Test and Measurement News

Prism Sound and LOUDSOFT announce strategic partnership

Cambridge, UK: Prism Sound, manufacturer of audio test equipment for the pro audio, broadcast, consumer electronics and automotive industries, has announced a strategic partnership with LOUDSOFT, Danish manufacturer of loudspeaker simulation and analysis tools: Prism Sound will become a global sales and support agent for LOUDSOFT's entire product range, with immediate effect.

Prism Sound's Simon Woollard and LOUDSOFT's Peter Larsen

This partnership will allow Prism Sound to combine LOUDSOFT's high quality loudspeaker design and acoustic testing tools with its own acclaimed dScope Series III audio analyser platform, providing customers with a complete package of loudspeaker system design and measurement tools, catering for everything from product design right through to production line testing, and thus enabling greater efficiencies in workflow.

Today's loudspeaker design engineer requires a broad skill set, including electro-magnetic motor design, diaphragm geometry optimisation, low frequency enclosure design, crossover network and dynamics optimisation, power amplifier design, and many areas of system analysis. Traditionally this has involved working with a number of different software simulation packages and test and measurement solutions, most of which were unable to easily exchange data or work together.

Headed by independent consultant and ex-Vifa Chief Engineer Peter Larsen, LOUDSOFT offers a number of user friendly Windows-based programs including FINEMotor, for designing magnet systems and voice coils; FINEBox, for designing loudspeaker enclosures, FINECone, for designing soft parts such as cones, domes, surrounds and dustcaps, FINE X-over, for designing x-overs quickly and with as few components as possible and FINELab QC for acoustic testing of assembled drive units and loudspeakers. These simulation and analysis tools are built on a universal platform whereby all applications are capable of sharing data and importing analysis results for comparison with simulations, simplifying and streamlining the process of system design.

This integrated approach to electroacoustic system design complements Prism Sound's uniquely powerful dScope Series III audio test and measurement product range, which aims to cater for all stages of audio system design and manufacture. The dScope Series III platform caters for analogue and digital audio signal generation and analysis, board-level serial digital interfacing, and supports direct testing of Windows® audio devices. The systems offers electronic domain and acoustic domain analysis tools, facilitating microphone, loudspeaker and room analysis.

Simon Woollard, Applications Engineer for Prism Sound, says: "Having worked directly in the field of loudspeaker design, I appreciate how complex a typical R&D bench can become in terms of the number of design and analysis tools. Exchanging and comparing simulation and analysis results between different manufacturer's systems can be cumbersome and time-consuming, and this adds to the existing pressures to deliver better sounding products in ever-shorter timescales.

"Both LOUDSOFT and Prism Sound are responding to this need to simplify design and analysis systems by providing greater levels of integration of the tools needed to accomplish the task. Both companies are also aiming to provide the most powerful solutions possible in a highly cost-effective format. This shared philosophy meant that a partnership made perfect sense, and this now gives Prism Sound the capability to offer customers a complete solution to loudspeaker system design and end-of-line test, all from a single vendor. Prism Sound has a number of staff members who have direct experience in the field of electroacoustic design and test, and this gives us the ability to understand our customers' needs and to develop the solutions that they require. We work very closely with our global network of partners in order to provide support to our customers wherever they are in the world, and we are very excited about this new addition to our product range that we will be offering on a worldwide basis."

Commenting on the new strategic partnership, Peter Larsen says: "As the founder of LOUDSOFT I am really looking forward to working with Prism Sound. I think our companies complement each other very well. At LOUDSOFT we focus on powerful software for reducing time-to-market for new products. Time is so important today, both for the market and for the single person. We had an interesting comment from one of our FINE X-over customers. He said that both he and his wife were happy with this software because he now gets home two hours earlier as a result of using it!

"As an acoustic design consultant I work in depth with all of the LOUDSOFT programs and I am constantly developing the software so that it gives me even more help with my design work. By doing this I know that customers are also getting software that will help them bring new and better products to market as fast as possible."