AES San Francisco 2008
Broadcast Session B5
Friday, October 3, 11:00 am — 1:00 pmB5 - Loudness Workshop
Chair:
John Chester
Panelists:
Marvin Caesar, Aphex
James Johnston, Neural Audio Corp.
Thomas Lund, TC Electronic A/S
Andrew Mason, BBC
Robert Orban, Orban/CRL
Jeffery Riedmiller, Dolby Laboratories
Abstract:
New challenges and opportunities await broadcast engineers concerned about optimum sound quality in this contemporary age of multichannel sound and digital broadcasting. The earliest studies in the measurement of loudness levels were directed to telephony issues, with the publication in 1933 of the equal-loudness contours of Fletcher and Munson, and the Bell Labs tests of more than a half-million listeners at the 1938 New York Worlds Fair demonstrating that age and gender are also important factors in hearing response. A quarter of a century later, broadcasters began to take notice of the often-conflicting requirements of controlling both modulation and loudness levels. These are still concerns today as new technologies are being adopted. This session will explore the current state of the art in the measurement and control of loudness levels and look ahead to the next generation of techniques that may be available to audio broadcasters.