98th AES Convention - 25-28.02.1995 - PARIS - Polish AES Section Report

Audio Engineering Society Conventions became traditional world meetings of all scientist, engineers, industry managers, producers, dealers and even fanciers interested in the domain of sound and vision systems, equipments, facilities, components, hard - and software computer elements etc. Such meetings take place twice a year: Spring Convention in Europe (denoted with consecutive even numbers), and Fall Convention in the USA (denoted with odd ones).
The latest European Conventions: the 94th in Berlin, the 96th in Amsterdam, and the 98th one in Paris, reported herewith, were marked with parcitipation of several newly organized AES Sections from countries of former Eastern socialist block of states. Among the members of those Sections, the most numerous participation was of the Polish Section. Since the Berlin Convention, the Polish AES Section has organized, for the third time already, inexpensive coach expeditions for their members, mostly student-members, to participate in Conventions. Such participation is highly valubale, especially for young adepts of acoustics, sound engineering and related topics who otherwise would be unable to cover all costs of participation, accomodation, transport etc. In appreciation of those numerous participations and of other initiatives, as well as assessing the whole scientific activity of the Polish Section, the Vice-President for Europe AES Region, Mr Dan Popescu, during the special Convention meeting in Paris, highly estimated its achievements in 1994, calling the Polish Section "the best of all Europe Sections".
Among Polish participants of the 98th AES Convention, held in Paris, at Palais de Congres, were numerous authors and coauthors who read their papers and took part in discussions during the debates within the scientifical Convention program. The debates were grouped in the sixteen sessions: Audio Data Reduction I&II (A&C), Architectural Acoustics I&II (B&D), Electronic Music and Musical Instrument Acoustics (E), Sound Reinforcement I&II (F&H), Audio Electronics (G), Audio Signal Processing I&II (I&K), Transducers I&II (J&L), Measurement (M), Psychoacoustics I&II (N&P), Networks and Interfacing (O).
All the eighty five Convention papers were supported by a preprint. The Polish presentation included the following ones (in brackets - preprint no. and in parentheses - session no.):
- A. Czyżewski, B. Kostek, S. Zieliński, New Approach to the Synthesis of Organ Pipe Sound [3957] (E2);
- B. Żółtogórski, Inverse Radiation Problem - Capabilities and Limitations, [3981] (Jl);
- D. Ruser, H. Ruser, An Elementary High Resolution Microphone System for Localization of Sound Source in Air, [4002] (M1);
- M. Niewiarowicz, Directional Properties of Sound Sources During Transients, [4004] (M3);
- B. Kostek, Statistical versus Artificial Intelligence Based Processing of Subjective Tast Results [4018] (P3);
- M. Kin, J. Renowski, The Influence of Spectrum on Perception of Differential Pitch Sensitivity for Short Waves, [4020] (P5).
Moreover, Polish AES Section members, in particular the young student-members, have taken an active participation in the, so called, workshop sessions. Those were devoted to the following technical aspects: Preservation of and Access to Audio and Video Carriers; New Digital Media Developments; Wave Front Sculpture for Sound Reinforcement; Premastering for the New CD Formats; The Interaction of the Visual and Auditory Senses: "How Does One Measure It"; Current Trends of Research in Musical Instruments Acoustics; Musical and Non-Musical Application; Digital Audio Broadcasting.
Apart from the scientific activities, the participants got an enormous quantity of information concerning the most recent audio systems and equipments presented during a large exhibition, accompanying traditionally the Convention. The exhibition was held inside the Convention site, at the Palais de Congr?s, on three levels, however, being easy acessible to all participants. More than three hundred enterprises, from all over the world, displayed their best products in richly outffitted demonstration stands, giving a visitor a unique possibility to keep track of the development trends in the whole domain of audio engineering. Broadly disseminated leaflets, prospects, technical data lists, system descriptions, records, even manuals, etc. will provide valuable information and reference source for participants at their professional practice.
Immediate press assessments, which appeared still before closing of the Conventions debates, have stated that the greatest interest of industry representatives concentrated on problems connected with the digital sound processing and the reinforcement systems. The latter ones were often entitled as room acoustics or building acoustics problems, however, only sound reinforcement techniques were treated thereby, withouth any reference to proper desing, measurement and acoustical correction or adaptation of rooms. At any rate, those were discussed during session debates devoted to Architectural Acoustics.
Generally, the scientific part of the Paris Convention was not so largely filled as e.g. the 94th one, held in Berlin. The number of papers was almost halved in comparison to Berlin record. However, may be, it was intended by Paris Convention Committee, which probably dismissed a part of the submitted papers in order not to exaggerate the numbers of parallel sessions, necessary otherwise. So, the more important is the number of Polish Section presentations, which amounted 7% of the total number of papers.
It may be interesting to compare the share of authors' contributions from particular countries. The most numerous were twelve papers from the U.S.A. Next in number were papers from Germany and from the United Kingdom, ten papers from each country. Nine papers were presented by French authors. Eight ones by Dutch authors. Poland and Russia presented six papers each. Danish authors presented four papers. Finnland and Hong-Kong presented three papers each. Two papers came from authors from Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Switzerland. One paper was presented by authors from Australia, Austria, Italy, Japan, Spain and Sweden. Thus, it was a really international contribution to audio engineering scientific progress.
Such yearly repeated contact with the international progress in the audio engineering domain is, without a doubt, a very useful event for the Polish AES Section members and for their entire scientific and professional surrounding. Thus, a continuation of similar contacts in the future seems to be highly desirable. In this context, it has to be added here, that the 100th AES Convention, the jubilee one, will be held in Copenhagen, at Bella Center, on May 11-14, next year, 1996.