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Published Articles - (Issue 44 of Widescreen Review)
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AES Convention Showcases Surround Sound Exhibitions, Technologies And Discussions
By Perry Sun
Although surround sound is nothing new to home theatre, in the professional world it is still a relatively novel catch phrase, particularly with music production. The 109th AES (Audio Engineering Society) convention, which took place September 22-25, 2000 in Los Angeles, California was aptly themed "Surrounded By Sound." Though certainly more technical and specialized in focus than the International CES or CEDIA Expo conventions, there was nonetheless more than enough to ensure that an attendee with interests in surround sound would be busy for the full duration.
Surprisingly, DVD-Audio took on a rather low profile for the show. There were no demonstrations to be found, but there were two relevant sessions devoted to important issues&emdash;one covering mastering and authoring, and the other on the topic of audio watermarking. On the other hand, SACD had quite a visible presence, in the form of Sony's devoted and conspicuous exhibition on the show floor, and running demonstrations of two-channel and multichannel SACD. (Yes, I did say "multichannel!")
The SACD demonstrations were rather compelling, and featured a series of excerpts, starting off with the remastering of James Taylor's JT, the only two-channel recording of the demo session. This was followed by multichannel examples, played off of Philips' prototype multichannel SACD player. (The SCD1000 will be Philips' first multichannel SACD unit, slated for introduction at the end of 2000 as this issue went to press.) These excerpts included those from Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now, and Sacred Feast, Tom Jung's masterful recording of a choir in a chapel. The finale of the demo session was particularly engaging and impressive, a cut from a compilation of Jerry Goldsmith's compositions, recently recorded and mixed by Goldsmith's long-time collaborator, Bruce Botnick. The recording was so new that it was actually played off of Sony's prototype DSD workstation, which allows for a complete production solution, from recording to mastering.
And speaking of Bruce Botnick, I had the opportunity to meet him again on the trade show floor, at the Digital Music Technologies booth&emdash;my first meeting was at the Surround 2000 conference. Besides his busy schedule working with Goldsmith on film scoring projects, Botnick has prepared vintage material from The Doors in multichannel (he originally worked with The Doors' recording sessions in the 1960s). We plan to feature an in-depth interview with Botnick in a future issue. He is a Grammy Award® winner and is very well-respected for his work with recording/mixing film scores.
The DTS® presence was quite predictable at AES, with demonstrations of discrete multichannel surround sound music. DTS also presented a paper on the use of their extension data to offer multichannel, 96kHz/24-bit audio. The extension data is a potentially powerful feature of Coherent Acoustics, the codec algorithm for DTS Digital Surround™, which allows for future enhancements or improvements to what is currently offered, while ensuring backward compatibility with decoders that are now in use. The current implementation of extension data is DTS-ES Discrete 6.1 (see Shane Buettner's story in Issue 41).
The Dolby Laboratories booth featured the company's various Dolby E and relevant solutions. Dolby E is a data compression codec that has been developed specifically for distribution of multichannel audio within television production and broadcasting facilities. The aim is to offer a convenient means of handling up to eight channels within a two-channel digital audio infrastructure. Also featured was a demonstration of AAC (Advanced Audio Coding), said to be a likely successor to MP3 and could be useful in applications within and without the Internet. There were two-channel comparisons, through headphones, between AAC and uncompressed audio, and while they sounded very similar, a critical judgement was not possible, since the listening session took place right on the noisy show floor. AAC figured prominently, elsewhere at AES with a special demonstration of the transmission of AAC-encoded 12-channel, 96kHz/24-bit audio, from McGill University to the University of Southern California over Internet2. (AAC is capable of up to 48 channels, with resolution and sampling rate up to 24-bit and 96kHz, respectively.)
Additionally, there were some rather novel and creative surround sound solutions. Chesky Records is proposing 6.0 surround, an alternative to the 5.1 speaker configuration. The 6.0 system would replace the center and LFE channels with a pair of channels for speakers placed at 55 degrees from the axis defined by the center speaker and central listening position. These speakers would also be elevated, so that, at least conceptually, the ambience of a large listening space (such as a concert hall) could be reproduced. Cerwin-Vega! showcased a hemispherical surround sound setup, with sixteen speakers rendering the performance of a full-blown big band jazz ensemble. And perhaps most ambitiously, there was the demonstration of Dimension Audio's 48-channel surround sound, or, to perhaps be more exact, 45.3-channel audio. Alan Howarth is the co-creator, and is well-respected for his work with film sound. This system comprised 45 channels of speakers spread along all wall boundaries, except the floor, on which a Genelec subwoofer was placed, and a series of ButtKicker™ shakers were mounted (see our review in WSR's The Essential Subwoofer Buyer's Guide). Each speaker represents a sonic "pixel," and the ensemble creates a two-dimensional array of discrete channels for each wall. Summatively, 45 discrete "pixels" of sound from the walls create the three-dimensional, patented Taylor Array Process.
Of course, what was just reported here is all but merely a taste of the many new developments introduced and demonstrated at AES. Surround sound, in its multiple applications will certainly be the topic of dominance at this convention for years to come.
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