Home Theater Geeks, one of our favorite podcasts, had a fascinating interview recently with Sontia's CEO Chris Vernon. The topic was their new Stable Phase Techology (SPT), a speaker correction approach which has debuted in one of LG's Soundbars. SPT is a process which characterizes the performance of an amplifier / speaker system through a large number of sophisticated electrical and acoustical tests. Their approach is unique in two aspects:

• The speaker / amplifier combination is considered as a system
• Dynamic, non-linear effects such as cabinet resonances are measured and compensated for

Sontia appear to be targeting mass produced consumer goods with their approach. Chris Vernon, their CEO, makes it very clear during the interview that he sees a great opportunity to improve the sound quality of the tablets, soundbars and other devices that the vast majority of non-audiophile people use every day to consumer music. That's not to say that their technology may not be beneficial for the high end, just that they are not focusing on it as a business model. From the podcast it sounded like it would be unlikely for there to be an SPT processor similar to what DEQX are offering due to the unique aspects of Sontia's approach as mentioned above. However that's not to say that an enterprising audiophile company might 'embed' Sontia in a product for the high end market. We'll have to wait and see! Please watch the video podcast or listen to the audio stream; like I said I found it fascinating!