Audio.TST Archive
Audio Precision sends out the Audio.TST newsletter once a month to approximately 13,000 audio engineers and other audio professionals. Each issue looks at current events in audio test, answers readers´ technical questions and announces any AP news.
AP has been at the NAB expo in Las Vegas all this week. We took some notes on what we saw and questions we heard at our booth, which you can read in Sound Advice. NAB is a huge event, and it was good to see some familiar faces. This month also sees the release of a new interface card for our analyzers. Next up is AES Paris in three weeks. We have a major announcement due just before the show so I hope to see you there. If you can't attend, be sure to visit the AP website on May 15th to read about our new instrument. On a sad note, we learned of the untimely passing of Mike Hogue of Martech Sales on April 19th. As our first sales representative on the west coast, Mike was instrumental in AP’s early success and was considered a friend by his customers and many of us here at AP. Bruce Hofer Output: Tech tips and new applications from AP New: PCI Express interface card available A PCI Express version of the AP interface card is now available. This is the card used to connect an Audio Precision audio analyzer to the PC that controls it. Audio Precision remains committed to supporting the current PCI connector card and it will remain in production for the foreseeable future. The recommended retail price for the PCI Express connector card is $250 USD and includes all the cables required to connect the analyzer to the PC. A low-profile slot option is also available. No new software is required. Audio Precision customers are asked to contact their local distributor for ordering information. To find a local distributor, customers may consult the "Contact Us" page on the Audio Precision website at www.ap.com. Special report from the floor of NAB... Most of the emphasis at NAB was on video and digital storage, but there were a couple of notable audio advances that caught the eye. For example, NHK (Japan) gave a demo of "Super High Resolution HDTV" which has 4 times the resolution (4320 lines) and 16x the pixel count of standard HDTV. It also includes an elaborate 24-channel audio system that surrounds the audience in all three dimensions. A 13 minute production was shown containing a variety of clips from live action sports, to views and sounds of nature, and even the blastoff of a Japanese rocket carrying a communications satellite. It was truly impressive, but far too expensive and massive to be practical in any home theater application. The intended applications appear to be pay-per-view events, museums, and perhaps even current motion picture auditoriums. We had a lot of TV and radio broadcast engineers coming in to talk about the Portable One and the ATS-2, a great reminder that the industry still relies on guys moving instruments around from station to station to test broadcast equipment. One particular broadcaster wanted to transmit some program material over a network of 90 radio stations and then measure the results from a central location. AP's Dan Knighten spent some time going over what measurements could be made, and discussed broadcasting a multitone (late at night, we promise !) to allow a much larger set of measurements to be taken. All told, it was a great show and it was very interesting to hear how people are using our equipment to make their lives easier.
The meeting will start at 8pm at the Sportmen's Lodge (12833 Ventura Blvd.
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