Former employees of Dolby Labs and Velodyne hope to crack...

Former employees of Dolby Labs and Velodyne hope to crack the crowded earphone and portable Bluetooth speaker markets by “bringing the quality of audio back to the forefront,” Devon Bergman, Om Audio vice president-marketing, told Consumer Electronics Daily. The six-month-old company wants to shift the pitch of earphone and Bluetooth speaker marketing toward sound quality and away from the fashion direction that portable audio has taken recently, he said. And it wants to do so at a “reasonable” price, Bergman said. The company has announced a $99 Bluetooth 4.0 speaker due to ship in early February that can play as a standalone unit or in stereo when paired with a twin, Bergman said. The speakers follow the release last fall of a pair of earbuds that sell on Amazon for $149. Bergman touted the Mantra speakers’ medium-density fiberboard cabinets, which are finished in walnut, as comparable to cabinets used for traditional loudspeakers. The 3.5-watt speakers are portable and are said to deliver 13 hours of music on a charge. A built-in microphone allows the speakers to be used for phone calls and other voice-activated features on mobile devices, according to literature. Om is trying to differentiate itself with sound accuracy and voice clarity versus bass, Bergman said. “Too many companies spend time on trying to make the loudest bass possible,” he said. “We're not trying to make this what it’s not,” he said, citing the 2-inch diameter of the speaker’s woofer that he said can’t be expected to perform like a 10-inch woofer. Next up for Om is a studio headphone to be followed by what it calls its “signature EQ.” The patent-pending technology will allow listeners to retune their headphones or Bluetooth speakers via a DSP chip built into the headphone jack of earbuds or speakers. Through the headphone jack, the technology will send information that customizes the sound in the headset. “People will be able to buy headphones from us and make it the way they want to hear it,” he said. Consumers will be able to choose from preset EQ filters optimized for genres such as rock or jazz and they will also be able to tweak the EQ curve to their own liking and then “hard-code” the equalization to the headset. When they plug the headset or the Bluetooth speakers into any source device with a headphone jack, the sound profile will be resident on the device, he said. Om Audio is also working with musical artists on signature filters that will be available to users through the artists’ communities so that fans can listen to music the way a musician wants them to hear it, Bergman said. Users will be able to download filters from an artist’s website and then upload them to their headphones via the headphone jack “and take that experience with them,” he said. It’s “to be determined” whether filters will be given away or sold like ringtones, Bergman said. Om’s earphones sell at Onecall.com and Huppin’s, Bergman said, and the company plans to make additional retail announcements soon.