PUI Audio Delivers Clean, Clear Sound from Tiny Speakers

More portable devices are being designed with sound, yet not all engineers developing these systems have audio expertise. This is where a company like PUI Audio can step in. A family-owned business in Dayton, Ohio, PUI Audio is North America's largest, broadest audio components provider. Starting from its early days, the company has built its business on a foundation based on listening to its customers. In addition to its vast product portfolio, the company also provides upfront design support, turnkey engineering capabilities, on-site production assistance, and functional and environmental testing.

One of the challenges to delivering audio capabilities from portable devices is extracting loud, clear, and rich sound from these compact products. You can increase loudness and bass response by driving these micro speakers harder. But without proper speaker protection, this approach can damage the speakers. To properly protect the speakers, the algorithm in the amplifier responsible for boosting the loudness of the audio signals needs to know the speaker's characteristics, including the resonant frequency within its enclosure, its excursion limit, and its voice coil thermal limit. Speaker characterization, in turn, is an expensive and time-consuming process.

PUI Audio has been designing speakers for many years. When Maxim reached out with an opportunity to collaborate using Maxim's latest audio amplifier IC, the company took the opportunity to add the MAX98390 IV-sense amplifier into its toolbox. The MAX98390 features Dynamic Speaker Management (DSM) technology, which allows designers to safely push their micro speakers beyond their specified power rating (up to 5W) to maximize the loudness. The result is louder, richer sound from micro speakers. For PUI Audio, the smart amplifier helps to increase its speakers' capabilities, enabling the company to meet its customers' expectations for next-level sound.

Read the PUI Audio testimonial to learn more about how the company solved its design challenges with the MAX98390 smart amplifier. Learn more about DSM technology from the DSM page, which features a user's guide, a list of preferred micro speaker vendors, and videos.

Electronic toys are among the compact products that feature micro speakers.