Serial entrepreneur Dayne Sieling’s latest project is a company that makes software to improves music on mobile devices and audio speakers. To fix what he says is poor quality audio, Sieling and other investors formed Bambu Tech Inc., now just over a year old, in Calabasas. Based on his experience with consumer products, Sieling thinks the software is needed in the market and that potential customers abound. The product returns the high and low notes to music that are removed when large files – such as movies –are compressed. That makes them easier and cheaper to distribute onto mobile devices and televisions, or played through audio speakers in vehicles. “Digital content has its issues – big files, quality, buffering,” Sieling said. The trend toward smaller devices and speakers has complicated the issue, and bigger files cost more to distribute, he added. As a result, sound quality, and what Sieling calls QOE, or “quality of experience,” are sacrificed. Bambu’s software can be embedded within the audio or video streamed by music, movie and content producers, such as Netflix, to improve quality in real time. It also can be embedded onto computer chips in audio speakers inside television sets, vehicles or other devices. Sieling is marketing the software as a money-saver. Auto makers can save money, he explains, because they won’t need as many high-quality speakers to compensate for otherwise poor-quality audio that the software will improve. It saves content distributors money because they will be able to shrink files, saving on distribution costs. “That’s a big deal because you’re preserving the QOE – quality of experience – yet providing the content distributors significant savings and reducing congestion in their stream,” Sieling said. So far, the company has raised $1.5 million in seed money from angel investors, and generated revenue by charging manufacturers a licensing fee per device and a monthly license fee to content streamers. The company expects to reach breakeven next year. Sieling feels sound quality is important to consumers because they regularly drop money to upgrade it on streaming services and in vehicles. – Carol Lawrence