By Karen Parnell

The trend toward everything-consumer means everything at the lowest possible price for the buyer and the highest volume for the seller. For audio that traditionally has dictated two different markets, one at the very high end and another at the mass-market price point.

That’s all changing. Sound no longer can be just “good enough.” It has to be all-encompassing, rich, deep and impactful in all cases, whether it’s for music, movies or gaming. As a result, designers now face the challenge of delivering great-sounding audio with no cost adders.

So how do you solve this dilemma? One answer is audio post-processing. While designers need the capability to enable existing audio transducers to sound exceptional, they also need to save on overall BOM costs. Allowing designers to select even lower-cost speakers and amplifiers – without compromising audio quality – is key, so finding the right “product mastering tools” to ensure the best possible sound from an existing set-up to optimize the audio quality are important.

–Karen Parnell is a product marketing director at Virage Logic