, China – Nov 9-10, 2019

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We will be participating in China’s leading electroacoustics event, ISEAT on November 9-10 with our exclusive China distributor, S&V Samford.

Steve Temme will be presenting a paper on ‘The Challenges of Testing Voice Controlled Audio Systems’. In this paper, he highlights the common factors in testing smart speakers, hearables, and automotive infotainment systems, such as open loop testing, measuring speech recognition, and testing in the presence of background noise, and explains how to correctly measure such devices.

On display will be our SoundCheck audio test system and associated hardware for testing a range of audio devices including smart speakers, headphones & smart hearables, automotive audio, microspeakers, microphones, smartphones, tablets and more.

 

Paper Abstract:

Smart devices that are voice-controlled such as smart speakers, hearables vehicle infotainment systems are notoriously complex to test. They have numerous connections from wired to wireless and contain much signal processing, both on the record and on the playback side. This means that their characteristics change according to ‘real world’ conditions of the environment that they are used in, such as background noise, playback levels, and room acoustics. Furthermore, their multifunctional nature means that there are many aspects of the device that may need to be tested, ranging from voice recognition to music playback and operation as a hands-free telephone, and in the case of hearables, hearing assistance. Due to their complex non-linear use cases, these devices often need to be tested at different levels and different environmental conditions. This paper focuses on tools and techniques to accurately measure the audio performance of such devices under the many various real-world conditions they are used in.

ISEAT web site

AISE, Orlando, FL, Jun 9-10, 2019

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This years AISE (ALMA International Symposium & Expo) will be held on June 9-10 in Orlando, FL. Listen will be showcasing its suite of audio measurement equipment for measuring smart speakers, wearables, smart home audio, hearables and automotive audio, as well as conventional transducers such as loudspeakers, headphones and microphones.

In addition to exhibiting, Steve Temme will present a half-day seminar on smart speaker testing. This informative and educational seminar will discuss the challenges of testing smart devices such as smart speakers, smart home devices, wearables and more, and demonstrate various methods of testing such devices. Steve Temme will also present a paper on testing smart hearable devices, and Les Quindipan will demonstrate automotive audio testing using the Mentor A2B interface with SoundCheck.

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AISE, Las Vegas, NV, Jan 5-6, 2018

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aise_2018This year’s AISE (formerly knows as the ALMA Winter Symposium) will focus on ‘The Revolution of the Audio Signal Chain” and Listen will be showcasing its suite of audio measurement equipment for measuring smart speakers, automotive audio, headphones, smartphones and tablets and more.

We will be exhibiting the new Version 16 of our SoundCheck software, demonstrating how flexible is for testing all types of audio devices, regardless of signal path. We will demonstrate how we can test both the speaker and microphone array performance of an internet-enabled smart speaker, and also how we can test a variety of headphones with different signal paths, such as USB, Lightning and noise-cancelling and high resolution headphones.

Steve Temme will also be presenting a paper co-written with Viktor Dobos at Harman Hungary on ‘Evaluation of Audio Test Methods and Measurements for End- of-Line Loudspeaker Quality Control’ and Daniel Knighten will present ‘Challenges of IoT Smart Speaker Testing’, a paper co-written with Glenn Hess of Indy Acoustic Research.

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AES, New York, NY, Oct 18-21 2017

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AES2017Listen will be exhibiting at the AES 143rd international Convention in New York on October 18-20th. We will be demonstrating our SoundCheck audio test software and our range of audio test hardware which includes interfaces for testing all modern devices such as those with bluetooth, lightning and other digital interfaces. Listen staff will also be presenting two technical papers. Steve Temme will be presenting ‘A New THD+N Algorithm for Measuring Today’s High Resolution Audio Systems’ with Alfred Roney of Mathworks, and Dan Knighten of Listen and Glenn Hess of Indy Acoustic Research will present ‘Challenges of IoT Smart Speaker Testing’. These papers are both in the P17 Applications in Audio session on Sat 21st October.

Please visit us at Booth #446.

Get your free exhibit hall pass here.

ISEAT- Shenzhen, China – Nov 4-5, 2017

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iseat_logoWe will be exhibiting at ISEAT in Shenzhen on Nov 4-5, 2107. On display will be our SoundCheck audio test system and associated hardware for testing a range of audio devices including speakers, microspeakers, headphones, microphones, smartphones, tablets and more.

Listen president, Steve Temme, will also be presenting a technical paper written with Viktor Dobos of Harman Automotive on production line loudspeaker measurements. In this paper, he addresses the different measurements that can be made at the end of a production line, and which ones offer comprehensive product QC while maintaining high speed and throughput.

ISEAT web site

AES Europe – Berlin May 20-23, 2017

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AES LogoSteve Temme will be presenting a paper at AES Europe with Viktor Dobos of Harman entitled “Evaluation and recommendation of different audio test methods and measurements for end-of-the-line automotive speaker quality control”. In this paper they will discuss the loudspeaker characteristics that can be measured, and common measurement challenges and how to overcome them and how to avoid them, both on a loudspeaker production line as well as during installation into an automotive vehicle. Several different audio test methods and measurements for end-of-the-line automotive speaker quality control will be evaluated, and the most relevant ones identified. Speed, statistics, and full traceability are also discussed.

AES Show Web Site

AES, Los Angeles, CA, Sept 29- Oct 1, 2016

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AES LogoWe will be exhibiting at the 141st AES which will be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center, LA, CA on Sept 29-Oct 1, 2016.

At our booth (#717) we will be demonstrating SoundCheck 15, our latest release, as well as our lineup of audio test hardware. We will be demonstrating a comprehensive Bluetooth headphone test using SoundCheck with the BTC4148 Bluetooth interface and the Brüel and Kjær Head and Torso Simulator.

Steve Temme, along with Patrick Dennis of Nissan, will be presenting a technical paper entitled “In-Vehicle Audio System Distortion Audibility versus Level and Its Impact on Perceived Sound Quality” This paper will take place Friday Sept 30th at 3.15pm in the “P15 Perception” paper session. In this paper, the authors consider the level of distortion as in-vehicle audio system output level increases, and evaluate the level at which distortion audible is audible. Both subjective and objective measurements of sound quality are made, and the correlation between perceived sound quality and objective distortion measurements is discussed.

AES Show Web Site

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