Happy New Year, loyal readers of the SAI Blog! We’ve made another trip around the sun together, and each January means one thing for Shively Acoustics International (SAI): the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, organized by the Consumer Technology Association from January 7-10. Just like last year, Roger attended all four days of his favorite trade show, which was as energetic and enlightening for this engineer as ever.

As usual, Roger penned a thorough recap of all things relevant to Audio and Automotive at CES 2025 for the The Audio Voice newsletter, recently published in edition #500 (!). For now though, let’s narrow the focus a bit and consider SAI’s time at the convention through the lens of our industry relationships – because, just as important at CES as product and progress, is the people.

Shively Acoustics is a pillar of the Audio Product Development Alliance, and the APDA wasted no time in getting together at CES, sitting down for dinner the evening before Day 1. At the table was the APDA’s newest member, Adam Levenson of Levenson Consulting.

The alliance has made a lot of progress in the past year and the time was ripe for reflecting on successes so far and challenges that still lie ahead. Chief among the APDA’s accomplishments in 2024 was starting a regular stream of webinars covering methodologies, practices, and technologies in audio product development, with the next already on the way (see below). Watch them all on the APDA YouTube channel – and spread the word! 🗣️📢

The APDA is also busy renewing its partnership with AES and preparing for the launch of its website in the coming weeks prior to attending Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) 2025 from February 4-7 in Barcelona, Spain. Further afield are a live event in summer and plans for a Tech Innovations small business group meeting for fast networking at next year’s CES – that’s January 6-9, 2026, by the way.

The trade show was also the perfect opportunity for SAI and partner Silentium to get together again, as we continue to help them grow their business in North America – a partnership that has been developing strong for a long time. Among the stops for Silentium at CES this year, Roger connected Yoel and Tzvika with QNX to discuss a potential collaboration, and both sides are closer to what that should look like. The SAI-Silentium triumvirate was an active presence throughout CES, all in all a good week.

Readers will also remember our spotlight last month on Dinaburg Technology, who we’ve been working with for a few years now. Simon Dinaburg and Roger also got a chance to meet up at CES, where Dinaburg presented the much-anticipated prototypes of their C2S™ Technology. Now was the chance for all to see for themselves how easily it could be manufactured and that it could easily scale down to a headphone, which was shown in a working concept prototype. Dinaburg drew a lot of interest both in the prototypes and in new projects for the technology’s applications – and SAI will be involved in realizing those products.

Automotive of course provided for some highlights. As we’ve emphasized time and again here, software is king, and with the rise of the Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV), the automotive experience is becoming all the more personalized and customizable. Take it from one company’s towering display, which proclaimed “SDVs are platforms of innovation” to visitors. And for the SAI president, not much beats hopping in and out of models to get the cutting-edge experience for himself, always in awe of how far things have come.

To hear all about it, read Roger’s just-released guest editorial “CES 2025: An Automotive Audio Perspective” in the 500th edition of The Audio Voice 📰 newsletter from industry magazine audioXpress.

CES is such an important trade show for us because beyond the spectacle and innovative gadgetry – which we love, by the way – it is a grand meeting point of all SAI’s partners, clients, friends, among them those chance encounters that could develop with time. “Every incidental meeting that leads to an engaged conversation is always a part of the CES,” as Roger summed it up. The year is off to a great start!

Webinar announcement 👩‍💻

After getting things going with a few entries at the end of 2024, the webinar content on offer from the Audio Product Development Alliance is really going to come alive in 2025. Join us and the rest of the APDA crew next Wednesday, January 29, at 12:00pm EST for the first livestream of the year, “Automotive Acoustics Analysis Using COMSOL Multiphysics” with Jinlan Huang, Principal Applications Engineer at COMSOL. Until then, save the link and date, click the bell 🔔 to set a reminder, and watch any previous webinars you might have missed on the APDA’s YouTube channel @AudioProductDevAlliance.

Hope to see you there! Let’s get multi-physical. ■

Shively Acoustics International — Modern Audio Solutions, Worldwide