The agenda and the report of the previous meeting, held in New York, 2005-10-08, were approved as written.
AES-X085, Detailed Professional Microphone Specifications
Work continues on the project AES-X085 within task group SC-04-04-E.
Because of the general interest in this work, task group leader David Josephson has been holding meetings concurrently with the working group meetings, which was again the case with this meeting. Since the previous meeting, E.B. Brixen from DPA has produced a standard noise test source which could be evaluated by each of the labs participating in AES-X085 to see whether we can reach consensus on a testing method. No report was available on the progress of these tests.
Along with the discussion of detailed professional microphone standards as part of AES-X085, there had been some discussion on the email reflector on maintenance of several retired DIN performance standards. This was discussed at some length during the meeting and there did not appear to be much support among members for a standard that would impose a performance criterion. In general, the opinion of most members was that the audio market had changed substantially in the past few years, and this change has reduced the overall level of technical education and awareness among microphone buyers. As a result, microphone makers consider that more detailed or stringent specifications would not help them in the marketplace, and as a result they are not interested in developing such standards.
The next meeting will be scheduled in conjunction with the AES 121st Convention in San Francisco, CA., US. in 2006-10