[Linearx Leap 5 19
Kody Coste
Backin college I had the opportunity to A-B test a pair$600 Klipsch speakers, which was a lot of money whenI was in college, against a pair of home brew speakersthat were built from Peerless drivers at a cost of lessthan $200. There was really no comparison, the homemade speakers were leaps and bounds better. I then realizedthat good speakers could be built at low cost. Aftergraduating with an electrical engineering degree andstarting my career in audio I had a solid grasp on audiobasics. I built that same pair of home brews with thehelp of Warren Merkel, who designed them. He also wroteand published a speaker design program called PerfectBox. Later in my career a colleague built speakers usingDynaudio tweeters and after listening to his speakersI knew then that I also wanted to design speakers usingDynaudio drivers. At that time I was still early intomy career and Dynaudio's were some of the most expensivedrivers available plus I didn't have a good grasp ofspeaker design yet. Through the years I listened toas many speakers as I could in the area and what I foundin general was that I didn't like hard dome tweeters.Although there were a few speakers with hard domes thatI did like I decided to stick to building speakers witha soft dome tweeter. So after studying speaker designbooks through the years I was ready to build speakerswith Dynaudio drivers. I don't claim to be an expertat speaker design but I learned that it is a combinationof science and art.
Claritywas not a design goal because it is inherent in Dynaudiodrivers. My first and primary design goal was imagingand sound stage. My second goal was speaker size. Ididn't want speakers half the size of a refrigerator.My third goal was some good low end bass which resultedin making a 3-way speaker. Lastly, I wanted these speakersto look good.
Designingspeakers requires a balancing act and this is wherethe design gets tough. I had to find drivers that soundedgood together, a woofer that played down into the upper20 Hz range, drivers with closely matched sensitivities,and result in a box of medium size. I started with thefamous and world renowned Dynaudio D260 Esotec tweeter.Keeping my primary goal in mind I then chose a Dynaudiodome midrange. The dome tweeter coupled with the domemidrange should provide excellent imaging and theirsensitivities were within 1 dB of each other. It isimportant to consider driver sensitivity in order tokeep the crossover as simple as possible. When theirsensitivities don't match, typically, additional componentsare needed to the compensate for the mismatch.
Ifyou are not familiar with speaker design, the box sizeis based on the woofer parameters. Using Perfect Boxsoftware I modeled different woofers and observed thefrequency response compared with the box size. I startedwith Dynaudio woofers but after modeling them, theirbox size turned out to be larger than I wanted. Thiswas some what disappointing because I wanted all driversto be Dynaudio. I also modeled Scan Speak woofers buttheir box size wasn't conducive either. I finally settledon a Peerless 10" Woofer. It was a company I wasfamiliar with and like Dynaudio was a Danish companywhich made quality drivers. The box size met my goalsand the sensitivity was within 2 dB of the other twodrivers. Something I haven't mentioned that was a veryimportant part of my design was the manufacturers responsecurves. I was looking for smoothness in the curves.Since this woofer was to be used as a mid-bass driverit also had to be smooth.
Nowthat all drivers were chosen the next step was to designa crossover. With all the variables associated withspeaker drivers it is nearly impossible to design acrossover with a pencil, paper and a calculator. Ifyou do, you will be tweaking them for a long time andeventually you'll spend more time tweaking the crossoversinstead of enjoying music. A crossover modeling programis essential but it was not included in the PerfectBox program. Fortunately, Madisound offers a servicefor designing crossovers using the LEAP program fromLinearX. I believe LEAP is the industry standard forcrossover modeling so I used the Madisound service.After I researched many DIY speaker projects on theNet and studied the manufacturers frequency responsecurves, I chose the crossover frequencies without theaid of LEAP. This very important decision and differentfrom most other designs was not to push the driversto their on axis limits. In other words I chose crossoverpoints where the driver was still flat even at 60 degreesoff axis. This key decision is why I believe my speakershave excellent imaging and sound stage.
Warren,the author of the Perfect Box program, brought his testequipment over and helped me tune the boxes to 26 Hz.I used a rear port only for aesthetic reasons. Afterrecently learning how much sound is actually generatedthrough the port, I would have used a front port instead.
Ken Stein is a contributing writer and reviewer for Audioholics and he really REALLY likes his speakers (which he should, since he spent countless hours hand-crafting them himself.) Ken is an engineer with FedEx and applies his diligent attention to detail to his speaker and electronics reviews here at Audioholics.
Leap Motion, Inc. (formerly OcuSpec Inc.)[1][2] was an American company that manufactured and marketed a computer hardware sensor device that supports hand and finger motions as input, analogous to a mouse, but requires no hand contact or touching. In 2016, the company released new software designed for hand tracking in virtual reality. The company was sold to the British company Ultrahaptics in 2019,[3] which rebranded the two companies under the new name Ultraleap.[4]
The technology for Leap Motion was first developed in 2008, while co-founder David Holz was studying for a Ph.D. in mathematics.[5][6] Holz co-founded the company with Michael Buckwald in 2010.[2] The company raised a $1.3 million seed financing round in June 2011 with investments from venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, and SOSV, as well as several angel investors.[7] In May 2012, Leap Motion announced a $12.75M Series A funding round led by Highland Capital Partners.[8] In January 2013, Leap Motion announced a further series B round of funding for $30M.[9]
After operating in quiet since 2010, Leap Motion publicly announced its first product, originally called The Leap, on May 21, 2012. The company launched a software developer program in October 2012[10] and distributed roughly 12,000 units to developers interested in creating applications for the device. While the device was slated to launch in May 2013, full-scale shipping was later delayed until July.[11] In March 2014, it was reported in TechCrunch that roughly 500,000 units had been sold, far short of initial expectations; as a result, Leap Motion announced layoffs for 10 percent of its workforce, primarily in sales and marketing.[12]
On April 7, 2014, COO Andy Miller left the company.[13] In May 2014, Leap Motion released its version 2 software to developers in a public beta.[14][15][16] In August 2014, the company launched a VR tracking mode for its core software, designed to provide hand tracking while the device is mounted on virtual reality headsets such as the Oculus Rift.[17][18] Later that year, Leap Motion launched a global game jam in partnership with independent games festival IndieCade with over $75,000 in prizes. The competition received over 150 submissions.[19] A second competition in 2015 resulted in 189 entries.[20] In March 2015, it was announced that the upcoming OSVR Hacker Development Kit would include an optional faceplate with embedded Leap Motion module.[21] In February 2016, Leap Motion released new software, called Orion, built for use in VR.[22]
In May 2019, Leap Motion was acquired by Ultrahaptics; the combined company was named 'Ultraleap'. The reported sale price was $30 million - about 10% of the company's peak valuation of $300 million reached in 2013.[23][3]
Leap Motion partnered with ASUS who was expected to ship high-end notebooks, and all-in-one PCs (AIO PCs) with the technology later in 2013.[24] Leap Motion also announced a deal with Hewlett Packard to embed its technology within HP computers.[25] In December 2013, it was reported Leap Motion would be embedded into eleven HP devices, including keyboards and laptops.[26]
The Leap Motion Controller is a small USB peripheral device which is designed to be placed on a physical desktop, facing upward. It can also be mounted onto a virtual reality headset. Using two monochromatic IR cameras and three infrared LEDs, the device observes a roughly hemispherical area, to a distance of about 1 meter. The LEDs generate pattern-less IR light[30] and the cameras generate almost 200 frames per second of reflected data.[31] This is then sent through a USB cable to the host computer, where it is analyzed by the company software using "complex maths" in a way that has not been disclosed by the company, in some way synthesizing 3D position data by comparing the 2D frames generated by the two cameras.[32][33] In a 2013 study, the overall average accuracy of the controller was shown to be 0.7 millimeters.[34]
The smaller observation area and higher resolution of the device differentiates the product from the Kinect, which is more suitable for whole-body tracking in a space the size of a living room.[35]In a demonstration to CNET, the controller was shown to perform tasks such as navigating a website, using pinch-to-zoom gestures on maps, high-precision drawing, and manipulating complex 3D data visualizations.[35]
Leap Motion initially distributed thousands of units to developers who are interested in creating applications for the device. The Leap Motion Controller was first shipped in July 2013.[11] In February 2016, Leap Motion released a major beta update to its core software. Dubbed Orion, the software is designed for hand tracking in virtual reality.[36][37]
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