131st AES Convention Chair Jim Anderson announces that John Atkinson, editor of Stereophile magazine, will present this year’s Richard C. Heyser Lecture. The lecture is entitled “Where Did The Negative Frequencies Go?” It will be presented on Friday, October 21, 2011 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in New York City’s Javits Center.
The title of Atkinson’s lecture refers to the concept that all real numbers have two roots, yet people routinely discard the negative root on the grounds that it has no significance in reality. When it comes to understanding the perception of music, perhaps some of the things discarded by audio engineers merit further examination.
This lecture will cover both audio recording and playback technologies; while it might not offer definitive answers, it could raise some interesting questions.
Atkinson has been a member of the AES since 1981. He graduated from University of London in 1972 with honors in physics and chemistry, and from the University of London’s School of Education in 1974 with a postgraduate qualification in the teaching of high school science. Atkinson pursued his interests in music, sound recording and high-end consumer audio equipment all at once before settling down in magazine publishing in 1976 at UK’s Hi-Fi News & Record Review. He became that magazine’s editor in 1982.
In 1986 Atkinson moved to the U.S. to become editor of Stereophile, the position he still occupies. By 1998, when he and his business partner sold the magazine to Petersen Publications, they had tripled its circulation. In 1989, Atkinson introduced a program of measuring the components reviewed in Stereophile. Since then he has measured 750 loudspeakers, 500 amplifiers and almost 300 digital products, all under standardized conditions.
Atkinson has also continued his recording activities, and to date has produced, engineered, edited, mastered, and/or performed on more than 40 commercially released recordings.
Find out more about the 131st AES Convention.
