CES 2014: Audio roundup

Imagine the footsteps of thousands and thousands of people. Now add in hundreds of booths showing loud promo videos, playing music and giving demos over microphones. That is the literal sound of electronics CES. The theoretical sound of CES will come from some of the products you see below. We feel this selection of products gives you a pretty good feel for the trends we're likely to see in 2014. Enjoy.

Usually, this isn't a category that gets too much attention. Digital audio interfaces may come in all shapes and sizes, but they are ultimately fairly utilitarian devices. Korg, however, tried to spice the genre up a little with its AudioGate USB DAC line. What's different about these guys? Well the larger model certainly has an eye-catching design, but it's the companion software that offers high-resolution DSD audio output that we think will make it an appealing prospect.

The thing with audio is that it's often a feature of something else, rather than a gadget's dedicated chinese electronics function. Case in point? LG's new SoundPlate (LAB540W). Part soundbar, part Blu-ray player, the SoundPlate has 4.1 audio (and an external subwoofer) that cranks out your movie soundtrack at 320 watts. WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity only serve to add virtual cherries onto the metaphorical cake.

Sifting through the many, many new pairs of headphones on show at CES would be nigh on impossible. But, through all the noise, a few pairs do tend to bubble up into our consciousness. 50 Cent's new line of Star Wars-themed and sport-friendly cans is one such example. In particular, the water/sweat-proof wireless sync models that offer cable-free comfortable training look like a winner. DJs, on the other hand, might want to take a look at Sennheiser's new line of DJ headphones. Purpose built with spinners in mind, these things look and feel solid -- oh, and they sound great, too.

Audio accessories usually come in two categories: cheap and crazy expensive. B&O's Essence falls into the latter consumer electronics category, but we won't lie: We're curious about it. As far as we can tell, it's a fancy-pants physical audio controller for the audio lover that has everything. And that's OK. Why shouldn't these things exist? Essentially, you can place these around your home and seamlessly control your music as you saunter from room to room. Or just have one in your man/woman cave. You'll need some B&O gear for it to work with, of course, but if you're at all in the market for thing like this, we imagine you already have that covered.
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9-Axis Sensor Stars in Movea Wearable

Movea, a company that specializes in motion processing software, has crafted a wearable wristband reference design for sports and wellness applications in collaboration with Texas Instruments and the contract design house Xm-Squared. The sensor, announced today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, will be jointly marketed by Movea and Xm-Squared and features connectivity courtesy of TI's CC2541 Bluetooth low-energy system-on-chip.

As Movea's first reference design for wearables, the G-Series uses its Motionsport embedded software library, which includes all the normal activity monitoring algorithms for sports and wellness wearables plus functions for determine whether the wearer is standing, sitting, walking, or running. Original equipment manufacturers gain access to Movea's motion sensing algorithms from an application programmers interface that includes step count, energy expenditure, distance traveled, and sports performance metrics such as running speed, pedestrian cadency (steps per minute), and biking cadency (revolutions per minute).

Based on a InvenSense's nine-axis micro-electromechanical system chip (including a three-axis accelerometer, three-axis gyroscope, and three-axis magentometer), the G-Series utilizes only the accelerometer today.

"The reason we use a nine-axis chip in the reference design, but only utilize the three-axis accelerometer today, is to realize the other reference design applications in the future without having to redesign the board," Ava Pagneux, marketing communications manager at Movea, told us. The G-Series is also the world's most accurate and laser sensor solution for the always-on "quantified self" applications. "We ran benchmarks between the G-Series and the five most popular activity monitors and found it to outperform each in nearly every category."

For activity classification, for instance, Movea claims a success rate higher than 95%, along with the industry's lowest error score (less than 1.7%, versus an average of 6.3% for competitors). The reference design's always-on energy efficiency gives an estimated 10-day battery life between charges by consuming about five milliWatts while activity monitoring.

"Our design is also the first wearable to automatically detect sleep, performing sleep analysis every night with the accuracy of a PolySomnograph," Pagneux said.

Today, hospitals use PolySomnography -- based on EEG -- to detect wakefulness, sleep, and deep-sleep cycles, but Movea says its device can achieve pressure sensors comparable results by analyzing the data stream from an accelerometer alone.

"PolySomnography is the gold-standard for measuring sleep patterns in hospitals, but using our device achieves very similar results," Pagneux said. As for the partners' future plans, "the next generation of our reference design will couple with medical devices, such as heart rate and body-temperature monitors, to realize a new generation of e-health applications."

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