The BBE sound processing system is providing an exciting new technological advance to catch the imagination of consumers and to rekindle the world-wide enthusiasm which created great surges of consumer demand in years past. 

Since 1985, the BBE sound processing system has been used by the broadcasting, recording, and professional music industries. BBE brand signal processors are being used all over the world by famous musicians in their concert and recording work. Professional music and sound journals and enthusiast magazines around the world have published glowing praise of BBE system in review after review.

Millions of high quality consumer products from world-renowned manufacturers featuring the BBE patents have already been sold world-wide.

 

u BBE provides a significant improvement in audio quality - audible to everyone, in all types of sound systems. 
   
u BBE improves the sound of all sources of audio material - radio and television broadcast, CD, MD, MP3, DVD, video games, audio and video cassettes, analog and digital phone tranmissions via land line, cellular or satellite.
   
u BBE can be successfully applied to all product categories - home, auto and personal audio
DVDs, VCRs, television, video game consoles, answering machines, telephone and multimedia computers.
   
u Professional audio success - The global successes of the BBE sound processing system in broadcast, recording and live concerts with famous artists, clubs, discos, bands and thousands of home-recording and hi-fi aficionados, provide consumer electronics manufacturers with powerful marketing opportunities to build on the glamour, fame and cachet of the BBE name and trademark.
   
u Frequent recognition in the press - World-wide praise for the BBE system in magazines in Europe, U.S., Japan and other countries continues to make millions of potential customers aware of BBE sound processing technology.
   
u Global Visibility - Millions of dollars in advertising the BBE trademark is spent each year by BBE Sound, Inc., its distributors, dealers and licensees. The BBE trademark is becoming synonymous all over the world with state-of-the-art audio.

 

u With BBE sound processing, music has great "live" presence. 
   
u Highs are clearer, naturally brilliant and more finely detailed. Lows are tight, well-defined
and harmonically rich.
   
u The original program is faithfully reproduced with more of the nuance, subtlety
and presence of live performance.
   
u Plucked and percussive sounds such as guitar, piano, drums and cymbals are sharper and cleaner.
   
u The full texture of instrumental and vocal solos are heard.
   
u Each instrument and voice in the mix retains its integrity.
   
u Speech intelligibility is dramatically improved.


 

All over the world there are hundreds of thousand of experts on sound and music - in broadcasting, studio recording, concert sound, music performance and home recording - who use BBE brand professional sound equipment in their work. 

These are experts whose advice is sought by family and friends considering which audio and video products to buy. Increasingly, these experts are recommending their friends to buy products featuring BBE® high definition sound.

For the growing numbers of consumer electronics manufacturers who are featuring BBE sound processing technology in their products, this represents a gold mine of goodwill which will yield generous increases in sales and profits!

BBE sound processing technology is now seen by industry experts around the world as the feature which can create a great new surge of consumer demand.

 

BBE Sonic Maximizer processors are hugely successful in the pro audio world. Discerning music professionals have made the BBE 482 Sonic Maximizer the third best-selling studio processor in the USA. BBE 482 is the only sound enhancement device to be in the top 10 list.

Source: Music & Sound Retailer dealer poll 2001

 

 


Magazine articles and reviews in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Asia have praised BBE sound processing technology in glowing terms and millions of readers - many of whom are musicians and sound specialists with wide spheres of influence - are "getting the BBE message." Importantly, quotes from such authoritative magazines make great copy for advertising and public relation materials. 

BBE brand professional equipment is advertised regularly in music and sound magazines by BBE Sound, Inc. but that is only the beginning. BBE equipment is sold in over fifty countries, and in each, the BBE distributor has advertising campaigns for BBE. The next step down the distribution chain is the retailers who sell BBE brand products and also advertise and promote them. There are an estimated 5,000 suchretailers around the world and they display and demonstrate BBE brand products constantly.

 
 

These days, most major artists are using BBE sound processing technology in the studio and in concert performances.

Artists such as Paul McCartney, Tim McGraw, Creed, Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Billy Joel, Elton John, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Megadeth, Everclear, Matchbox 20, Eric Clapton, Joe Satriani, and many, many others use BBE professional audio processors. See the BBE User List elsewhere on this site for more world famous artists that use BBE on tour and in the studio.

 

In the recording world, BBE sound processing technology is also ubiquitous. The BBE logo is appearing on CDs all over the world with growing frequency. The albums from Billy Joel and Peter Frampton, shown in the image above, are good examples. Phillips Japan has spotlighted BBE technology on CDs and tapes.

 

 

Radio and TV stations use BBE sound processing technology in all phases from cart preparation to on-air broadcasting. Many national systems use BBE technology such as Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Swedish National Broadcasting, Korean Broadcasting and Japan's legendary NHK government operated radio and TV systems. Hundreds of U.S. radio and TV stations will not broadcast without their BBE processors.



Another factor contributing to the BBE constituency is the millions of consumer electronics products sold by BBE licensees, including Sony, Panasonic, JVC, Hitachi, Alpine, Aiwa and many others. Owners of such products invariably become BBE enthusiasts and their voices join the chorus of manufacturers, which has added greatly to world-wide consumer awareness of  BBE technology and the BBE trademark.



The world-wide BBE constituency means that products featuring BBE sound processing technology will have a receptive, enthusiastic and growing audience, interested in buying such products and telling friends to do the same! The "BBE Constituency" can mean a significant increase in sales volume for BBE licensees and perhaps a price premium to enhance margins! 

It has always been the philosophy of BBE Sound Inc. that we must provide a comprehensive set of benefits for BBE licensees!

u A demonstrably audible improvement in sound, and

u Marketing and promotional support to tangibly enhance product sales and profit margins.

The BBE Constituency is a well established and growing benefit for BBE licensees. It is a key part of a new foundation on which the consumer electronics industry can build a revitalized market for its products all over the world.

All music that is amplified through a loudspeaker suffers some loss of fidelity - or subtle distortions - caused by the inherent characteristics of the loudspeaker itself. The BBE system addresses these problems by compensating for phase and amplitude distortions and, in effect, delivering the signal to the speaker in a form which allows it to reproduce the original live performance more fully and more faithfully.

 
 
 
Original live sound
sound before amplification.  
First part of transient shown
BBE OFF - Same sound as reproduced by
an audio system
Note initial transient lost;  
Envelope distortion 
BBE ON - Same sound reproduced with BBE processing
Corrects Distortion  
Corrects phase delay 


To understand how BBE sound processing technology works, consider the characteristics of a loudspeaker and what we expect from one. Among a loudspeaker's most important requirements is the ability to reproduce transients - the brief high-energy bursts at the beginning of sounds. The transients then evolve into harmonics. It is the particular amplitudes and phase relationships of these transients and harmonics which add the unique color and character to each sound. 

Varying either the amplitude or the phase of the transients and harmonics within signal causes distortion of the sound's characteristics. By drastically altering the transient response of a sound, it's possible to make a cymbal crash seem like a car crash. Similarly, altering amplitude or phase relationships of the harmonics in a clarinet's tone can make it sound more like a flute, or a French horn like an oboe.


A loudspeaker's transient response is typically expressed in terms of amplitude response (how quickly it reacts to an incoming signal), with little or no regard to phase response (whether high and low frequencies are reproduced at the proper time). The ability to accurately represent a sound's phase and amplitude define the quality of a loudspeaker's transient and steady - state, or sustained, response. 

If a loudspeaker's amplitude response curve were linear, then the relationship between the high and low frequencies would be correct. And if a loudspeaker's phase response curve were linear, then the low and high frequencies would reach the listener's ears in their correct time order. This would result in faithful reproduction of the sound. However, this isn't normally the case.


When we listen to live music, all of the highs and lows reach our ears in the same relationship to each other as when they were created by the instruments. If this same live music were to be recorded and played back through a loudspeaker system, the loudspeaker would introduce frequency-dependent phase shifting. The inductance of the speaker's voice coil creates a stronger impedance as the signal's frequency increases, resulting in a time delay. Consequently, frequency components with large negative phase shifts (high frequencies) arrive at the listener's ear later than signals undergoing small phase shifts (low frequencies). The resultant signal is distorted in the time domain to the listener's ear. Audio material containing sharp transients (e.g., percussive and plucked sounds such as drums, guitar, piano and harpsichord, etc.) suffers the most from this phenomenon, making it seem unfocused, or mushy. 

In order to address these problems inherent in basic loudspeaker design, BBE Sound, Inc. has developed a circuit that has two primary functions. The first adjusts the phase relationships of the low, mid and high frequencies. Since a loudspeaker's natural tendency is to add progressively longer delay times to higher frequencies, the BBE sound processing system adds progressively longer delay times to lower frequencies. This creates a kind of "mirror" curve to the time delay curve created by the speaker, neutralizing its phase distortion.

The second major element in the BBE system is the augmentation of the higher and lower frequencies. Loudspeakers tend to be less efficient in their extreme treble and bass ranges. Most sound-reproducing systems include a circuit for boosting high and low frequencies, showing an accepted awareness of the loudspeaker's efficiency problem. The BBE system, however, provides a dynamic, program-driven augmentation which combines with the phase compensation feature to restore the brilliance and clarity of the original live sound. The result is, as one professional journal phrased it, "The most hearable advance in audio technology since high fidelity itself!"

BBE Sound, Inc., besides manufacturing the BBE signal processors, is deeply involved in manufacturing musical instruments. Its superb hand crafted G&L guitars and basses, created by the legendary Leo Fender, are prized by professional musicians all over the world. The originator of the BBE sound processing system, the Barcus-Berry company, has been world famous for its piezo transducer pickups for all kinds of acoustic instruments for more than thirty five years. Wherever musicians and music sound people gather, the names Barcus-Berry, G&L, and BBE are known, respected and trusted. 

View the BBE Licensing Brochure



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