2008 ALMA Asia Show Draws over 80 Attendees

ALMA International and Phase Group are very pleased to announce that the 2008 Asia symposium was the smoothest ever and was a great success for our exhibitors and attendees. This year’s symposium topic was "Improving Output and Profitability – A Practical Guide". Sponsored and hosted by Phase Design, a division of the Phase Group Inc, The 2008 Asia symposium had over 80 attendees and 12 exhibitors displaying a range of products and services to the audio industry. The general consensus of the attendees was that the 2008 symposium was one of the best ever. Without question, Jennifer Ni, General manager of Phase and ALMA International board member led the effort to organize the 2008 event and deserves much if not all of the credit for the well attended, smooth running show. All of us on the ALMA International Board and Executive committee extend our thanks to Jennifer Ni and the staff of Phase Group for their continued support of ALMA

The 2008 event was officially started by ALMA International past President and Polk Audio VP of Engineering, Stu Lumsden. Stu introduced keynote address by Laurie Fincham of THX with Mike Klasco of Menlo Scientific. The gentlemen both delivered fascinating and informative keynote speeches to the benefit of all in attendance. Following the Keynotes, Eric Chu delivered an ALMA standards committee update and called for additional participation from the Asia engineering and technical community to support international standards for the loudspeaker industry.

After a wonderful buffet lunch break, presentations were made by several industries leading professionals in test and measurement as well as material science.

·Steve Temme of Listen Inc. delivered a presentation covering Automated testing vs the human ear.

·Stefan Irrgang of Klippel GmbH presented on the topic of checking voice coil position on the production line

·Ib Rasmussen of K&K International spoke related to testing loudspeakers in a production environment

·Jimmy Ying from Sea Galleon presented two options for design using Aptiv / PEEK films and ferrofluid to improve performance of loudspeakers

The final session of the day was a continuation of the panel discussion started at the 2008 ALMA International Winter Symposium. The panel topic was "Are you Shipping defective Loudspeakers to Your Customers?". Moderated by Steve Temme with a panel consisting of Chris Vonhellerman, Laurie Fincham, Stu Lumsden and Eric Chu. The panel discussion was a big attraction to the attendees with over 90% attendance and many questions and comments from the panel audience.

Saturday’s activities were concluded with the attendees having plenty of time to meet the exhibitors. A quick check of the booth area showed significant interest and activity at every booth on the floor. Exhibitor feedback from Saturday was positive with several comments of securing new business and customers right there on the show floor.

Sunday activities included more interaction between symposium attendees and exhibitors as well as two dedicated training workshops related directly to the loudspeaker industry. The morning session entitled "End Of Line Test Results to Process Improvements" was conducted by Phase Group President and CTO, Phil Bunch. With 45 attendees for his training course, Phil covered the items necessary to identify the stability of an on-line test system and to apply that stability to process improvements in a speaker production facility. Phase has also given permission for ALMA International members and Symposium attendees to use proprietary testing templates and internal documents as a guide to improvement of testing systems. This data and the presentation summary will be available on the Phase Group website; ALMA Members and symposium attendees can download the data pack on or after October 25th, 2008 – www.Phasedesign.net

Following another fantastic buffet lunch, the attendees moved back into the presentation hall for the afternoon session led by Stefan Irrgang from Klippel GmbH entitled "Using Simple Tools to design Small Speakers With High Output". Stefan presented some unique but basic and easy to follow concepts for identifying key areas of the design process and how to apply them to the bigger goal of designing smaller speakers that still meet the demands of the market. His presentation drew identical attendance to the morning session and was very well reviewed by the attendees. Please check the Klippel website for a summary of the presentation given by Stefan at the 2008 Asia Symposium; it is slated to be available by October 25th, 2008 at www.Klippel.de

Phase Group Inc has provided a letter of intent to ALMA International to host and Sponsor the 2009 Asia Symposium for the 4th year in a row. However, we are looking for additional sponsors and associate hosts to assist with the sponsorship of the Symposium in 2010 and beyond. Phase is dedicated to the long term success of ALMA International and hopes to see other companies take on a more active role in the Asia Symposium activities prior to the weekend of the event.

We look forward to seeing you all at the 2009 Winter Symposium in Las Vegas Nevada and again at the 2009 Asia Symposium.

Winter symposium Info: http://www.almainternational.org/2009_winter_symposium.php