INDUSTRY & PRODUCT NEWS

Bluesound Introduces First High-Resolution Streaming Audio Soundbar with MQA Support

Bluesound introduced its new Pulse Soundbar at CEDIA 2016 and will be showcasing it at Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2016 in Denver, CO (October 7-9). This is the world's first soundbar to support Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) high-resolution audio, joining Bluesound's family of MQA-ready wireless Pulse speakers and Node players, enabling wireless high-resolution music streaming to any room in the home. Read More

Radial Introduces LX2 and LX3 Passive Line Splitters

At this year's Audio Engineering Society (AES) show in Los Angeles, CA, Radial Engineering introduced the LX2 passive line splitter and attenuator, which enables users to easily send a single audio source to two different destinations at once without noise, with the ability to attenuate the input signal and tame hot outputs from a mixing console or mic preamp. Also new is the LX3 passive line splitter model, designed to send one audio signal to as many as three destinations at once. Both units provide Jensen transformer-isolated line level splitting. Read More

Focusrite Announces Red 8Pre Interface at 141st AES Convention

The Red series of interfaces represents the pinnacle of Focusrite's interface range, and the brand recently announced the launch of its new Red 8Pre. Offering the most extensive features, and eight of its cleanest mic preamps, the Red 8Pre combines a 24-bit "parallel path summing" dual converter configuration operating at up to 192 kHz, with dual Thunderbolt 2 ports, dual DigiLink connectivity with Pro Tools and dual Ethernet ports for Dante audio-over-IP networking. Read More

Yamaha Launches HPH-MT8 and HPH-MT5 Professional Monitor Headphones

Yamaha has launched its latest MT Series headphones, the HPH-MT8 and the HPH-MT5, developed to provide the high levels of precision and fidelity required for professional monitoring applications. Like the HPH-MT7 model introduced in 2015, the new MT Series headphones are designed to deliver flat, high-resolution sound with precise stereo imaging and faithful source signal reproduction, while providing a high level of isolation and comfort to ward off fatigue during extended monitoring sessions. Read More

Ultimate Ears Introduces PartyUp to Easily Connect More Than 50 Bluetooth Speakers

Ultimate Ears announced a new app feature that enables users to wirelessly connect more than 50 Ultimate Ears speakers within seconds - creating a new collective experience for users of portable Bluetooth speakers. The PartyUp feature promises to take distributed sound to a whole new level, quickly and easily connecting more than 50 Ultimate Ears speakers. A whole new dimension for flash mobs? Read More

Listen Releases SoundCheck Version 15 and Is Awarded Patent for SC Amp Amplifier

Listen, Inc., announced the release of SoundCheck Version 15. This release for Mac and Windows expands the testing capability of SoundCheck with additional external control, calibration, audio mixing, and hardware integration, and introduces the first in the company's redesigned virtual instruments, the multimeter. Meanwhile, the Boston-based company was awarded a patent for its audio test amplifier, SC Amp. Read More

QSC Reinforces Its Cinema Equipment Portfolio with the Acquisition of Ultra-Stereo Labs

QSC announced the acquisition of Ultra-Stereo Labs, Inc. (USL), effective September 30, 2016. The acquisition will allow QSC to offer an industry-leading portfolio of audio-visual processing and B-chain solutions under the QSC and USL brands for the motion picture exhibition industry. QSC also confirmed it will be joining forces with USL as an integral part of the product development team for USL branded products. Read More

Dynaudio Introduces M5P Evidence High-End Mastering Speakers at AES 2016

Dynaudio revealed its new M5P Evidence mastering monitor at the 141st Audio Engineering Society (AES) show in Los Angeles, CA. The M5P Evidence monitors have been designed without compromises using only the best materials and are custom built by hand in the Dynaudio factory in Denmark. The new speakers, part of the company's prestigious M Series, were available for listening in a dedicated demo room at the AES show, side by side with Dynaudio's new LYD compact nearfield monitors. Read More

Jo�o
Martins

Editor-in-Chief

Editor's Desk

Highlights from the 141st AES Los Angeles Convention

The 141st Audio Engineering Society (AES) International Convention in Los Angeles, CA, was a great success - maybe not as vibrant as past New York editions, but probably one of the best in terms of content/topics and number of sessions. The exhibition was always well attended and exhibitors were always busy, especially those targeting studio/recording applications - sometimes it even felt a bit like the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) Show, with celebrities like Stevie Wonder walking around and some demos pumping the volume a little too much.

Click to read more 141st AES show announcements.

The main thing to criticize would be the fact that the show moved to the West Hall of the Los Angeles Convention Center and there was no external signage. Inside, although theoretically this should allow better access to the meeting rooms and the presentations, effectively it caused some dispersion of attendees looking for the sessions - also because of poor signage. The big advantage of the layout was the availability of excellent rooms for the exhibitors' demos - and there was much to see. In my opinion, it is also better to start the conference and events program one day before the opening of the exhibition - like in previous years - instead of extending the conference part one day after the exhibition is closed. This clearly generates a larger impact on the opening ceremonies.

That's precisely why the Opening Ceremonies, Awards, and Keynote Speech session this year had less people than at previous editions. And this deserves to be a solemn moment for everyone to participate - not to compete with concurrent sessions and the exhibition. I've noticed the same model is being considered for the 2017 AES Convention in New York and that should be reconsidered.

Diana Deutsch was awarded the AES Gold Medal Award for her "lifelong contributions to the understanding of the human hearing mechanism and the science of psychoacoustics."

From this year's ceremony, I think the two AES Gold Medal Awards deserve a mention. Among this year's AES Gold Medal Awards honorees was Diana Deutsch, Professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego, internationally known for the musical illusions and paradoxes that she discovered, including exploring memory for music, and how we relate the sounds of music and speech to each other. Deutsch has more than 200 publications, including the much recommended book "The Psychology of Music" (1st edition, 1982; 2nd edition, 1999, and 3rd edition, 2013). She has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), the Audio Engineering Society, the Society of Experimental Psychologists, the American Psychological Society, and the American Psychological Association. She was awarded the AES Gold Medal Award for her "lifelong contributions to the understanding of the human hearing mechanism and the science of psychoacoustics."

The AES Gold Medal Award (formerly The John H. Potts Memorial Award) is given in recognition of outstanding achievements, sustained over a period of years, in the field of Audio Engineering. This year it was also awarded to D.B. (Don) Keele, Jr. "for outstanding and significant research, design and product development, over a period of more than 45 years, of loudspeakers and loudspeakers systems providing broadband constant-coverage performance."

Don Keele, Jr. was recognized for his "outstanding and significant research, design and product development of loudspeakers and loudspeakers systems providing broadband constant-coverage performance."

Don Keele has worked for a number of companies in the area of loudspeaker R&D and measurement technology including Electro-Voice, Klipsch, JBL, Crown, and Harman International. More recently, he worked for Harman/Becker Automotive Systems in the advanced technology development group and was a member of the Harman corporate acoustics engineering group working under Floyd Toole. Currently he heads his own consulting company DBK Associates and Labs. He holds eight patents with topics including "constant-directivity" loudspeaker horns, loudspeaker arrays, and signal processing. He is a fellow of AES and a member of ASA, received the TEF Richard C. Heyser Award in 2001. In 2002, he received a Scientific and Engineering Academy Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for work he did on cinema constant-directivity loudspeakers. More recently, in 2011, he received the ALMA Beryllium Driver Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Keele's passion for the last 15 years has been to promote the use of Constant Beamwidth Transducer (CBT) loudspeaker technology in the industry. He wrote 12 AES papers on this topic alone, and has presented and published more than 50 technical papers on loudspeaker design and measurement methods and other related topics. At this year's AES convention he presented three more papers on Spatial Audio, Transducers, and an Introduction to CBT Loudspeaker Arrays. As he stated on receiving the AES Gold Medal, he simply loves writing papers and sharing his research.

Full-Circle for AoIP

Another major highlight for this 141st AES convention was the focus on the Media Networking Alliance (MNA) and the Open Control Architecture (OCA) Alliance booths. Specifically, Archwave and Bosch promoted the first demonstration of an AES67 and AES70 integrated platform for audio, control, and connection management. In this case, using AES67, a RAVENNA equipment was passing audio to a Dante device, while AES70 provided the connection management.

As audioXpress details in a dedicated post, this was an historical moment, when audio networking technology goes full circle and gains a new level of coherence. Working together with Bosch,

Archwave integrated two existing audio industry standards into a full-fledged solution for audio networking. This level of integration was achieved with Archwave's AudioLAN 2.0 technology, combining AES67 and AES70 into one coherent solution. As they explain, "Not just two separate streams of data, one for audio and one for control. The AES70 element actually controls what the AES67 streams are doing. In addition AES70 allows remote control of equipment."

Arie van den Broek, CEO Archwave Technologies, and Ethan Wetzell, Platform Strategist Bosch Communications Systems, promoted the first demonstration of an AES67 and AES70 audio networking integrated platform.

While AES67 is the industry standard that enables different audio networking protocols to send and receive audio data, AES70 (also known as OCA) is the architecture for system discovery, control, and connection management for media networks. While the two protocols are useful on their own, together they enable users to see their entire networked audio systems, send commands from device to device and pass audio to anywhere in the network. AES70 provides a means of discovery and connection management, sitting above all existing networked audio protocols - Dante, RAVENNA, LiveWire, Q-LAN, etc. - as well as offering unparalleled ability to remotely control devices. Any manufacturer can add this technology into their products, providing users with an integrated solution for audio transport, connectivity and control.

Even though few attendees probably noticed the demonstration at the show, its importance is more emphasized by the fact that the studio and the recording community is clearly embracing audio networking - as it was demonstrated at this AES convention. Focusrite, Solid State Logic, and Waves are some companies that are creating very powerful multichannel networked solutions. In Solid State Logic's case, reaching from project studio contained solutions, all the way up to the most sophisticated broadcast systems, all based on Dante.

At the 2016 AES show, even Apogee Electronics announced a Dante network option card for its flagship audio interface Symphony I/O Mk II, expanding its connectivity options, which currently include Thunderbolt, Pro Tools HD, and Waves SoundGrid. And, Focusrite made clear that its expanding RedNet Dante range of products is targeting new application levels, from studio to live recording, post-production and broadcasting, now supporting even larger multichannel configurations. Focusrite's level of integration, underlining the advantages of networked audio systems over the adopted protocol (Audinate's Dante) and making configuration and operation straightforward, is an excellent example of marketing excellence combined with great engineering.

R&D Stories

QSC's FAST Platform

By Stuart Yaniger

November 2013 was the first issue of the redesigned audioXpress in its current form. In that issue, the magazine featured several new sections, including for the first time one of its R&D Stories, signaling a new perspective for audioXpress and an increased focus on engineering and product development - independent of the audio application field. The article by Stuart Yaniger on QSC's Flexible Amplifier Summing Technology (FAST) was a reference for many to follow. Since we already made many of these R&D Stories from audioXpress available online, it only seemed fair to also make this one available. In this feature, Yaniger explores QSC's new FAST amplifier platform, introduced that same year and still the foundation for the brand's current amplifier portfolio. Designed as a custom Class-D multichannel high-performance device with agile power distribution across one, two, three, or four channels via Flexible Amplifier Summing Technology (FAST), QSC's PLD and CXD amplifiers were its first products to incorporate its proprietary technology that uses a multichannel amplifier as user-selectable sets of bridged, paralleled, or solo channels. The amplifiers also featured a PowerLight universal switch mode power supply with power factor correction (PFC) for high efficiency and low weight. This article was originally published in audioXpress, November 2013. Read the Full Article Available Here

Voice Coil Test Bench

Celestion CF0617M Prosound 6.5" Midrange Driver

By Vance Dickason

The transducer discussed in this Test Bench is the CF0617M, a new high power handling 6.5" midrange, from Celestion. The CF0617M is one of my favorite formats in a pro sound mid. Celestion drivers have graced the pages of Voice Coil many times. Features for the CF0617M include a four-spoke cast aluminum frame, a light-weight curved profile uncoated Kevlar loaded paper cone, a 2.5" diameter uncoated concave paper dust cap, a 1.75" (45 mm) diameter voice coil wound on a Kapton former with edge-wound copper-clad aluminum ribbon wire. Compliance is provided by a flat foam surround and a 4.5" diameter flat cloth spider. Powering the unit is a 120 mm � 15 mm ferrite magnet, sandwiched between a black emissive-coated shaped front plate and a black coated shaped T-yoke. For cooling, the T-yoke incorporates a 19 mm (0.75") pole vent with a protective screen. Last, the voice coil tinsel lead wires terminate to pair of chrome color-coded push terminals. This article was originally published in Voice Coil, December 2015. Read the Full Article Online

AX October 2016: Digital Login

Don't Have a Subscription?

SAVE 25% TODAY!

VC October 2016: Digital Login

Qualify for a FREE Subscription!

audioXpress | Voice Coil | LIS

Advancing the Evolution of Audio Technology

audioxpress features great articles, projects, tips and techniques for producing the best in quality audio. It connects manufacturers and distributors with audio engineers and enthusiasts eager for innovative solutions in sound, acoustic and electronics.

Voice Coil, the periodical for the loudspeaker industry, delivers product reviews, company profiles, industry news, and design tips straight to professional audio engineers and manufacturers who have the authority to make powerful purchasing decisions.

The Loudspeaker Industry Sourcebook is the most comprehensive collection of listings on loudspeaker material in the industry. Purchasers and decision makers refer to the guide for an entire year when making selections on drivers, finished systems, adhesives, domes, crossovers, voice coils, and everything in between.