The 13th Issue of Linear Audio is here!

We are pleased to announce the long awaited release of Linear Audio Vol. 12! Counting from volume 0, this is the 13th edition in the series of printed bookzines dedicated to technical audio and perception. This issue contains lots of interesting articles to entice and excite the reader.

While looking for interesting items for our newsletter, I came across a smart remote control on Kickstarter that has already garnered over half a million dollars in pledges for the Sevenhugs Smart Remote campaign. Could that be the ultimate replacement for all those remote controls presently in my home?

At first designed simply to reactivate peripherals from standby or sleep states, the process has proved capable of recognising specific gestures (a Z for example, drawn with an arm) and various patterns without a notable increase in power use. A camera with gesture recognition can now be powered with energy harvested on site, allowing it to be placed away from any power sources.

You will undoubtedly know it: “Busy, busy, busy.” But the bow can't always be highly strung. That is why most people are looking for relaxation in the pursuit of a hobby. I'm keen to start a discussion and give you ideas.

Are you interested in Audio Electronics? There’s a magazine for that! …and a website! …and a weekly newsletter! audioXpress magazine, audioXpress.com and The Audio Voice newsletter is the solution for all your audio needs!

Data glasses present data to the user’s eyes by means of a small display. Unfortunately, the display and associated drive circuitry consume a fair amount of power, so battery life is limited. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Organic Electronics, Electron Beam and Plasma Technology (FEP) in Germany have developed an energy-efficient OLED display for this sort of application, which cuts power consumption to a fraction of what current displays require.

Searching for a powerful gong or audio notifier? The "Card Sound" board presented here consists of a TDA7266 audio amplifier featuring two 7-watt outputs, a CS4344 AD converter, an STM32F401 ARM Cortex-M4 microcontroller and a slot for a micro SD card. The goal is to play different (high-quality) sounds stored on an SD card with enough volume to wake up even the deepest sleeper.

Some people would like to listen to a 5+1 surround audio system, but don't want to give up their stereo system. However, both systems in one room would require eight speakers, which is too much for many and also not necessary. Since both systems have speakers for the left and right channels the idea was born to build a switch box which allows configuring the system as 5+1 or as stereo while only requiring the 5+1 system's speakers.

Audio specialist Jan Didden, well known for various audio projects in Elektor and his own publication Linear Audio, has developed a special power supply module designed to supply clean power to high-end analog and digital audio circuits. According to the designer, the SilentSwitcher module is line voltage independent and produces little noise or RFI, and its power dissipation is virtually zero.

Nowadays it looks like we’re all listening to music from compressed files. Spotify and the like are of course easy and convenient, but surely you miss the authentic details? From where we sit, it looks like the number of people who are truly interested in top-end audio and are willing to pay what it takes can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Why is that?