AES Convention Product Design Track Co-Chair Bob Moses
The Audio Engineering Society announces the Product Design Track for its 131st AES Convention, which will take place from Thursday, October 20 through Sunday, October 23 at the Javits Convention Center in New York City.
“While vintage gear remains a staple of our industry, new product development is the driving force behind major manufacturers and start-ups alike,” says 131st AES Convention Chair Jim Anderson. “The stakes for a successful product launch have never been higher. Our product design Co-Chairs, Bob Moses and Jonathan Novick, have developed an insightful and far ranging program to help define issues faced by both the innovators and their market. Our Exhibition Hall is once again filled with new products. This year’s product design track will provide attendees with an in-depth look into how they get from drawing board to equipment rack.”
Bill Whitlock of Jensen Transformers will chair “Is Your Equipment Design A Noise Problem Waiting to Happen?” A design goal for all audio equipment is freedom from hum and buzz. But AC power normally creates a system environment of ground voltage differences. While a balanced interface is the first line of defense against this noise source, many engineers misunderstand that issue itself. This class will address these and other design pitfalls.
Technical consultant Vicki Melchior will chair “High Resolution Audio: A Networked Future?” The panelists are John Dawson of Arcam, Aaron Gelter of Harman International, and Steven Harris of BridgeCo. Though traditionally built on point-to-point connections, high-res home audio and video systems are evolving toward full or partial networking. This panel will address a number of promising standards and protocols and consider their potential relative to current forms of interfacing.
Paul Beckmann will chair “Real-Time Audio Processing Capabilities Of Microcontrollers and Application Processors.” This workshop compares the architectures of microcontrollers and application processors with traditional DSPs with an eye towards their suitability for real-time audio processing.
Josh Reiss will chair “Design of a Dynamic Range Compressor.” This tutorial will describe several approaches to digital dynamic range compressor design. It will explain why the designs sound different, and provide distortion-based metrics to analyze their quality. It will also provide recommendations for high performance compressor design.
AES Convention Product Design Track Co-Chair Jonathan Novick
Wolfgang Klippel of Klippel GmbH will chair “Hot and Nonlinear: Loudspeakers at High Amplitudes.” Loudspeakers’ acoustical output is limited by the inherent nonlinearities in electro-dynamical transducers, and the heating of the voice coil and the magnetic system. At high amplitudes, this generates distortion and other symptoms. This tutorial will provide an introduction into fundamentals, examine alternative measurement techniques and address the relationship between the physical causes and symptoms, depending on the properties of the particular stimulus (test signal, music).
In “Building Analog in the 2010’s,” chair Bruce Hofer of Audio Precision will share his insights for achieving cutting edge, reliable performance from today’s parts.
Bill Whitlock of Jensen Transformers will chair “An Overview of Audio System Grounding and Interfacing.” This tutorial reveals the true causes of system noise and ground loops, and discusses unbalanced to balanced connections, RF interference, and power line treatments. It cautions that some widely used “cures” are both illegal and deadly.
Andy Glass of Bluetooth SIG will chair “Bluetooth For Audio.” Bluetooth audio is often associated with low bandwidth voice connections and compressed stereo. This tutorial will clarify the limitations of Bluetooth. High quality is possible, and implementers are not limited to codecs that are already on the market.
Additional events include “Alternative Measurement Techniques,” “Specifying Class-D Solutions” and “How to Make a Networked Audio Gizmo.”
Find out more about the 131st AES Convention.
