Greetings!
In
our first 2008 issue of ALMA news, we bring you a review
of this years winter symposium, as well as a host of
audio career opportunities from our members, news about
the association, industry news, and our regular 'Ask
Andy' feature.
Remember, this
newsletter is interactive - you can click on the blue
links in this email to get more information from the
ALMA web
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Winter Symposium
Review 
The 2008
Winter Symposium saw record attendance, with over 180
visitors and 24 exhibitors. We believe that this was the
largest number of attendees ever, and close to the
record number of exhibitors. Thank you to all of you who
attended. We hope you found it interesting and
worthwhile. Please click on the subheading links to
visit a web page with more detailed information about
each event.
For those
who were unable to attend, here is a brief
review:
Training: Our three training
classes were very well attended, with over 20 people in
each class, and the loudspeaker design class selling out
for the second year running. We ran three courses:
Electroacoustic Testing, Practical Aspects of
Loudspeaker Design, and Adhesives Selection and
Application, all of which received excellent reviews
from attendees. We are in the process of planning for
next year, so if there is a subject that you would like
to see training on, or have a training class that you
would like to teach, please email me.
Exhibit Hall: With 24 booths
sold this year, we filled the hall to capacity and
actually had to turn people away, so book early to
secure your space for next year - over half of this
years exhibitors have already signed up for next years
show. Read all about the exhibiting companies and the
products they had to offer.
Papers: Four technical papers
were presented by Wolfgang Klippel, Steve Temme, Enrique
Stiles and Steve Tatarunis. These covered a broad
spectrum of loudspeaker topics and were all well
attended. Read more.
Tutorials: We hosted 5
tutorials this year - more than ever before. Again these
covered a diverse range of subjects from doing business
in Asia to patents and production line loudspeaker test.
You can read more about these presentations and download
the presentations here.
Round Table: Our round table
discussion gave all attendees a chance to voice their
opinion on the important subject of how to correlate
acoustical measurements between the factory and the
customer. The room was full to capacity (40 people) and
it appears that most people found it useful and
informative.
Panel Discussion: Steve Temme
moderated a lively panel discussion entitled "Are You
Shipping Defective Loudspeakers to Your Customers (or
Are You Rejecting Good Loudspeakers)", with panelists
including Scott Orth, Wolfgang Klippel, Chin Fa Cheng,
Laurie Fincham, Vance Dickason, Eric Chu and Bob True.
Dinner: As
always, the networking dinner at Yolie's was popular,
with over
60 people digging into an unlimited quantity of
Brazilian steaks and other meats, with wine provided by
Ferrotec, Polk Audio and Menlo East.
Read Full
Review |
New Year - New Job!
The New Year
brings with it a bumper crop of job openings at ALMA
member companies including Rockford, Listen, Bose,
Russound and more. ALMA member companies are recruiting
for loudspeaker engineers, transducer engineers,
programmers, sales engineers, acoustic engineers and
more.
View Job
Listings |
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Standards
Update
Dan
Field, chair of the Standards Committees, brings us this
update on standards activity at the October 2007 China
Symposium. A report of the standards meetings that took
place at the Winter Symposium will be included in the
next newsletter.
ALMA
Standards was featured prominently in a presentation at
the China Symposium by Eric Chu of EAV. This
presentation included details of our connections of the
various world standards bodies, and the importance of
our liaisons with each of them. Our Chinese members were
invited to join in ALMA's standards building
process.
We recently
completed the transfer of the spider deflection standard
(EIA RS-438) from the CEA to ALMA. This along with
securing sole copyright on the cone resonance tests
completes our effort to consolidate the standards making
process for loudspeaker soft parts. Work continues to
enhance and preserve these standards.
A scheduled
liaison meeting was held in Vienna (May 2007) in
conjunction with the AES standards activity. Informal
discussions covered ALMA's support of AES
standards.
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Ask Andy - Reusing Old
Trademarks
 Our resident Patent
and Trademark expert, Andrew McKinney answers your
questions.
Q:
Andy,
is there a website that one can search to find whether a
trade mark is still in active use or who owns it, or do
we need to hire a trademark attorney to do that for
us? We have noticed that old out-of-use
speaker and electronic trademarks are being adopted and
registered by new companies having no apparent
connection to the original owner. We wonder if it
is legal / possible to adopt these old brand names
and use them to create new branded lines of
product.
Dan
Digre, MISCO/Minneapolis Speaker Company
Andy's Answer - click
here
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New ALMA Board
Members
At the Winter Symposium, new executive
committee members were elected by the board, and new
board members were elected by ALMA members. Our new
executive committee is:
President: John Stewart,
Harman Becker
VP Europe: Dorit Larsen,
Loudsoft
VP Asia: Phil Bunch,
Phase Design
VP Americas: Steve
Tatarunis, Menlo East
New board members are Jennifer Ni (Phase
Design) and George Wise (Nuway). John Busenitz (Bose)
and Steve Tatarunis (Menlo East) were re-elected for a
second term.
At this time, I'd like to take this
opportunity to thank our outgoing executive committee
members, Stu Lumsden, President and Wolfgang Klippel, VP
Europe, as well as outgoing board member Steve Loberger
for all their hard work over the past couple of years.
Without a doubt, under Stu's leadership the organization
has seen many positive changes, and I look forward to
working with John Stewart and the new executive
committee to continue this.
Full Board Member
Listing
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New Members
Please join
me in extending a warm welcome to the following new
members, and check out their web sites to learn more
about the products and services that they have to
offer.
Full members:
Martin
Logan: Martin
Logan, based in Lawrence, KS, designs and
builds an award-winning range of stereo and home theater
speaker systems. Website.
PacSys: UK-based
PacSys makes Acoustic
analysis software utilising finite element and boundary
element methods, and loudspeaker analysis tools. Website.
Sea
Galleon: Sea
Galleon International, Ltd, with offices in Hong Kong,
Guangdong and Taiwan, is a trading company and
authorized agent for many world-class loudspeaker
component and raw materials companies. Website.
Prism Media
Products: Prism
Media Products, the US office of UK-based Prism Sound,
makes the dScope Series III audio analyser, a
comprehensive and powerful measurement system for
analogue and digital audio generation and analysis. Website.
Psychoacoustic
Solutions:
Psychoacoustic Solutions offers a range of products to
make speakers sound better. These include a
Multi-channel Differential Positional Processor, a
Multi-channel HD Audio Amplifier, and a Binaural
Acoustic Wave Projector. Website.
Scandinavian
Audio Research:
Scandinavian Audio Research designs and manufactures the
SB Acoustics product line, a new range of drivers for
the OEM market, designed by some of Scandinavia's top
loudspeaker designers Website.
Tannoy:
Tannoy
is a leading innovator of premium audio solutions
utilizing cutting edge acoustic, electronic and digital
expertise.Its vast loudspeaker and
amplifier portfolio caters for anything from pubs,
clubs, corporate boardrooms, retail and leisure venues,
public buildings, places of worship, through to large
theatre usage and professional recording studios. Website.
Consultant members:
Matt Lyons,
Lyonsound: LyonSound
is an engineering and design firm that specializes in
home theater, acoustics and consumer electronics.
Lyonsound designs custom home theaters, including
acoustic treatment, projector and screen configuration
as well as 3D room models. Website.
Ron Sauro,
NWAA Labs: NWAA Labs
is an independent laboratory providing uniform product
testing of loudspeakers and materials to the audio and
acoustics industry. NWAA Labs has the ability to do
MACH™ Testing of these items to meet ISO and ASTM
standards. Website.
Individual members: Ali
Bazoun, Arata Tada, Eric Creps, Gordon Wanlass, Grant
Juel, James Walter, Karl Kerstein, Katherine Spanou, and
Laurie
Fincham. |
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Your Newsletter - Your
Content!
Do you have a good technical
article that you would like to submit to ALMA news. Or
press releases? Send me your new product information for
inclusion. This is a great opportunity for free
publicity for your company.
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| Visit our Winter
Symposium Sponsors
Proceedings CD 
Wine Gold Sponsorship
Wine Silver Sponsorship
Wine Bronze Sponsorship
Menlo
East
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Planning for Future
Events
We are in the
process of planning our 2008 China Symposium and 2009 Winter
Symposium and would love to hear your thoughts. Please email
me with any opinions, particularly on what you have thought of
past events, what you would like to see done differently in
future events, and what you would like to see in terms of
training and presentations.
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Board
Meeting
The next ALMA
Board of Directors meeting will be held March 27-28 at the
Hampton Inn Glen Burnie, Baltimore. As always, it is an open
meeting and any ALMA member may attend and contribute. If you
would like to attend, either in person or by phone, please
email me and let me know so that I can ensure that you receive
a copy of the agenda and we have space for
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Advertise Here!
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for more details or call ALMA at 617 314
6977. Learn More
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Upcoming Events
May 17-20, 2008
AES Europe (124),
Amsterdam, Netherlands.
July 10-13, 2008 Sinoces, Quingdao,
China.
Oct 2-5, 2008
AES
San Francisco (125), San Francisco, CA,
USA
October 18-19, 2008 - ALMA China -
ALMA's China Winter Symposium. Shenzhen, China
January 6-7,
2009, ALMA Winter Symposium, Las Vegas, NV,
USA.
January 8-11, 2009, CES - The International
Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas, NV, USA.
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