The Earbud Tech of the Future Could Be Closer Than You Think
I first heard about MEMS tech when Creative sent me their Aurvana Ace 2 buds and the rather overambitious claim that the tech is unlike anything consumers have seen on traditional earbuds. I had seen multiple publications raving about xMEMS, the company behind the tech, revolutionizing traditional earbud speakers, and I was intrigued.
After an hour-long call with the VP of Marketing and Business Development at xMEMS, Mike Housholder, I was convinced that this is the earbud tech of the future that we’ll see on mainstream brands sooner than we think. As of yet, only a handful of brands currently feature the tech. These include Creative, HiBy, and Noble Audio.
MEMS (Micro-Electromechanical Systems) is essentially a solid-state semiconductor chip. Solid-state refers to electronic components that use semiconductor materials such as silicon. This is more game-changing than you think. Earbuds have featured the same kind of speakers for over a century, and xMEMS was the first to attempt to replace traditional speakers with MEMS speakers. The Silicon Valley company is looking to penetrate the entire audio industry, including earbuds, headphones, headsets, and hearing aids.
I’m pretty sure the newness of this tech will make many manufacturers and consumers uncomfortable at first. But here’s how Mike explained it to me. “If we use the analogy of video, once the content upgraded from standard res to hi-def, we never tried to resolve that content on legacy CRT monitors. We need the hardware to improve […] in order to faithfully render the content. We’re at the same point now in audio. We’ve got hi-res wireless codecs going into these earbuds. We’re trying to make the Bluetooth connectivity more efficient, but we’re rendering that on a century-old speaker hardware that might not be able to extract all of the resolution and detail in the content.”
A feature of MEMS that stood out to me was uniformity. The image below shows traditional coil speakers making use of a dozen parts. Also, putting a coil speaker together is still semi-automated, with considerable manual labor. On the other hand, a MEMS speaker is “a slab of monolithic silicon made in an entirely automated process from start to finish,” as Mike puts it.
Housholder explained that whenever humans are involved, there’s part-to-part variability, which translates to a much bigger issue in the case of earbuds, where 100% uniformity is required to achieve a successful stereo effect in both ears. MEMS speakers eliminate this issue with a fully automated manufacturing process, ensuring precision and increased scalability. Instead of an elaborate coil and magnet situation, just one piece of silicon is triggered by a pair of Piezo actuators. He claimed, “A silicon speaker is more consistent part to part. You can take any two of our speakers, and they’re perfectly matched by design because of the precision and the consistency of the semiconductor process.” MEMS speakers also feature more durability than standard ones and are IP58-rated against water.
MEMS speakers also produce better sound than traditional speakers. The silicon speaker moves around 150 times faster than a legacy coil and magnet speaker, resulting in more detailed sound. Mike added that “silicon is also significantly more stiff than plastic, so it moves up and down in a more linear fashion and doesn’t muddy the sound.”
Creative’s Aurvana Ace 2 is the most notable product that uses MEMS speakers. I remember Mike challenging me to listen to my all-time favorite song on the Ace 2 and noticing details I had never noticed before.
I played my top favorite songs on these–Mockingbird, Lost Horizon, Marea–and can attest to how crisp and clear everything sounded. I liked how expansive the soundstage felt compared to my everyday buds, the Cleer Arc II. It was almost as if the soundstage had been injected with space. One of the areas that particularly impressed me was low-end. I could hear the bass I only noticed on over-ear headphones or a speaker. The mids were rich and balanced, and the treble didn’t lose its crispness at high volumes.
Overall, I was amazed at a pair of $130 buds delivering sound as crisp as Sony’s $400 headphones can achieve. I don’t see a reason why mainstream brands aren’t going to adopt this soon. What makes this tech impressive is the fact that it’s beneficial to both manufacturers and consumers. For the former, an economical cost, better part-to-part consistency, and a fully automated process are enough reasons to switch. For consumers, significantly clearer and more detailed sound and an IP58 water resistance are attractive features.
