You are here: Home / Archives for 2003

Archives for 2003

Blaupunkt’s New Phoenix and Sacramento CD Head Units Feature Aggressive Styling and Optional MP3 Playback

June 24, 2003 by Leave a Comment

Blaupunkt has introduced two new models in its value-oriented V-Line of car stereos.

The Sacramento CD33 CD receiver is priced at $259 (US), and offers 50 Watts of power into each of four channels. It features Blaupunkt’s high quality standard CD transport, and it can be used in conjunction with a Blaupunkt CD changer to control up to 10 discs’ worth of music.

Like all Blaupunkt radios, the Sacramento also features a high-sensitivity tuner, including 18 FM and 12 AM presets. An optional credit-card remote allows you to control all major functions of the head unit from anywhere in the cockpit.

The front-panel ID3 display and included credit-card remote control make for easy navigation of MP3 files on Blaupunkt's Phoenix MP33 head unit

The Phoenix MP33 CD/MP3 receiver is priced at $349 (US). In addition to all the standard features of the Sacramento, the Phoenix is also fully compatible with CD-R/RW discs encoded with MP3 files.

The Phoenix has a faceplate ID3 tag display that shows artist and song title information embedded in MP3 files. Along with the included credit-card remote control, the ID3 display makes it easy to locate and select from as much as 10 hours of music on a single MP3 CD.

Each model delivers and features aggressive styling with flip down detachable faceplate, blue and red backlit buttons, and a three-color red/white/blue panel display.

Blaupunkt USA Web Site

Filed Under: Pro Audio

Banff Hosts AES International Conference on Multichannel Surround Audio

June 23, 2003 by Leave a Comment

Banff, the spectacularly scenic resort town in the Canadian Rockies – and incidentally the home of this publication, AudioWorld! – is the place to be this week, for audio professionals working with multichannel sound.

The Banff Centre, and its highly-regarded Music & Sound post-grad program for audio engineers, is hosting the Audio Engineering Society’s 24th International Conference, Multichannel Audio: The New Reality.

A quick run-down of some of the key names and organizations participating in a busy schedule of research topics and practical demonstrations will give you a sense of the calibre of the event: George Massenburg, Tomlinson Holman, David Griesinger, Bob Ludwig, Michael Bishop, Steven Marcussen, Meridian Audio, DTS, Dolby, Lexicon, Fraunhofer IIS/AEMT, NHK, ORF, Swedish Radio and Philips.

The 3-day event runs June 26 – 28, 2003 at The Banff Centre. The program features more than 40 research presentations in the form of papers and posters, as well as all-day seminar, sound demonstration and corporate demo sessions. It all begins on Thursday morning (June 28) with a keynote address by renowned producer and engineer George Massenburg.

As with all Audio Engineering Society conferences, the content is a blend of cutting-edge research – topics that are well outside the radar range of even the most enthusiastic audio enthusiasts; hard-core tech talk, on topics such as acoustic measurement techniques and audio encoding algorithms; and down-to-earth practical tutorials and demonstrations of techniques and technology that audio professionals are using today, to make multichannel recordings for DVD-Audio and SACD releases.

Conference Chair Theresa Leonard says that with nearly 200 audio professionals already signed up to attend the conference, the Banff Centre’s excellent facilities will be stretched for some of the most popular sessions.

On the practical side, some highlights include:

  • Mixing, Mic’ing, Mastering Master Class – with 4 top engineers discussing their creative and technical approaches to multichannel
  • Toward the Popularization of Surround Sound Systems, roundtable discussion on hardware and software engineering, and their relationship with the sales and installation of surround systems for home music listening
  • DTS and Philips demonstrations of recent and up-coming surround music releases
  • Demonstrations of a multichannel modular microphone array for accurate mic placement in surround recording
  • Ambiophonic 2D and 3D Surround Sound demonstrations
  • Several papers and demonstrations focused on microphone placement techniques for 5.1- and 10.2-channel recording
  • Sessions on the use of 5.1 surround audio in radio broadcast and documentary work
  • Continuous surround panning technology for 5-speaker mixes

For the more experimentally oriented, some highlights might be:

  • Wavefield Synthesis – which seems to be the research topic of the year, with two full paper sessions and several sound demonstrations devoted to multi-dimensional, many-speaker arrays that aim to create precise sound localization over a large listening area
  • Hierarchical multichannel sound transmission via Meridian Lossless Packing (MLP) – would you believe 5.1-compatible 16-channel recordings on DVD-Audio discs?
  • Realtime collaborative audio production via high-speed next-generation Internet – using transmission delays to create reverberation effects
  • And the AudioWorld Editor’s current nomination for Best/Most-Obscure Paper Title: Modeling Spatial Sound Occlusion and Diffraction Effects Using the Digital Waveguide Mesh

AudioWorld will be at the Banff AES Multichannel Audio conference to bring you coverage of the highlights.

Multichannel Audio: The New Reality Web Site

Day 1 Report – June 26

Filed Under: Events

Award-Winning SoundStorm Opens New Transfer Room in Burbank

June 20, 2003 by Leave a Comment

Academy Award-winning audio post production and sound editorial house SoundStorm has opened a new sound transfer room. The new room provides ProTools HD and Fairlight digital audio workstations, a wide array of digital and analog audio tape machines, digital and analog video, and even magnetic film.

The wide array of equipment and technologies is essential to SoundStorm’s ability to transfer material between virtually any format, to accommodate the many complex requirements of their feature film, television, game, and commercial editorial work, as well as to take full advantage of the vast library of sound effects they have accumulated over many years.

The project was planned and executed by Bruce Black, a noted motion picture post production sound engineer and consultant.

“Transfer operations can be far more complex than may appear at first glance,” says Black. “The complexity becomes really apparent when you start laying out plans to ensure that any one piece of gear can ‘talk’ to any other.”

“The pressing needs of both ongoing and pending projects also required SoundStorm’s downtime during this project to be cut to the absolute minimum. Careful planning and well organized project management kept the timetables on track, and we did quite well keeping the work flowing,” Black adds.

SoundStorm Web Site

Bruce Black / Audio Advice Web Site

Black Audio Devices Web Site

Filed Under: Production

Pioneer Taps Professional TAD Studio Monitor Technology for High-End Home Audio Reference Loudspeakers

June 18, 2003 by Leave a Comment

Pioneer Corporation has announced that it will introduce a TAD brand speaker system for the first time to the consumer market later this year.

Described as “a new reference speaker system of the 21st century for consumers in the high-end audio market,” the new TAD-M1 loudpseaker will go on sale in Japan, with a projected price of 3,000,000 Yen (approx. $25,000 US), in October 2003.

Pioneer’s TAD (Technical Audio Devices) professional speakers are recognized as a leading brand of studio monitors. Since they first appeared in the US in 1978 (1981 in Japan), TAD speakers have been used in many of the world’s major recording studios. And over these past 25 years they have earned respect and rave reviews from many top artists and engineers, who appreciate their reliability and quality as monitor speakers for recording and digital remastering.

Pioneer says the TAD-M1 will be optimized for performance with advanced high-resolution audio sources, such as DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD (SACD). The TAD-M1 speaker system is the first TAD brand product aimed at the consumer market.

Main Features of the TAD-M1

CST Coaxial Unit
CST (Coherent Source Transducer) is a coaxial speaker technology that controls the phase and directivity of the drive unit across a broad frequency spectrum. By employing a tweeter that is mounted concentrically within a shallow midrange cone, the phasing and off-axis response problems of conventional drivers are eliminated.

16cm Beryllium Diaphragm
Beryllium has been used for both the mid-range and tweeter diaphragms. A light yet rigid metal, Beryllium performs with strength and damping characteristics unmatched by any of the materials currently used in high-end audio speakers. This produces near-perfect piston behavior in the speaker, resulting in cleaner sound and greater accuracy of reproduction.

OFGMS Magnetic Circuit for the Woofer and Mid-range Bass
A short-voice-type OFGMS (Optimized Field Geometry Magnet Structure) magnetic circuit has been newly developed for these speaker units. The density of the magnetic flux in the long gap of 37 mm (in the woofer) has been made uniform, and a voice coil has been placed inside the consistently uniform magnetic gap (patent pending) to ensure stable operation, even during large amplitude, and to reproduce the waveform correctly without limitations imposed by the amplitude. A tri-laminate composite cone diaphragm has been newly developed to obtain ideal physicality, including structural strength, for the woofer and mid-range bass. This enables clear, rich bass and a gentle mid-range bass reproduction, with free of coloration.

SILENT Enclosure for Beautiful Sound as well as Beautiful Style
The enclosure is a vital element in shaping the sound image and sound space. TAD’s structurally inert, laminated enclosure technology (SILENT) refers to a bass enclosure uniquely constructed from more that 50 individually machined layers of high-quality laminated Birch. This complex design and integrally cross-braced construction eliminates flexing and is immune to the high forces and pressures exerted by the bass drivers.

ISO (Isolation) Drive, to bring out accurate, precise strength in sound
TAD’s proprietary ISO Drive technology enables the vibration energy produced by the midrange driver to be isolated from the cabinet. This results in significantly decreased contribution to the sound field from the undesirable vibration of the cabinet, and improves the resolution of fine detail.

Specifications

Design: 4-way Vented Box System
Drive Units: 2 X 250mm Tri-laminate composite cone bass driver
1 X 200mm Tri-Laminate composite cone mid-bass driver
1 X 160mm Beryllium CST mid-range / HF driver (35mm)
Frequency Range: 25Hz to 100kHz
Frequency Response: 30Hz – 20kHz +/–3dB
Crossover Frequencies: 100Hz, 350Hz, 2.2kHz
Amplifier Requirement: 50W – 300W
Sensitivity: 90dB/2.83v/1m
Nominal Impedance: 4 ohms (minimum 3.2 ohms)
Weight: 130kg
Dimensions: Height: 1380 mm, Width: 580 mm, Depth: 568mm

TAD Loudspeakers Web Site

Filed Under: Pro Audio

dbx Ships AFS 224 Feedback Suppression Processor for Live Reinforcement and Installation Applications

June 18, 2003 by Leave a Comment

dbx Professional is now shipping the new AFS 224 Advanced Feedback Suppression processor. The AFS 224 is designed to provide state-of-the-art feedback elimination processing, while maintaining a simple and intuitive control interface. It has an estimated street price of $299.95.

From the powerful DSP module to the no-nonsense user interface, the AFS 224 provides all the processing and control necessary for both installation and live use.

The accepted industry standard is a 10- or 12-filter feedback elimination processor, but the engineering staff at dbx have never been content to accept the status quo. So, to raise the bar once again, they have developed a dedicated feedback suppression processor that offers up to 24 filters per channel, with widths as narrow as 1/80 of an octave.

To achieve this amount of control, which takes all of the guesswork out of feedback removal, dbx employs their patent-pending AFS technology. AFS has previously only been available in the upper echelon line of dbx products.

In addition to the large number of feedback suppression filters available, the AFS 224 also offers selectable modes, live filter lift, and various application-specific types of filtration, which are all readily available via an intuitive user interface front panel.

Key Features:

  • dbx’s Patent-pedning (Advanced Feedback Suppression) AFS™ technology
  • 24 Programmable Filters per Channel
  • Stereo or Dual Independent Channel Processing
  • Live and Fixed Filter Modes
  • Selectable Filter Lift Times
  • Application-specific filter types include: Speech and Music Low, Med and High
  • Input channel Metering
  • 24 LED per Channel Filter Metering
  • XLR and TRS Inputs and Outputs

dbx Professional Web Site

Filed Under: Pro Audio
« Previous Page
Next Page »