131st AES Convention Observations

Langston Holland

Langston Holland

Sophomore
Jan 13, 2011
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Pensacola
To whom it may concern:

Bennett Prescott is a very, very bright young man. He is a bit cautious in his online posts and articles, but when you get him on a panel and he starts talking, you immediately find out that he knows way more than most folks in this industry at twice his age. His experience with sub arrays in particular filled much of a page of notes I was taking. He's also one of the most gracious and enjoyable people I've ever had the honor of being with.

Jeff Knorr is probably going to take over the live sound industry. His passion for excellence and curiosity for knowledge appears to be insatiable. It shouldn't be legal to have that much energy and intellect at his age.

The Syn-Aud-Con folks are my mentors. Don Davis and the huge family he created and his incredible workshops are where I moonlighted beginning in the late 80's. Tom Young, Ray Rayburn, Dale Shirk, Charlie Hughes, etc., etc., etc. These people are giants. What an honor to shake their hands. You live-sound-only types need to get over yourselves and join Syn-Aud-Con.

And then the most breathtaking experience I've ever had in this industry occurred this weekend. I was absolutely humbled by the love that Dave Gunness, Rich Frembes, Jamie and Karen Anderson, and Calvert Dayton have for each other. I'm sure there are a few others in their crew that share in this special relationship, but one thing that struck me was how important it is to have a small group of people to hold to in life that you are absolutely loyal to. I spent an evening with these people and almost felt embarrassed to be in their presence.

I have found what I've always wanted to do vocationally, and this is it and these are the people I want to emulate.
 
Re: 131st AES Convention Observations

Langston, I am sure that nobody has ever called me cautious before. It was a real pleasure to finally put a face to a name and I hugely enjoyed touring NYC with you. Hopefully we'll get to do it again sometime soon, and thanks for dinner!
 
Re: 131st AES Convention Observations

Speaking of observations, here are a few things that caught my eye:

Shure's new Axient wireless system, with frequency coordination built in, is very impressive.
Dennis Fink's awesome sounding rack mount stuff has a few new models.
Radial is making tube pres and compressors that sound really great.
APB Dynasonics has been shipping the ProDesk 8 for a little while now, and Chuck tells me it's their #1 seller. I hadn't gotten my hands on it yet and I really like it, but that's no surprise. With their across-the-board price drop it's pretty affordable, too.
Dan Dugan was showing off his My16 card for Yamaha consoles, which I finally got to play with.
 
Re: 131st AES Convention Observations

Bennett Prescott said:
Speaking of observations, here are a few things that caught my eye:

Shure's new Axient wireless system, with frequency coordination built in, is very impressive.
Click to expand...

absolutely.. I don't know how much of a demo you got, but it's one of those products that a brochure or website will never do it justice. I was about to write a short list of the amazing features but realized it would be a LONG list.
I can't imagine it NOT becoming the standard for every mission critical wireless.

one thing that I still can't explain, is that they somehow have found a way to avoid intermod products. I saw a demo with a spectrum analyzer and two transmitters and only the two carriers, no intermod. I always thought that was just physics, but apparently it is avoidable? anyone with insight on how they've done this, and why no one else has until now?
I can't find anything on the web making that claim, but the demo was pretty clear.

Jason
 
Re: 131st AES Convention Observations

Jason,

I got the full 15 minute walkthrough from Jim Schanz. I don't know about no intermod, I'm pretty sure that is physics, but he said it is the best RF stage and the best AF stage Shure has ever made. The 1U frequency manager and scanner alone is well worth the system, but it is so much more than that. This system is absolutely industry leading, and bridges the gap between "smart but not RF genius" users and our declining spectrum. Standby frequencies, automatic or manual failover, extremely powerful networking, transmitter management and on the fly frequency reassignment... incredible. I really hope to run into this stuff as soon as it ships, so I can spend more time getting the sound system correct and mixing and less futzing around with wireless and guessing at how wide that interference is...
 
Re: 131st AES Convention Observations

I'm not a RF guy but intermodulation distortion at audio frequencies is caused by nonlinearity in the path stressed by the sum of the two signals... perhaps a very linear RF stage with more headroom does not generate as many distortion products as a less linear path when similarly stressed.

JR
 
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Re: 131st AES Convention Observations

John Roberts said:
I'm not a RF guy but intermodulation distortion at audio frequencies is caused by nonlinearity in the path stressed by the sum of the two signals... perhaps a very linear RF stage with more headroom does not generate as many distortion products as a less linear path when similarly stressed.

JR
Click to expand...

it wasn't a marginal increase in performance though. it was a 'look at what two regular transmitters look like, and now look at what two axient transmitters look like' and it was night and day.

Jason
 
Re: 131st AES Convention Observations

John Roberts said:
I'm not a RF guy but intermodulation distortion at audio frequencies is caused by nonlinearity in the path stressed by the sum of the two signals... perhaps a very linear RF stage with more headroom does not generate as many distortion products as a less linear path when similarly stressed.

JR
Click to expand...

I'm not an RF guy either, but I was told by one I respect quite a bit, that this is pretty much what they are doing.
 
Re: 131st AES Convention Observations

Langston Holland said:
To whom it may concern:

Bennett Prescott is a very, very bright young man. He is a bit cautious in his online posts and articles, but when you get him on a panel and he starts talking, you immediately find out that he knows way more than most folks in this industry at twice his age. His experience with sub arrays in particular filled much of a page of notes I was taking. He's also one of the most gracious and enjoyable people I've ever had the honor of being with.

Jeff Knorr is probably going to take over the live sound industry. His passion for excellence and curiosity for knowledge appears to be insatiable. It shouldn't be legal to have that much energy and intellect at his age.

The Syn-Aud-Con folks are my mentors. Don Davis and the huge family he created and his incredible workshops are where I moonlighted beginning in the late 80's. Tom Young, Ray Rayburn, Dale Shirk, Charlie Hughes, etc., etc., etc. These people are giants. What an honor to shake their hands. You live-sound-only types need to get over yourselves and join Syn-Aud-Con.

And then the most breathtaking experience I've ever had in this industry occurred this weekend. I was absolutely humbled by the love that Dave Gunness, Rich Frembes, Jamie and Karen Anderson, and Calvert Dayton have for each other. I'm sure there are a few others in their crew that share in this special relationship, but one thing that struck me was how important it is to have a small group of people to hold to in life that you are absolutely loyal to. I spent an evening with these people and almost felt embarrassed to be in their presence.

I have found what I've always wanted to do vocationally, and this is it and these are the people I want to emulate.
Click to expand...

Langston, it was a pleasure finally getting to meet you in person. I really enjoyed talking with you over dinner with our other established guests. We should all get together FAR more often!

Jeff
 
Re: 131st AES Convention Observations

Jason Lavoie said:
it wasn't a marginal increase in performance though. it was a 'look at what two regular transmitters look like, and now look at what two axient transmitters look like' and it was night and day.

Jason
Click to expand...

They've brought engineering prototypes over a couple of times now. What they are doing is using technology to minimize the intermod and artifacts. The big shows will still need to calculate by hand/software but a pretty good percentage of shows, particularly rock shows, corporate and theater with less than 20 or so should be able to do it out of the box in even the most congested markets.
 
Re: 131st AES Convention Observations

Jason Lavoie said:
it wasn't a marginal increase in performance though. it was a 'look at what two regular transmitters look like, and now look at what two axient transmitters look like' and it was night and day.
Click to expand...

I got the attached document from Bill Ostry, at Shure. It shows the intermod advantage of the new Axient transmitters. Pretty neato!
 

Attachments

Re: 131st AES Convention Observations

Philip Roberts said:
How in the world do they make that happen.

Isn't intermod basic math, 3F2-2F1 is always the same.

Philip
Click to expand...

No... it is caused by non-linearity (distortion) in the path. Without the distortion two frequencies just give you two frequencies, like when you hear two musical notes playing, you just hear the two notes. If you were to look at the two notes on a oscilloscope you would notice the two notes superimposed, but your ears just hear the two notes. Since distortion means the transfer function is different (nonlinear) for different amplitudes of the signal (like clipping overload) when these two superimposed frequencies pass through a non-linear path, they generate distortion products in a pattern that represents the combined superposition waveform that peaks at the sum and difference frequencies.

To reduce intermodulation, increase the signal handling dynamic range of the path so non-linearity doesn't occur until much higher amplitude levels.

So perhaps difficult, but no changing the laws of physics, or pact with the devil is required.

JR
 
Re: 131st AES Convention Observations

John Roberts said:
No... it is caused by non-linearity (distortion) in the path. Without the distortion two frequencies just give you two frequencies, like when you hear two musical notes playing, you just hear the two notes. If you were to look at the two notes on a oscilloscope you would notice the two notes superimposed, but your ears just hear the two notes. Since distortion means the transfer function is different (nonlinear) for different amplitudes of the signal (like clipping overload) when these two superimposed frequencies pass through a non-linear path, they generate distortion products in a pattern that represents the combined superposition waveform that peaks at the sum and difference frequencies.

To reduce intermodulation, increase the signal handling dynamic range of the path so non-linearity doesn't occur until much higher amplitude levels.

So perhaps difficult, but no changing the laws of physics, or pact with the devil is required.

JR
Click to expand...

that sounds reasonable, but it still surprises me that this came out of nowhere without years of people talking about it as the holy grail that was unreachable yet.. just waiting for better ICs or something like that..
if they've managed this via some patented process other mfrs could be left in the dust.

Jason
 
Re: 131st AES Convention Observations

Jason Lavoie said:
that sounds reasonable, but it still surprises me that this came out of nowhere without years of people talking about it as the holy grail that was unreachable yet.. just waiting for better ICs or something like that..
if they've managed this via some patented process other mfrs could be left in the dust.

Jason
Click to expand...

I am not experienced in that technology but in general breakthroughs in device technology are often driven by consumer electronics and then filters down into more professional applications. I don't take the trade journals anymore, but I vaguely recall hearing something about a new IC technology developed to make low cost satellite receivers for GPS, that delivers a huge increase in gain bandwidth product for cheap ICs. This may fall out of that, or may just be a new higher voltage process that allows for more signal headroom through conventional circuits. If there is a patent involved, you can easily read the patent to find out.

I am running out of guesses, and don't care enough to dig further.

JR
 
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