With 2024 coming to a close, we hope you’ve enjoyed reading the revived SAI Blog this past year. In March, we switched on the SAI Spotlight, our series that zooms in on one of Shively Acoustics International’s (SAI) various industry partnerships to show how our areas of expertise can be applied to a variety of projects. Following this inaugural profile on our partnership with Silentium was a look in August at our work with Apollo Neuro. In SAI Spotlight #3, we shine the light on audio equipment manufacturer  Dinaburg Technology (Newmarket, Ontario, Canada; www.dinaburgtech.com).

SAI and Dinaburg

Everything started in the late 2010s when physicist, engineer, and company founder Mikhail Dinaburg had an idea that challenged conventional loudspeaker design. His invention: the Concentric Coplanar Stabilizer, also known as the C2S™ Technology (or Alignment). The promise behind the novelty was to deliver better audio clarity and to do it more efficiently and scaled to order, or, as the company puts it succinctly, “sound without compromise, energy without waste”.

That’s all well and good, but the question for current CEO and son of Mikhail, Simon Dinaburg, was, is the difference that ought to be there, that was felt to be there, actually there? Could it be shown to actually work with cold, hard physics? Enter Shively Acoustics.

SAI and Dinaburg met for the first time in June 2021, when our own Roger Shively got an overview of the technology from Simon and the pair discussed how our expertise with simulation software COMSOL could be put to work in demonstrating definitively that C2S™ had merit – or not. Spoiler: it did. 🔊🔊🔊

This first phase officially kicked off a little later, in August. SAI got to doing what we do best and started creating the model in COMSOL based on initial data and geometries on hand, in this case a 12-inch prototype model that Dinaburg had produced. We did preliminary testing on this design, enough to prove the physics behind Mikhail’s design, but in our consultations we suggested a different design, namely a 6-inch model. This would be more practical as it is a more universal design across industries. Translation: doing so would allow us and Dinaburg to compare simulation results to what else was out there on the market and thus truly prove the competitiveness of their design.

By the middle of 2022, we were in the next phase, helping to optimize this new design and make it as small as possible. Again, what we were after – ultimately to benefit Dinaburg Technology – was to find a practical solution with a more universal size, bringing together a practical build that with the solid physics and math behind it could serve as a baseline for scalability and increased marketability. We ran the new design through COMSOL, creating the simulation data that the company uses to this day for comparison purposes.

The key difference of the C2S™ Technology is that it reimagines the placement of the passive radiator relative to the active speaker and their interaction, where the passive radiator is a ring-like wall stretching about half way around the speaker, concentric and in the same plane. As such, part of our optimization involved adjusting the length of this wall – and so the radiator bandwidth and speaker performance – in order to attain the frequencies (low ones, in particular) desired by Dinaburg. The obvious comparison to be made, then, now that we had the baseline data, was that of the C2S™’s performance against that of a conventional passive radiator. And as you’ve probably guessed by now, the result of the trials was that the C2S™ was demonstrably better.

Not only was performance better, but this difference in radiator placement also  allowed for a more compact overall design, and thus smaller packaging. Two good things. But even more crucially, in demonstrating the physics on both a 12-inch and 6-inch model, we proved that this technology could work to scale. These comparisons, tests, and post-processing of data saw us through to the end of 2022, by which time the main project had concluded and design was finalized.

While the initial applications in mind might have been limited to automotive or consumer audio applications, what we found was that the potential of the technology was in fact all-encompassing – application-agnostic, so to say. And so the project widened, as now the world needed to know what we did. This was the goal for 2023, starting with an appearance at CES in January, where Simon was able to introduce the product to what turned out to be a very interested public. Despite the interest, and a few hand-built models, finished prototypes were still a ways off. Meanwhile, SAI continued promoting the C2S™ Technology, resulting in a technical paper penned by Roger, early versions of which he presented at various conferences in the spring and summer, including High End Munich in Germany and the ALTI Expo in Orlando, Florida, topped off by a podcast appearance. This culminated in October at the Audio Engineering Society’s (AES) convention in New York, where the paper was presented in its final form. Readers of the SAI Blog will remember these highlights from our post last December.

Which brings us to 2024, which has been all about getting prototypes manufactured. Throughout the year, SAI has been continuing to provide our services, consulting with both Dinaburg and the chosen manufacturing house and conducting more tests to further optimize the design according to manufacturer capabilities. Now here in December, we hope we can say things are wrapping up, and that finished prototypes will be ready and on display at CES 2025 (see below) in January.

In 2025 and beyond, the plan is to get the product onto the market and get orders shipping out on the regular. As we have said, the possibilities in terms of application are widespread, but the focus in the immediate term will be Consumer Audio, hopefully with Pro and Automotive to come. Regarding the latter, Shively Acoustics is talking with several automotive OEMs, including one with strong interest, about working with Dinaburg. As for Consumer Audio, headphone development is currently in the works🎧– how’s that for scalability?

That wraps SAI Spotlight #3, but there will surely be more updates to come about our work with Dinaburg, and most certainly more Spotlights, too.

Before heading into your holidays…

The New Year is nearly here, which means our favorite trade show is just around the corner. Coming up fast is CES 2025 in Las Vegas from January 7 to 10. Roger and Shively Acoustics will of course be there, as will the Audio Product Development Alliance (APDA), who will set up camp alongside Dave Lindberg in a suite in the Venetian Tower. Last year’s show was an absolute blast, and we can’t wait to see what the 2025 edition has in store. Will we see you there?

Until then, happy holidays and a good start into the new year from us at SAI! ❄️🎄🎁🎊🎆 ■

Shively Acoustics International — Modern Audio Solutions, Worldwide