INDUSTRY & PRODUCT NEWS

The Future of Media Previewed at IBC 2015

The 2015 International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) will once again take place in Amsterdam. The conference will take place from September 10-14, 2015 and the exhibition will be September 11-15, 2015. The 2015 show will be an important platform for new technology demonstrations in immersive audio. British semi-conductor ARM has been awarded the International Honor for Excellence 2015. Read More

NUGEN Audio Releases Upmixing Software for Film and TV at IBC 2015

Previewed for the first time a year ago and already anticipated, NUGEN Audio has released its Halo Upmix software for Stereo-to-5.1/7.1 upmixing for film and TV. The new solution, which will be introduced at the 2015 IBC show in Amsterdam, allows precise downmix compatibility for TV surround formats as well as wider creative latitude for film production. Read More

DTS to Acquire iBiquity Digital

In a surprise industry announcement with huge implications for the future of digital radio, DTS has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire iBiquity Digital Corp.-the developer and licensor of HD Radio technology for AM/FM audio and data broadcasting-for approximately $172 million. Read More

Intel Introduces 6th Generation Intel Core Processors

Finally, the much-awaited Intel Processors that will power our Windows 10 laptops and MacBooks in 2016, supporting Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C technology, are available. Intel's new Skylake 14nm microarchitecture is delivered in different series, increases battery life multiple times and adds up to 2.5 times performance improvements.

d&b audiotechnik Refines Point Source Loudspeaker Design For High-Quality Sound Reinforcement

Stuttgart, Germany-based d&b audiotechnik designs and manufactures beautiful black boxes that are the epitome of professional audio. Beneath the discrete appearance, d&b applies a combination of expertise in electro-acoustics and audio electronics to design loudspeakers such as these new point-source models in its V-Series. Read More

Streaming Audio over Ethernet from Microphones to Loudspeakers Anyone?

At the 2015 IBC show in Amsterdam (September 11-15), Archwave Technologies will introduce its new uNET MINI module, which delivers AES67/Ravenna for end-point applications. The new solution is a complete low-cost sub-system for two-channel applications (e.g., networked loudspeakers or microphones) over Ethernet cable.

Read More

beyerdynamic Updates T 1 Tesla High-End Headphones

beyerdynamic has updated its famous T 1 high-end headphones. Just in time for the IFA 2015 show in Berlin, the second-generation Tesla flagship headphones get a tuning resulting from modifications to the driver to reduce undesirable vibrations and improve bass response. It also comes with a new textile-covered connection cable and case. Read More

Bluesound Gen 2 Is The Next Generation in Wireless High Resolution Audio

Bluesound was the first wireless digital multi-room music system to fully support high-resolution audio. Now, the sister company to NAD and PSB Speakers has unveiled Gen 2, an upgraded platform of virtually every aspect of the product's design and performance with reengineered multi-room wireless streaming digital music players and two entirely new models. Read More

Jo�o Martins

Editor-in-Chief

Editor's Desk

"Music is part of being human"

Oliver Sacks (1933 - 2015)

Photography: Adam Scourfield/BBC/AP Photo

I don't like the word audiophile and I don't use it. First because the word relates to philia - a pathology - "an abnormal liking for or tendency towards a given thing."

Second, while admitting to being interested in all things audio, my main interest is always the music. We don't "listen" to audio, we listen to sound and we listen to music.

I believe that being an enthusiast for all things audio, engineering, science, and art is healthy. But, it is important not to convert any of those things into an obsession, which will often make us loose track of what's important.

I have the deepest respect for those who are able to hear things profoundly different: sound recordists, sound designers, and sound engineers, foley artists, musicians, people with exceptional abilities, both technical and creative. Some audio product designers, and electronic and acoustical engineers have the ability to detect sound differences in the slightest components and materials - so I have learned that just because I am not able to detect a difference doesn't mean its not there. And that's exactly what should motivate our interest in audio.

I also have a passion for all things technical regarding motion cameras and photography. I confess many times I have seen movies because I am more interested in the pure aesthetic results and how a certain technical tool has positively affected the creativity or, on the contrary, restricted it.

But one should not confuse a passion for a subject, deep technical knowledge, and mastering a craft with an obsession, which might easily become pathology.

We all have heard the anecdotes about "audiophiles" becoming obsessed with the "purity" of electricity, the "wrong angle" on the cables or the smell coming from the amplifier.

As a recent article points out, even the experience of listening to music causes all sorts of different physical reactions in people: "Loui and Harrison point out that the sensations can be extraordinarily varied beyond the shivers people normally report. A 1991 study of professional musicians and non-musicians, for instance, found that around half of all the respondents experienced trembling, flushing and sweating, and sexual arousal in response to their favorite pieces, as well as that familiar feeling of a shiver down the spine."

Photography: ElenaSeibert.com

One cannot truly understand how important music and sound is in our life until we face the perspective of not being able to enjoy it. That's exactly what neurologist Oliver Sacks studied and the subject of his book Musicophilia, in which he also describes extraordinary individuals with unusual abilities (savant syndromes) because they suffer from an apparently unrelated impairment (visual problems), illness, or by some sort of brain damage.

In Musicophilia, there's a reference that particularly moved me, regarding amusia - the loss (or congenital lack) of ability to make structural judgments about music. "They were astounded to find, in the early 1990s, that some of their subjects rendered virtually amusic by brain injuries were nonetheless still able to enjoy music and to make emotional judgments about it. One such patient, listening to Albinoni's Adagio (from her own record collection), first said that she had never heard the piece before, then commented that 'it makes me feel sad and the feeling makes me think of Albinoni's Adagio.'"

British neurologist Oliver Sacks has died at the age of 82, at his home in New York. The author of several books about unusual medical conditions, Sacks once said that to study damage to the brain as the means of discovering what part of the brain does what is much like an auto mechanic attempting to understand the car by studying wrecked vehicles.

He also said "Music is part of being human."

Quote

"We humans are a musical species no less than a linguistic one. This takes many different forms. All of us (with very few exceptions) can perceive music, perceive tones, timbre, pitch intervals, melodic contours, harmony, and (perhaps most elementally) rhythm. We integrate all of these and "construct" music in our minds using many different parts of the brain. And to this largely unconscious structural appreciation of music is added an often intense and profound emotional reaction to music."

Oliver Sacks - Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (2007) - Book Preface

From the Vault

Construct a Four-Parallel 5670W Push-Pull Amplifier

By Tadaatsu Atarashi (Japan)

Noguchi, a Japanese audio transformer manufacturer, produces a variety of audio transformers especially for tube-amplifier DIYers, including FINEMET-core audio transformers. When the company released its FINEMET core transformer FM-5P, which is a push-pull output transformer that is suitable for a small output amplifier and costs less than $200, the author decided to try it in this four-parallel push-pull amplifier project.The article first appeared in the Japanese magazine Radio Technology, December 2011. It was published by audioXpress in March 2013. Read the article here

Voice Coil Spotlight

Headphone Engineering:

A 10-Point Cheat Sheet

By Mike Klasco (Menlo Scientific)

These days everyone is getting into the headphone business. Headphones are one of the few audio markets that are growing with respect to the quantities shipped and achievable revenues. Many speaker brands' management and marketing teams are asking their engineering teams to develop headphone product lines. This 10-point "cheat sheet" provides a place to start product definition development efforts. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, July 2013. Read the Full Article

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