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September 2006

Lecture and Technical Visit Programme Launched

Rupert Neve of Rupert Neve Designs, Laurie Fincham of THX, Bill Whitlock of Jensen Transformers and Wolfgang Klippel of Klippel GmbH are just four of the speakers appearing in our exciting lecture programme for the next year. The complete programme includes sessions by Keith Howard of Hi-Fi News/Stereophile, Jan Abildgaard Pedersen of Lyngdorf Audio, Adam Philp of Sensaura, Graham Bank of Deben Acoustics, Peter Thomas of PMC and Professor Brian Moore of Cambridge University on topics as far-ranging as DSP room correction, computer game audio and hearing loss.

More details are available on our website at: http://meetings.aes-uk.org

You can download a one page diary of all the events for 2006/7 by visiting: http://eventslist.aes-uk.org

Upcoming events

17th October 2006 - 7pm

Lecture: Audio is done, isn't it?
Keith Howard
Royal Academy of Engineering, London

14th November 2006 - 7pm (AGM 6.30pm)

Lecture and AGM: Room perfect DSP room correction
Jan Abildgaard Pedersen, Lyngdorf Audio
Royal Academy of Engineering, London

17th November 2006 - 10.30am to 3pm

Technical visit: London College of Music and Media,
Thames Valley University
Ealing, London

Lecture - Audio is done, isn't it?

by Keith Howard

Tuesday 17th October - 7pm

In some areas of the new, wider audio industry there is a perception that the major problems of high-quality sound reproduction have all been solved.

Among many consumers the same attitude prevails. But anyone who listens to high-quality hi-fi and asks the critical question "Does this sound like real music?" understands that audio is not 'done' and that significant challenges remain. In the course of this presentation a subset of six audio issues that are still to be resolved satisfactorily will be examined, ranging from big subjects like multichannel audio to smaller ones like loudspeaker directivity. Many are not as new as they may appear but actually have a long history.

Keith Howard fell into journalism by accident during a year between universities, working as an editorial assistant first on Popular Hi-Fi and then Hi-Fi Answers. Shortly after returning to the latter in 1980 he became editor, a post he held until going freelance in 1989. Job titles on Audiophile and What Home Entertainment followed before he became Gramophone's audio consulting editor in 1995, a post he held until late 1999. In early 2000 he became consultant technical editor on Hi-Fi News. He began a parallel career writing about automotive technology for Autocar in 1991. Subsequently he became the magazine's technical editor, then technical consultant. He also now writes for Motor Sport.

This lecture will be held at The Royal Academy of Engineering, 29 Great Peter Street, London, SW1P 3LW. Great Peter Street runs between Great Smith Street/Marsham Street and Millbank, just behind Westminster Abbey.

Nearest underground stations are St. James's Park and Westminster. There is free parking in local streets after 6.30pm. The Congestion Charge also operates in this area until 6.30pm. Refreshments at 6.30pm, lecture at 7.00pm. Everyone is welcome.

Committee Nominations

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
TUESDAY 14th NOVEMBER AT 6.30pm

NOMINATIONS FOR THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

This year there are three vacancies on the Executive Committee that need to be filled at the AGM. The Committee nominates the following members to fill these vacancies:

In addition to the above, any Member or Associate Member in good standing may nominate a candidate for election by a postal ballot.

Such nominations should be submitted to the Secretariat by Wednesday 18th October, accompanied by biographical details of not more than 150 words and the written consent of the candidate to accept nomination.

Joe Bull began his career in professional audio at the end of the 70's as a recording engineer in Spaceward Studios in Cambridge. Having worked on numerous records, both engineering and producing, he took on the role of project manager during the conversion of the Old School in Stretham into a recording studio. Later Spaceward was at the forefront of developments in advanced computer graphics systems for broadcast TV where he took on the role of Director in charge of manufacturing.

Combining knowledge of hi-tech design and manufacturing with experience of professional audio led to the formation in 1991 of SADiE with Joe as Managing Director.

SADiE designs and manufactures workstations for broadcasters, post-production and mastering engineers. SADiE UK is still based in the Old School in Stretham and has sales offices in Germany and the USA.

Andrew Mason received a BSc in physics from the Imperial College of Science and Technology in London in 1986, and then joined the BBC's Research and Development department at Kingswood Warren. There he has worked mostly in digital audio, applying digital signal processing techniques to broadcast operations. Several years were spent working on audio coding techniques, particularly tandem coding, including helping to develop the AES41 standard for audio coder control data, and BS.1534, the MUSHRA subjective test method. After an interlude of about 4 years working in watermarking for both digital video and digital audio, developing and evaluating systems with potential applications in broadcasting, he is now working again in audio coding (particularly for multichannel audio) and developing an interest in loudness metering.

Andrew is a member of several AES Standards Committee working groups has also been an active participant in EBU technical project groups working on audio coding.

Dr Slawek Zielinski holds a position of a Lecturer at the University of Surrey. Previously he worked as a Research Fellow at the same university and as a Lecturer at the Technical University of Gdansk (Poland). He received M.Sc. degree in telecommunications and Ph.D. degree from the Technical University of Gdansk (1997). His responsibilities include teaching Electroacoustics, Audio Signal Processing and Sound Synthesis to the undergraduate students. He is also responsible for co-supervision of six PhD students.

Slawek is in charge of the EPSRC-funded research project investigating new bandlimitation strategies for 5.1 surround sound. He is also actively involved in a number of other projects concerning topics like visualisation of spatial audio quality, improvements in listening tests, evaluation of audio codecs, car audio, and objective assessment of audio quality. He is the author or co-author of forty five papers.

UK Section Conference

Illusions in Sound - the application of psychoacoustics to audio 11th and 12th April 2007 Cambridge

Call for Papers

The AES UK Conference 2007 will bring together researchers, developers and practitioners in audio. The emphasis this year is on the application of psychoacoustics to audio.

The Conference 2007 committee invites submission of technical papers for presentation at the Conference in Cambridge. Authors who would like to submit a paper to the conference should first send a title and a 500 word precis to uk@aes.org. The precis must cite relevant references. Acceptance of papers will be based on review of each precis by members of the conference committee.

The significant deadlines are:

British Section of the Audio Engineering Society : PO Box 645 : Slough : SL1 8BJ : Tel.01628 663725 : Email