Best Paper In Show:
Everybody complains about how THD measurements are totally irrelevant
in the modern world, and how it doesn't correlate with perceived distortion
but nobody wants to do anything about it. Earl Geddes and Lidia Lee do,
in Auditory Perception of Nonlinear Distortion (Preprint 5890 and 5891).
They present a metric, show the theory and the mathematics behind it, and
then show how it correlates well in listening tests.

Most Conspicuous Absence:
There were a lot of runners-up for this, since the entire Telex/EVI group
neglected to show up, and Mackie showed nothing other than their new digital
console. But the most conspicuous thing was media. No media manufacturers.
No Quantegy, no BASF, no Imation. Not even Apollo and Transco,
manufacturers of disc blanks who always show up at these things. The guys
from hhb had a a few tapes and discs in the corner of their booth, but other
than that, no media at all.

Best Sound in show:
The Audio Underground crew (Manley Labs, Transamerica Audio Group, Mercenary
Audio, etc.) put on a very fine party at the Lakeside Lounge, with one
really amazing band. Basically a bunch of studio session guys that Fletcher
from Mercenary came up with. They were incredibly tight, and when you
realize it was a pick-up group that's doubly amazing. Way loud, but tight.

Niftiest Gadget in show:
The A-Designs ATTY. It's a passive attenuator pad in a little box with
a knob. Great for controlling monitor gain, sure, but also handy for
all sorts of other things. You can never have too many attenuator boxes
around, and a continuously adjustable is extra handy. If they only had
a stereo version so you wouldn't need to gang a pair for stereo...

Most Interesting Product:
The Gordon mike preamplifier took a totally different approach to preamp
design. No attenuation at all, just different gain stages that can be
switched in and out. All film-and-foil capacitors in the signal path, a
very overbuilt transformer, and teflon PC boards. How does it sound? I
don't know, but it's got to be worth a serious listen to see.

Worst Sound in Show:
The Cakewalk Audio booth was not only running their speaker system way out
of the linear range, but the low end was rattling the booth frame. The
rattling sounds turned their drum-and-bass demo tracks into something very
different (and really, really annoying).

Loudest Sound in show:
The PMC and Bryston guys got together to do a demo of 5.1 with video of
a drummer. It was VERY loud, certainly as loud as a live drum kit and
possibly louder. Unlike most loud show sound, it wasn't distorted, but it
also wasn't something you could listen to at close range without your ears
going into distortion first. At least they waited until the end of the day
to do the demos, though.

Best T-Shirt in show:
Euphonic Masters. STOP THE VIOLENCE of aggressive overcompression
in mastering. The guitar pedal compressor on the back was just so over
the top, and anything that makes people aware of the damage being done
by overcompression on the part of labels today is a great idea.

Best Butt In show:
In spite of great research on this subject, we found the pickings very lean
this year, even if the attendees were not. The best our butt-inspection
committee was able to do was come up with contenders for a "Most Butt In
Show" award which included a number of well-known producers. However, I
decided not to give that award for fear I would never work in the industry
again.


--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Thanks Scott!

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...


Best Paper In Show:
Everybody complains about how THD measurements are totally irrelevant
in the modern world, and how it doesn't correlate with perceived
distortion
but nobody wants to do anything about it. Earl Geddes and Lidia Lee
do,
in Auditory Perception of Nonlinear Distortion (Preprint 5890 and
5891).
They present a metric, show the theory and the mathematics behind it,
and
then show how it correlates well in listening tests.

Most Conspicuous Absence:
There were a lot of runners-up for this, since the entire Telex/EVI
group
neglected to show up, and Mackie showed nothing other than their new
digital
console. But the most conspicuous thing was media. No media
manufacturers.
No Quantegy, no BASF, no Imation. Not even Apollo and Transco,
manufacturers of disc blanks who always show up at these things. The
guys
from hhb had a a few tapes and discs in the corner of their booth, but
other
than that, no media at all.

Best Sound in show:
The Audio Underground crew (Manley Labs, Transamerica Audio Group,
Mercenary
Audio, etc.) put on a very fine party at the Lakeside Lounge, with one
really amazing band. Basically a bunch of studio session guys that
Fletcher
from Mercenary came up with. They were incredibly tight, and when you
realize it was a pick-up group that's doubly amazing. Way loud, but
tight.

Niftiest Gadget in show:
The A-Designs ATTY. It's a passive attenuator pad in a little box with
a knob. Great for controlling monitor gain, sure, but also handy for
all sorts of other things. You can never have too many attenuator
boxes
around, and a continuously adjustable is extra handy. If they only had
a stereo version so you wouldn't need to gang a pair for stereo...

Most Interesting Product:
The Gordon mike preamplifier took a totally different approach to
preamp
design. No attenuation at all, just different gain stages that can be
switched in and out. All film-and-foil capacitors in the signal path,
a
very overbuilt transformer, and teflon PC boards. How does it sound?
I
don't know, but it's got to be worth a serious listen to see.

Worst Sound in Show:
The Cakewalk Audio booth was not only running their speaker system way
out
of the linear range, but the low end was rattling the booth frame. The
rattling sounds turned their drum-and-bass demo tracks into something
very
different (and really, really annoying).

Loudest Sound in show:
The PMC and Bryston guys got together to do a demo of 5.1 with video of
a drummer. It was VERY loud, certainly as loud as a live drum kit and
possibly louder. Unlike most loud show sound, it wasn't distorted, but
it
also wasn't something you could listen to at close range without your
ears
going into distortion first. At least they waited until the end of the
day
to do the demos, though.

Best T-Shirt in show:
Euphonic Masters. STOP THE VIOLENCE of aggressive overcompression
in mastering. The guitar pedal compressor on the back was just so over
the top, and anything that makes people aware of the damage being done
by overcompression on the part of labels today is a great idea.

Best Butt In show:
In spite of great research on this subject, we found the pickings very
lean
this year, even if the attendees were not. The best our
butt-inspection
committee was able to do was come up with contenders for a "Most Butt
In
Show" award which included a number of well-known producers. However,
I
decided not to give that award for fear I would never work in the
industry
again.


--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Thanks, Scott.


Don

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...

Most Conspicuous Absence:
There were a lot of runners-up for this, since the entire Telex/EVI
group
neglected to show up, and Mackie showed nothing other than their new
digital
console. But the most conspicuous thing was media. No media
manufacturers.
No Quantegy, no BASF, no Imation. Not even Apollo and Transco,
manufacturers of disc blanks who always show up at these things. The
guys
from hhb had a a few tapes and discs in the corner of their booth, but
other
than that, no media at all.

Wonder why that is? It's one of the few things that people always buy.

jb

In article "reddred"
writes:

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...

Most Conspicuous Absence:
There were a lot of runners-up for this, since the entire Telex/EVI
group
neglected to show up, and Mackie showed nothing other than their new
digital
console. But the most conspicuous thing was media. No media
manufacturers.
No Quantegy, no BASF, no Imation. Not even Apollo and Transco,
manufacturers of disc blanks who always show up at these things. The
guys
from hhb had a a few tapes and discs in the corner of their booth, but
other
than that, no media at all.

Wonder why that is? It's one of the few things that people always buy.

jb



Probably because most media now used for audio recording are made for other
purposes: CD-R, S-VHS, and Hi-8. I guess the competition for the analog market
has pretty much died as the market shrank.

-Jay
--
x------- Jay Kadis ------- x---- Jay's Attic Studio ----x
x Lecturer, Audio Engineer x Dexter Records x
x CCRMA, Stanford University x http://www.offbeats.com/ x
x-------- http://ccrma-www.stanford.edu/~jay/ ----------x