Logitech Announces SoundMan 16 

CD-Quality, Stereo 16-Bit Board Features High-End Synthesized & Digitized
Sound for Multimedia, Recreation, Music, and General PC Audio 

Fremont, Calif.--February 8, 1993 --Logitech today announced SoundMan 16, a
CD-quality, 16-bit stereo audio card for the IBM PC. Shipping this month,
SoundMan 16 brings full-featured, high-quality digitized and synthesized
sound at an affordable price to a market expected to double in size this
year.

SoundMan 16 incorporates all the features consumers expect from high-end
sound today: 20-voice MIDI support, 44 KHz digitization, 16-bit digital
audio playback and recording, guaranteed SoundBlaster 1.5 compatibility,
and a variety of software and hardware enhancements designed to optimize
and streamline installation and use. The product carries a suggested
retail price of $289, yielding a street price under $200. Logitech expects
SoundMan 16, with its full feature set and aggressive pricing, to quickly
assume market leadership.

Logitech chose the Yamaha OPL-3 chip for synthesized sound and the Media
Vision 16-bit Spectrum chip set, both of which provide optimal sound
quality and compatibility with prevailing industry software and hardware
standards. In a separate statement today, Logitech also announced the
formation of a multimedia partnership with Media Vision.

"The PC audio market holds tremendous opportunity for Logitech," says
Pierluigi Zappacosta, Logitech president. "Nearly two million sound cards
were shipped in 1992, and about four million are forecast to ship this
year. Logitech is committed to providing high-quality sound products to
fit a variety of customer needs ranging from business audio to multimedia
and entertainment, and SoundMan 16 is a flagship product."

Logitech brings significant value to the sound market, offering company
size, brand recognition, established channel penetration, and a variety of
customer programs including seven-day-a-week technical support, fax-back,
BBS, a CompuServe forum. guaranteed 100-percent compatibility, and liberal
warranty policies.

A key advantage of SoundMan 16 is its "intelligent installation" process.
'We leveraged our vast experience from scanner and mouse bus board
installation and design to produce a board virtually anyone can install,"
says Dave Pelton, SoundMan 16 product marketing manager. 'The board
features completely software-selectable IRQ, DMA, and IO address, meaning
the user sets no jumpers or DIP switches."

'We spent more than six months on the installation process alone," says
Pelton. 'The intelligent installation program actually examines the system
for existing in-use channels before making a setting recommendation; the
user can then test and reset the settings, guided and assisted throughout
the process by the software."

SoundMan 16 features jacks for stereo input, such as from a CD player, and
amplified (4-watt) output, such as to speakers or headphones. There is
also a mono microphone jack and a combination MIDI/joystick port. On the
board, an array of pins provides connectivity with virtually any type of
internal CD-ROM audio. A hardware mixer offers individual control of FM,
line-IN, internal CD-audio IN, digital audio, and microphone audio.

For software, SoundMan 16 supports both Windows 3.1 and DOS, with separate
controls and drivers for each. Both drivers set and retain board settings
and "talk" with each other, so that settings in one environment are the
same as the other. SoundMan 16 features a Windows "Pocket Mixer" applet
that allows fine control of all channel volumes, bass, treble, balance,
and other features in a small but sophisticated format. The "Pocket
Recorder" allows high-level (16-bit, 44 KHz stereo) recordings in Windows,
along with a variety of software editing enhancements for digitized (.WAV)
files such as softening, echo/reverb, and tonal changes. DOS utilities
include a mixer program and a program for playing and recording .WAV
files. WAV and MIDI sample files are shipped with the package.

SoundMan 16 requires an IBM PC/AT or compatible with a 386SX processor or
higher, DOS 3.3 or higher, Windows 3.1 or higher for Windows use, 640K RAM
(2 megabytes recommended), one 16-bit (full) slot, a hard drive, and
speakers or headphones for output and a microphone or other audio device
(e.g., a CD player) for input. A separate, optional cable will be
available for connecting a MIDI device or internal CD-ROM drive.

In addition to SoundMan 16, Logitech recently introduced and shipped
AudioMan, a desktop audio device incorporating a speaker and microphone
connecting by cable to the parallel port. AudioMan is targeted at and
optimized for business audio applications such as voice annotation to
spreadsheets and word processing.

Founded in 1981, Logitech achieved worldwide revenues of $218.8 million
during FY 1992 (which ended March 31, 1992). Retail and OEM Senseware
products of the company and its affiliates include pointing devices (such
as mice and trackballs), handheld scanners, digital cameras, pen
digitizers, joysticks, sound products, and related software applications
for IBM, Macintosh, and other platforms. Logitech International, the
financial holding company for the Logitech Group, is traded publicly in
Switzerland on the Zurich and Geneva exchanges. With operational
headquarters in Fremont, Calif., the group maintains manufacturing
facilities in Fremont, California; Hsinchu, Taiwan; Shanghai, China; and
Cork, Ireland; and offices in major cities in the U.S., Europe, and the
Far East.

For more information about SoundMan 16 or other products, call Logitech
Sales at (800) 231-7717 or check the question & answer information below!

Logitech Inc, 6505 Kaiser Dr, Fremont, CA 94555
510-795-8500;  Fax: 510-792-8901
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Logitech and the Sound Market Questions and Answers

Why is Logitech entering the sound market when there are already a fair
number of strong players?

The sound market is one of the most exciting places to be in today's
high-tech marketplace. Its potential is enormous, with plenty of room for
additional players--especially when the entrant is a company with
Logitech's strengths: strong brand recognition, established channels,
extensive customer support programs, and a track record of bringing
quality products to market at an affordable price. Logitech has an
additional compelling reason for entering the sound market: the
significance of sound as key component in our family of "Senseware"
products designed to enhance the human/machine interface by giving
human-like senses to the computer.

Why did Logitech choose Media Vision as its technology partner for the
SoundMan 16 product?

Compatibility and quality are key issues for Logitech, which is
aggressively pursuing the sound market, both as it exists today, and in
its potential for the future. Media Vision has produced a successful chip
set that adheres to prevailing market standards. What's more, the fact
that Media Vision has a legal right to incorporate SoundBlaster
compatibility at the hardware level is an important factor for a product
being introduced now. The high quality of Media Vision's sound was also a
factor in Logitech's choice.

What does the Media Vision/Logitech alliance mean with respect to
Logitech's interest in Advanced Gravis?

Because we are seriously committed to sound, and all directions that this
market can take, we are maintaining our interest in Advanced Gravis'
technology as an important element in our potential product evolution.
Gravis' wave-table synthesis capability is at the cutting edge of sound
technology. Logitech believes that wave-table synthesis will assume a
greater mainstream position as the sound market matures. In fact, we are
assisting Advanced Gravis to be a leading manufacturer in the European
sound market.

Logitech already has a sound product--AudioMan--on the market. This seems
to be in keeping with the general "look and feel" of other Logitech
products, i.e., an elegantly designed desktop accessory. Why a board?

AudioMan addresses a different market: Business Audio. If we are to truly
continue our commitment to the "Senseware" concept, then we need to
explore and produce a variety of "audio" senses--in the same way that our
ScanMan and FotoMan products address different aspects of computer
"sight," while mice and trackballs provide choices in the computer's sense
of "touch."

What sound technology is Logitech ultimately supporting?

Logitech is keeping pace with all major evolving technologies in the sound
market.

Why did you choose not to incorporate a CD-ROM hardware interface in your
product?

To limit a product to one single CD-ROM interface standard can cause as
many problems as it solves. Proprietary interfaces limit the customer's
choice to one brand of CD-ROM, while SCSI interfaces add significant cost
to the product and force customers to buy more expensive SCSI CD-ROM
drives. Since Logitech's goal was to produce a high-quality, flexible
product at an affordable price (under $200 street price), we chose to
provide our users with high-quality sound while leaving them free to
configure their systems according to their personal needs and preferences.
The hardware does include a CD audio port, which accepts input from
internal or external CD-ROM drives.

What about future compatibility?

Logitech is guaranteeing 100-percent compatibility between the SoundMan 16
product and any SoundBlaster-compatible software on the market. In
addition, the more a chip is used, the better the chance for industry-wide
compatibility. Software publishers will determine the longevity of
standards by creating a critical mass of applications and driving the
market.

What about potential copyright infringement?

Media Vision's agreement with Creative Labs has addressed the copyright
issue. We are limited only by our imagination.

Why have you chosen to compete with Microsoft, which is also producing a
soundboard?

Microsoft's soundboard, like Logitech's AudioMan, is targeted at the
business market, where Windows-based software has a formidable toehold.
Because the Microsoft product is neither SoundBlaster- nor DOS-compatible,
it is not appropriate for the huge DOS-based PC game environment, which
today represents 90 percent of the total sound market

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