Brian's Brain

It's February, so that means it's time for Pro Audio News Magazine's yearly series of interviews with key audio equipment designers regarding their semiconductor vendor and product preferences. As usual, alas, the summary article from publication editor Frank Wells is only available in the February print issue, but again as usual, the unabridged source Q&A is available here as a 'web extra'. Two particular data points jump out at me in perusing the material:

• The engineers interviewed tend to not rely solely on spec sheets when selecting products; they take the extra time, effort and expense to build up prototypes in order to see how the components sound. I've got decent 'golden ears' (more), and I'm even impressed with their claimed discernment skills!
• There's a notable data processing 'engine' shift away from DSPs and towards FPGAs (along with, to some degree, host-based x86 CPU processing), if the interviewees are indicative of a broader industry trend. After many years' worth of incorporating dedicated MAC and other like-minded circuits in their chips, coupled with advocacy of the concept in seminars, documentation and tool sets, the programmable logic vendors are doubtlessly pleased with this transition. Traditionally dominant audio DSP manufacturers such as Analog Devices, Cirrus Logic, Motorola-now-Freescale, and Texas Instruments, on the other hand...

What interesting insights did you acquire?

By the way, in looking back at my 2007 and 2008 similarly-themed posts while preparing this one, I noticed that the embedded links to prior years' Pro Sound News transcripts were dead; apparently the publication redesigned its website some time in the last nine months. Frank Wells also provided me with the last few years' worth of updated links (the 2006 one is currently not working, but his web team is fixing it as I type this), which I pass on to you, along with a few others that Google helped me update myself (the 2004 part II link is also DOA right now; I'll pass this along to Frank as well):

• Web Bonus: Audio Semiconductors 2008
• Special Report: Semiconductors (2007)
• Semiconductors: Chips Off The New Block (2006)
• February Special Report (2005)
• Semiconductors in Audio, Part I, Part II and Part III (2004)