AES British Section lectures - October 2006
Audio is done, isn't it?
Keith Howard
www.audiosignal.co.uk
In some areas of the new, wider audio industry there is a perception that the major problems of high-quality sound reproduction have all been solved.
Among many consumers the same attitude prevails. But anyone who listens to high-quality hi-fi and asks the critical question "Does this sound like real music?" understands that audio is not 'done' and that significant challenges remain. In the course of this presentation a subset of six audio issues that are still to be resolved satisfactorily will be examined, ranging from big subjects like multichannel audio to smaller ones like loudspeaker directivity. Many are not as new as they may appear but actually have a long history.
Keith Howard fell into journalism by accident during a year between universities, working as an editorial assistant first on Popular Hi-Fi and then Hi-Fi Answers. Shortly after returning to the latter in 1980 he became editor, a post he held until going freelance in 1989. Job titles on Audiophile and What Home Entertainment followed before he became Gramophone's audio consulting editor in 1995, a post he held until late 1999. In early 2000 he became consultant technical editor on Hi-Fi News. He began a parallel career writing about automotive technology for Autocar in 1991. Subsequently he became the magazine's technical editor, then technical consultant. He also now writes for Motor Sport.
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