AES Member Profile

Michael Turner

Job Title: Technical Director
Company: S R Drives Ltd

Status: Full Member
Member since: 2003
Technical Committee: Loudspeakers and Headphones
Section: British

Audio Fields:

• Product Manufacturing - Transducers
• Product Manufacturing - Hardware
• Product Manufacturing - Research & Development
• Educational Institutions - Educator

Job Duties:

• Technical Director
• Consultant
• Corporate Manager
• Designer
• Engineer
• Researcher
• Student
• Systems Designer

About

I began my career with the BBC in London, working on a wide range of projects in sound radio. I moved on after a couple of years with some regrets, although career development expediency mandated a change. My next post took me into industrial electronics, developing high performance industrial motor controls and servo systems with S.R. Drives Ltd — then a university spin-off.

I've remained with S.R. Drives through its acquisition by U.S. multi-national Emerson Electric, and for my sins am now Technical Director with responsibility for engineering in both R&D and production. I'm privileged to work with a team of about 60 staff in the U.K., and many Emerson colleagues world-wide.

I enjoy the commercial and management side of business as well as the technical, and strongly believe in open-ness, firm but fair play, and that all good business is ultimately a "win-win". Do read Mike Southon's excellent book, "The Beermat Entrepreneur"; highly relevant to all sizes of business.

Although I've formally been out of the audio industry for some years, I've retained my life-long passion for audio, and am able to indulge this with a well-equipped home lab. I also enjoy recording classical and acoustic live music.

For several years I've been researching active control of loudspeakers in my spare time - a topic actually not so very far removed from my day-job (just a different kind of motor!)

For those who may want to know such things, I have an honours degree in electrical engineering and 18 patents in the field of electronics and controls. I've a pretty diverse range of interests and design experience, from low noise analogue using both solid-state and vacuum tubes, through embedded digital control and DSP, to switched-mode power at hundreds of kilowatts. I'm a U.K. Chartered Engineer, a member of the IET, IEEE and AES, and have recently successfully completed a PhD at the University of Leeds, in the U.K., researching active control of loudspeaker motors.

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