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February 15, 2010 - AES 128th London Hotel, Nashville Conference, Section Meeting Recordings, New Tutorials & JournalTable of Contents
Reserve Your Hotel for AES London
The official convention hotel this year is the Novotel London West which is the venue for the entire convention and is also located conveniently to Central London and Heathrow Airport. You can reserve your room using the PDF form on our website. Make sure to mention AES in any communication with the hotel. Book your room today!
Nashville Recording Workshop and Expo
This two-day conference and trade show exposition will be held in Nashville, TN on March 5-6, 2010, and will once again feature top industry guest speakers and panelists, as well as exhibits by many of today’s leading audio gear manufacturers. The Nashville Recording Workshop + Expo was designed to provide the growing number of individuals owning personal recording spaces, including artists and songwriters, access to the experience and knowledge of the AES and its affiliates, and to provide real-world insights into technology and techniques that can help attendees achieve professional results, whether in a high-end recording studio or working with a less-than-professional budget.
Section Meeting Recordings Now Available
The AES Regions & Sections and Membership Committees have been collaborating on a pilot project to make available recordings of section meetings to members. The first six of these are now available, attached to meeting reports on the AES website. A brief summary is provided below. We are aware that some sections make recordings of their meetings available in various forms, on their own websites, but this is an attempt to bring selected meetings to the attention of the wider AES community. We hope to bring you further section meeting recordings over the coming months as more sections begin to take part in the project. Thanks are especially due to Theresa Leonard and David Bowles for their hard work during this pilot phase. Francis Rumsey, Chair, Regions and Section
Tutorials on Balanced Audio and System Grounding
The latest in our series of online tutorials is now available at http://www.aes.org/tutorials/ Given by international expert, Bill Whitlock, these two comprehensive tutorials from the 126th Convention are 'must watch' guides for audio engineers. The first is on the design of high performance balanced audio interfaces. High signal-to-noise ratio is an important goal for most audio systems. However, AC power connections unavoidably create ground voltage differences, magnetic fields, and electric fields. Balanced interfaces, in theory, are totally immune to such interference. For 50 years, virtually all audio equipment used transformers at its balanced inputs and outputs. Their high noise rejection was taken for granted and the reason for it all but forgotten. The transformer's extremely high common-mode impedance—about a thousand times that of its solid-state equivalents —is the reason. Traditional input stages are discussed and compared. A novel IC that compares favorably to the best transformers is also described. Widespread misunderstanding of the meaning of balance as well as the underlying theory has resulted in all-too-common design mistakes in modern equipment and seriously flawed testing methods. Therefore, noise rejection in today's real-world systems is often inadequate or marginal. Other topics include tradeoffs in output stage design, effects of non-ideal cables, and the pin 1 problem. The second tutorial gives a down-to-earth view on 'Audio System Grounding and Interfacing'. If you watch the above tutorial on balanced interfaces you will find some common material, but also a considerable range of new content. The subject has something of a black art reputation, but this tutorial reveals the true causes of system noise and ground loops. Although safety must be the top priority, some widely used cures are both illegal and deadly. Both balanced and unbalanced interfaces are vulnerable to noise coupling, but the unbalanced interface is exquisitely so due to an intrinsic problem. Because balanced interfaces are widely misunderstood, their theoretically perfect noise rejection is severely degraded in most real-world systems. Some equipment, because of an innocent design error, has a built-in noise problem. A simple, no-test-equipment, troubleshooting method can pinpoint the location and cause of system noise. Ground isolators in the signal path solve the fundamental noise coupling problems. Also discussed are unbalanced to balanced connections, RF interference, and power line treatments such as technical power, balanced power, isolation transformers, and surge suppressors. You can view trailers of these presentations on YouTube. These and other tutorials can be viewed online, while connected to the internet, and cannot be downloaded for offline viewing. The Society's thanks are extended to Michael Williams for the untold amount of time and effort expended on the post-production of these tutorials for online viewing. Francis Rumsey, Project Manager, AES online tutorials
40th Conference Call For Papers
AES 40th International Conference, 2010 Multichannel audio for surround loudspeaker setups is a common technology, and it is also being implemented in digital broadcasting. Recent research has looked at the reproduction of 3D spatial audio for 3D loudspeaker layouts and for headphone playback. However, some technological challenges still remain in capturing, coding, transmitting, and reproducing spatial audio. The AES 40th International Conference will focus on the latest advances in spatial audio including techniques for conventional channel-based surround setups, object-based setups, and for binaural listening. Various issues related to spatial audio will be discussed from both scientific and engineering perspectives. The full call for contributions, including proposed topic areas, can be downloaded from http://www.aes.org/events/40/
AES Journal January/February Issue Now Available
This issue includes:
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