Allied in Audio
Settling into September, the SAI Blog is back with a little update on the world of Shively Acoustics International (SAI). First, in case you missed it, the Audio Product Development Alliance (APDA) livestreamed its latest webinar “Success Factors with your Supply Partners” at the end of August, in which APDA founding member Dave Lindberg of dB Enterprises and the THD Podcast shares his insights from 16 years of doing business in Hong Kong, Mainland China, and Southeast Asia.
Dave provides boots-on-the-ground support in the region to facilitate product development and carry out local sales of advanced audio technology and brings great experience to the APDA on supply issues having played both vendor, customer, and advocate for both sides. “We offer comprehensive backup to brands and IP holders including project management, engineering consulting, sourcing, and sales to protect IP, identify cost savings and overcome political and cultural blockers to sales in Asia which are seldom visible without local knowledge,” he commented.
In the webinar, Dave discusses developing a plan, building a team, finding vendors, maintaining a “friendly, but not friends” approach, evolving the RFQ, business matching, bridging cultural gaps, and intelligent sourcing. Take advantage of his expert advice, and keep an eye out for even more in future webinars to come — next one in October! — on the APDA YouTube channel 👀.
The APDA live in the webinar: Dave Lindberg, Roger Shively, João Martins (audioXpress), Steve Hutt (Equity Sound), and Steve Willenborg (Linkplay Technology) — follow @AudioProductDevAlliance on YouTube!
The Audio Product Development Alliance was founded by a team of audio industry veterans — including SAI — with the mission of furthering the knowledge and skills of professionals in audio product development. The alliance focuses on promoting methodologies, practices, and technologies involved in developing and bringing audio products to market.
A collaborative effort, the APDA is where we at SAI go to learn how to build both industry relationships and better audio products, bringing everything to the discussion table: design, measurement, simulation, supply chain, automotive applications, headphones, earphones, wireless technology, and even touching on industry standards. The APDA is “your gateway to audio product development”, as our own Roger Shively put it.
On the Shively Acoustics business side of things, Roger will be headed back east at the start of October, when he and Scott Leslie of Loudspeaker Labs are set to meet with Bose regarding an ongoing pro audio project of theirs, for which we are conducting research and providing our COMSOL expertise.
We have also been working with Seattle-area company Orava the last few months on an active noise control (ANC) project from an architectural acoustics perspective: canceling the noise entering a room through a window. At present, SAI is in the middle of simulating rooms — again in COMSOL — for the set-up of an ANC system and the further development of that system, i.e. the real-life hardware that will sit in the window. Assisting with software script-writing is Nikos Zafeiroupolis of Zafire Audio (Athens, Greece), one of our worldwide partners.
As we mentioned last month, the event calendar is filling up for Shively Acoustics in the coming weeks. First to Beantown for the COMSOL Conference 2024 Boston on October 2-4, and then down the coast to the Big Apple a week later for the AES Show 2024 NY on October 8-10, both of which Roger will cover in subsequent newsletters for The Audio Voice.
Roger is especially excited to see the continued growth and diversification of the Audio Engineering Society on display in New York, particularly in terms of product development and new ideas and designs. In the past, Roger says, this was less of a focal point for the AES, which is why the aforementioned APDA was needed. Roger will meet with the leadership of the AES to discuss further integration of product development in the society’s activities.
Last but not least, much further afield is CES 2025, to take place January 7-10 in Las Vegas, Nevada. We’re bringing it up now because the free registration period has been open since September 9 and will close October 9 — early birds, dust off your wings and register now! You can also read about SAI’s visit to CES 2024 in our blog post from this past January.
Short and sweet for September, dear readers. Until our soundwaves meet again! ■
Shively Acoustics International — Modern Audio Solutions, Worldwide
