The AudioForum returned to ISE for its 11th iteration in 2017. This year speakers focused on audio from an electronics perspective.
AudioForum, the educational event organised by Italian magazine Connessioni, was staged for the 11th time at ISE following iterations in Milan, Mumbai and Beijing. This was fourth time the event for audio consultants, sound designers, system integrators and technicians was held during ISE.
The session, on February 6, was part of the line up of training events staged the day before ISE opened and was an official part of the show’s educational programme. It was organised in collaboration with AES (Audio Engineering Society) and supported by ISE.
It was titled “Audio from the electronics perspective – Processing, DSPs, Software and Firmware for design, monitoring, set up” and underlined the increasingly tight relationships between the audio world and that of electronics and of IT. In addition to presentations there were a number of opportunities for discussion between participants.
AudioForum@ISE2017 was supported by Powersoft and 18 Sound as well as technical partner MMconcept, a Dutch rental company that supplied a sound system.
The proceedings were opened by Alberto Zanghieri, a professional with experience in DSP development and a member of AES Italia. He outlined the evolution of DSPs over time and explained the reasons behind a number of technical decisions made up until today; from the needs that were established in the very beginning to the most current products.
Ruud Kaltofen, president of AES Netherlands and consultant for Event Acoustics, delivered the second speech and also focused on DSP. Kaltofen approached the topic from the perspective of users, exploring the concept of beam steering to that of filtering (steering with FIR and IIR filters), with an interesting system he had designed for noise control.
The microphone was then passed to Mario di Cola, senior engineer at Audio Labs Systems and 18 Sound consultant, who explained how it is possible, electronically, to control and dictate the behaviour of loudspeakers. As an example he illustrated IPAL technology, developed by 18 Sound together with Powersoft, which is able to determine the behaviour and performance of the loudspeaker in advance.
Following a lunch break, Marc Kocks of Powersoft introduced the topics of DSPs applied to the amplifier, intended as a decentralised management platform, and how it is possible, for example, to avoid damaging or even burning loudspeakers.
Finally, while Paolo Martignon of Audio Lab Systems shared the problems of acoustic simulations within sound reinforcement, Arjen Sulman, chief system designer for MMconcept, closed the day by presenting case studies of possible errors in the conversion process from analogue to digital and vice versa.
The complete series of presentations took stock of the most common, and most necessary, uses of digital control in the audio field and concluded with an opportunity for participants to ask questions and share personal experiences.