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A High-Resolution Audio Primer

January's Industry Update included a report on a scientific article presented at last year's AES meeting, in which the authors used test tones and a modest audio system (albeit in an anechoic chamber) to prove that listeners can discriminate between high-rez and CD-rez audio. This is important because scientific evidence of an audible difference between high-rez and CD-rez music is considered weak by some, even as anecdotal evidence grows stronger by the day.

As I pondered this, I recalled a recent paper I'd seen in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society but hadn't yet read. "High Resolution Audio: A History and Perspective," which the AES has made available free online, does precisely what the title says: reviews the history of digital audio beyond CD-rez and frames the issue of high-rez audio's audible superiority on the basis of the available evidence.

Post-Fire Future Unclear for Apollo Masters

On February 6, our sister site AnalogPlanet.com reported the news of a three-alarm fire at the Banning, CA headquarters of Apollo Masters, a renowned manufacturer of ready-to-cut lacquers for use in the LP-mastering industry. The blaze reportedly burned for approximately three hours before being brought under control, during which time an adjacent highway was shut down.

Immersive Audio at National Sawdust

In September 2019, I made an afternoon visit to National Sawdust, a vibrant, innovative performance space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to attend a demonstration of the new Constellation and Spacemap systems installed there by Meyer Sound. According to Meyer Sound designer Steve Ellison, the two systems permit control of the space's acoustics (Constellation) and empower performers and sound designers to construct a soundscape (Spacemap) in which voices, instruments, and other sounds can be located virtually anywhere within as well as beyond the confines of the performance space.

Immersive Audio at AES

The buzz at the 2019 Audio Engineering Society (AES) convention in New York was immersive audio, as it has been for the last several years. I witnessed developments that may have a big impact on the future of multichannel audio.
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