Greetings!
In
this issue we are excited to announce both our upcoming
symposiums, one in Asia and one in Las Vegas. We also
bring you a message from John Stewart, new ALMA
president, standards updates and some interesting
technical articles.
Remember, this
newsletter is interactive - you can click on the blue
links in this email to get more information from the
ALMA web site!
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President's
Welcome 
Welcome new
and returning ALMA International members!
As
president, my goal is to provide you the means to meet
and discuss issues affecting our industry and gain
practical insight. ALMA International is a focal point
of knowledge, standards and education that pertain to
the loudspeaker industry. I am proud to lead an
enthusiastic board of directors, skilled committees, and
an energetic executive director in our efforts to
deliver these benefits through our symposia programs and
website. Thanks to these people and our outgoing
president, Stu Lumsden, we completed another very
successful symposium in January, providing a springboard
for the coming year.
To keep a volunteer-led
organization on the move we share the work among a
constantly evolving group of committees. Please lend
your expertise and support to make these efforts
fruitful.
Our Winter Symposium Committee is led by
Steve Tatarunis. Jennifer Ni is leading the Asia
Symposium Committee this year. Dorit Larsen is
investigating a location and timeframe for a European
Symposium. Our Education and Training Committee is led
by Dr. Earl Geddes. Under his guidance ALMA is preparing
to unveil a certification program for technicians and
engineers. Our other committees and chairmen
(chairwomen) include: Standards - Brian Sterling,
Liaisons - Dan Field, Finance - Laurie Crook,
Intellectual Property - Andy McKinney, Wiki - John
Busenitz, Membership - Laurie Crook and Steve Temme
We enrich the breadth of our discussion groups with
expansion of membership to all corners of the globe. Our
regional Vice Presidents; Steve Tatarunis - North and
South America, Phil Bunch - Asia, and Dorit Larsen -
Europe are leading us to an increased global presence.
To build international membership we will hold our
fourth Asia Symposium in China on October 18th and 19th.
Our next Winter Symposium, which marks the 20th
anniversary of the first ALMA Winter Symposium in 1989
will showcase Dr. Floyd Toole with an additional day of
training scheduled for January 5th, 2009. The symposium
planning committee is putting together a full program of
training, discussion, tutorials, and exhibits on the 6th
and 7th.
I look forward to seeing you at one of our
upcoming events. In the meantime, please contact me if
you have any questions, comments or suggestions about
ALMA.
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Standards
Update
Attendance
at standards meetings at the Winter Symposium in January
was good, and Dan Field, chair of the Standards
Committees, brings us this update.
ALMA
Standards has two primary activities: 1) the development
of new standards for loudspeaker design and
manufacturing, and 2) a liaison activity with other
standards producing organizations; notably the Audio
Engineering Society (AES), and the Consumer Electronics
Association (CEA). Brian Sterling's chairmanship has
brought forth many useful standards as regards drawing,
dimensioning, and documenting loudspeaker parts. If you
haven't seen them in a while, look for http://www.almainternational.org/compstandards_geninfo.php.
On that site you will find much background
information, meeting notes, etc. Familiarity with these
standards can help manufacturers streamline and improve
transaction efficiency with parts suppliers and product
quality departments.
ALMA is currently
taking comments on the need and applicability for an
output based loudspeaker standard that would simplify
the specification of acoustic performance of powered
loudspeakers. The interest is in defining a fairly
simple acoustic specification, which would allow the
designers to freely manage the power input and speaker
specifications together. In that way, the amplifier can
be matched to the speaker for greater system synergy,
without the need to specify the components individually.
If interested in contributing to this activity, Please
send a note to Dan
Field referencing project
ALMA-2006-2.
Click the link below for
a full status update on various ALMA standards.
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 The dates are fixed, the
schedule is being planned, and we are now selling
exhibit booths. Come and join us at the 4th ALMA
symposium in Asia on October 18-19, Shenzhen, China. The
event is taking place the weekend immediately after the
Hong Kong Electronics Fair, so we expect that many of
you may be in the region anyway, and if not, now you
have two reasons to go!
We are building on
the success of last year's event, holding it at the same
location in Shenzhen, the heart of China's
loudspeaker manufacturing industry. Our goal is to bring
together Asian manufacturers with Western companies
looking to outsource product development and
manufacturing, and to make it easy for local speaker
manufacturers to see a wide range of test and
measurement systems, design products and speaker
components in one place. By holding the event in an
easily accessible location, and organized and managed by
English as well as Chinese speakers, we help you
overcome some of the language barriers and other
challenges to exhibiting and selling product in
China.
We will be following the format that we
introduced last year, with day 1 including keynote and
commercial presentations, and day 2 including more
in-depth training on issues as diverse as manufacturing,
test, modeling, and design. The exhibits will run
alongside both days. Attendees may attend either one, or
both days. The preliminary schedule is now
available.
ALMA Asia
Schedule
Registration
Form
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2009 Winter Symposium: Bigger
& Better
Following on from the growth in both
exhibitor and attendee numbers at the 2007 and 2008
Winter Symposium, we expect that our 2009 Symposium,
which marks the 20th anniversary of ALMA Winter
Symposiums, will be the biggest and best ever. We have
taken on board all your feedback from last year, and
this has resulted in us running an
additional training class on Jan 5, the day before
the main two day event on Jan 6-7, to ease
the situation of having several concurrent events
on the first day. We hope that this will allow more
people to attend the training, and increase traffic in
the exhibit hall. We have already assembled an exciting
line-up of events and hope that you are able to join us.
Exhibitor booth booking is now open, as is our call for
technical papers.
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Latest Job Postings
New
positions on our job board include a Sourcing Manager at
Martin Logan and an International Sales Manager at
Listen Inc.
View Job
Listings |
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Are You Shipping Defective
Loudspeakers? 
By Rob Baum, Microsoft (Hardware
division, full time contractor). Formerly with Menlo
Scientific.
ALMA held an interesting panel
discussion on January 6, 2008, entitled "Are You
Shipping Defective Loudspeakers to Your Customers (or
Are You Rejecting Good Loudspeakers)?" moderated by
Steve Temme of Listen, Inc. The subject is important
because it covers nuts-and-bolts quality issues in a
broad sense-not just whether the part passes a test at
the end of the line (after all the value has been put
into it), but how to improve the entire process.
Improving and maintaining the overall process from
design for manufacture using statistical quality control
results in fewer rejects, higher quality, and lower
costs (yes, you really can have all
three).
As manufacturing across
many industries gets outsourced to China's vast
industrial machine, it becomes increasingly difficult
for manufacturing management to "close the loop" and
keep a close eye on quality-since manufacturing is now
often in another company, half a world away. Clear
thinking and planning for the process of moving products
from design to pre-production and then large-scale mass
production become essential to avoid disasters on the
factory floor in Shenzhen showing up by the container
load six weeks later.
Read the full
article
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Doing Business in
Asia By Mike Klasco & Steve
Tatarunis, Menlo Scientific.
This article is heavily based on a tutorial
session presented at the 2008 ALMA Winter
Symposium.
 In this article,
seasoned traveler and loudspeaker industry expert, Mike
Klasco, shares his observations on Asian loudspeaker
manufacturing, taking you on a tour of the various
manufacturing centers in Asia, including China, Taiwan,
Hong Kong, Korea and the Phillipines. He discusses the
advantages, disadvantages, manufacturing and engineering
skills and weaknesses of each region, as well
as providing useful information such as cost,
accessibility, the standard of hotels, and how to get
there.
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Are you Linked
In?  Do you use LinkedIn,
the business networking website? There is now an ALMA
group set up. If you are listed on LinkedIn, use the
link below to join this group. Note that you must be
either an individual member, or work for a full member
company to be approved for group membership. Membership
validation is a manual process, and may take a few days.
If it is not clear from your linked in email address who
you are (and therefore whether you are a member) I may
request that you send me an email from your company
email address to confirm your identity.
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Advertise Here!
Do you sell to the loudspeaker industry? The
ALMA newsletter is a great way to get your sales message in
front of a highly targeted audience. We offer advertising
options to suit every company and budget. Click the link below
for more details or call ALMA at 617 314
6977. Learn More
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Upcoming Events
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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