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Boston Audio Society
FOUNDED 1972

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Meetings and other Notices

The Boston Audio Society now has its own YouTube channel:
www.youtube.com/@bostonaudiosociety

The March Zoom Only Meeting

Date: Saturday, March 16, 2024, 2:00 PM EDT
Location: 
Zoom only
Featured Guests:
Gary Eickmeier--a long time BAS, SMWTMS, & the Suncoast Audiophile Society Member

Topic/Activity: Are Virtual Reality 3D Headsets our Future?

Gary has a vast consumer-oriented history in audio. Years ago he adopted the hobby before serving in the Air Force where he flew the KC-135 refueling plane. However, his favorite subject is analyzing sound fields in rooms. Gary visited the Bose factory and spoke with Dr. Bose and company about imaging and speaker placement. Gary designed his own speakers and called them Image Model Projectors. He moved to Florida 35-years ago, and now feels the tug of abandoning his custom designed listening room for a retirement village apartment. To make that happen, the need to downsize led him to explore the 3D VR Headset environment.
 

‘In my 80th year, I have lived through the mono and stereo era, the digital revolution, and the spread of home theater. During my audio history presentation, I will take a broad look at how we got where we are today, and where home audio might be headed. My lecture will cover research into human hearing, sound recording, the auditory perspective, and the possible next step, Virtual Reality viewing and listening. Your participation will make, hopefully, for a lively discussion.’


Hope to see you Saturday, March 16, at 2:00PM

Join the Zoom Meeting !

Ken Schwarz is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Time: Saturday, March 16, 2024 ~ 2:00 PM Eastern Daylight time

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89414786087?pwd=aG8wMFFKaXZuejR3TEJQOThISkhrUT09

Meeting ID: 894 1478 6087

Passcode: 989644

IF you are viewing this on a phone or tablet, you can and should download the ZOOM APP.

You can ALSO click on this link and simply DIAL IN to participate:
https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kcgU8tvYvR

If you are using a computer and this is your first time with Zoom, please give yourself at least 15-20 minutes prior to the meeting to set things up: click on the link in the Zoom instructions below and you will be guided to download the Zoom software, HERE: https://zoom.us/download

You can use your computer’s audio if you have a headset attached, or you can dial-in for audio. If you have a smart phone or tablet and a good internet connection, then you should install the Zoom app for your device and connect using it.

THE BAS MESSAGE
March 2024

Miscellaneous News

1. Here is a complete list of BAS meetings for the last 52 years, and meeting summaries that have appeared in the BAS Speaker. All issues of the BASS are available n CDROM. 

dbsystemsaudio.com/ml.htm

2.  Needle sharpening

Have your records lost their sparkle?  Do you feel you are missing something. Perhaps your needle (stylus) is worn.

A.I.-Tech has the solution with its patented needle sharpening service.  We scan your needle with cutting edge Artificial Intelligence analysis, then using laser microbursts, ablate and sculpt the needle until it is in the desired shape, to an accuracy of within 2 microns (2 μm).

For  Stereo LPs, - .7 mil conical or elliptical or Shibata

For Mono LPs - 1 mil conical or elliptical.

For 78s - 3 mil conical or elliptical.

Once you have used our process, then in the future we will be able to use quantum entanglement (colloquially known as “spooky action at a distance”) to process your needle in your own home without having to send it to us.

Contact A.I.-Tech.com

NYT 1Ap24

3. The BAS is looking for a new webmaster. The current webmaster will train you and hand it over to you, and provide support as necessary. The website is written in simple HTML. You will need a computer and a high speed internet connection (you will need to download a 6GB backup in a reasonable amount of time).

 


Below, other meetings and notices which
may be of interest to BAS members

JUST RELEASED !
A fantastic historical video!

Ken Berger and Kenton Forsythe are the founders of EAW (Eastern Acoustics Works) and they discuss, with terrific overlaid graphics, the history of, well, pretty much every audio thing Boston from the early 70's.
18 minutes and right here: https://youtu.be/fPfQEK0b0mI

GBH Awarded $16 Million to Digitize Radio, TV Broadcasts
www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/gbh-awarded-16-million-to-digitize-radio-tv-broadcasts

A Boston issue - As MIX magazine reports:

Sound Museum owners cry foul as their tenants likely secure new spaces without them

While the headline sounds like someone has sour grapes, the complete story of how the closure of this crucial Boston rehearsal studio is being handled is far more nuanced and complicated -- particularly since it brings up issues of gentrification, government support of the arts, non-profits' ethics and more. Full Story HERE  (WBUR-FM Boston (1/11/23)

And here's an update:
www.wbur.org/news/2023/01/25/charlestown-rehearsal-studios-musicians-boston


MAHLER 3

In the recent (April 2022) performance of Mahler’s Third Symphony at Boston's Symphony Hall by Ben Zander and his Boston Philharmonic, the recording was done with the three main spaced omnis with two more farther back. No accent mikes or chorus microphones were used nor, it turns out, were they needed. Remarkably, this produced a recording that is as close to the Symphony Hall experience as may be possible.

The info is here: www.bostonphil.org/concerts/2021-2022/bpo4-mahler3

Here is the recording in its entirety as a single .WAV file; 44k / 16 bit; 1hr 47 min
Mahler Sym 3 CD.wav  1.1GB  
(For those of you with editing software note that the .wav file HAS markers to denote the movements.)

Here is the exact same Symphony 3 with the movements separated as FLAC files, 48k / 24 bit as a ZIPped file: Mahler 3 Zander as FLAC.zip  1GB

IF you'd like further Gustav Mahler info... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Mahler


Shop Talk

Shop Talk was a WBUR program about Hi Fidelity, music, speakers, tape recorders, etc. Enjoyed by many during the 1970s, the program's format was ‘talk’ and interviewing major audio luminaries. It was a forerunner of the popular program Car Talk!

Peter Mitchell and Dr. Richard Goldwater were the original hosts. They were later joined by Brad Meyer. Here, John Allen interviews Scott Kent:

Shop Talk John Allen talks to Scott Kent on SPEAKERS.mp3   (81Mb 1:27)

Shop Talk John Allen talks to Scott Kent on TAPE RECORDERS.mp3  (79Mb  1:26)

There is also an episode track on the BAS CD and here is that Description:

Track 12. "Shop Talk", WHRB-FM, November 5, 1984.
Peter Mitchell (on the left), Richard Goldwater, MD (center) and E. Brad Meyer (right) introduce the show with a 1932 stereo recording and prepare to talk with guests Mark Davis and David Moran, both then of dbx corporation.

Shop Talk, which through most of its ten-year life on WBUR featured just Mitchell and Goldwater, was the precursor of Tom and Ray Magliozzi's "Car Talk". As we finished our 9:00-10:30 stint every Saturday morning, Tom and Ray would take our places and begin joking with each other. Eventually the station manager figured out that they were funnier than we were, and that more people drove cars than owned hi-fi equipment, and fired us. Until then, the show publicized the Boston Audio Society, vastly increasing attendance at our monthly meetings. The show came back for a time during the '80's on the Harvard station WHRB, where we appeared once a month as guests of HRB stalwart David Elliott. [EBM]


BAS MICROPHONE CLINIC REPORT !
In September 2009 the B A S held a microphone clinic, testing 37 different microphone models. The ambitious nature of the clinic effort, the extent of data collection, the number of individuals involved in microphone testing and in writing various sections of the report, and the complexity in determining how to construct the clinic report and make it available to members resulted it not being published until now. The dataset is extensive.

Representative samples were included in the abbreviated report in "The B A S Speaker"
(Fall 2015; v37n3)

Go to the MICROPHONE CLINIC PAGE for more...

...and don't forget, here is the master list of microphones in the world


When collecting and plotting "noisy" data it is often useful to have Microsoft Excel plot a Trend Line through it.  If that data is to be used for further work, it may be necessary to have an X-Y table of the Trend Line. That is not easy to get and this paper will show how to do it.
Joseph DeMarinis has an article here: Extracting Numerical Data from an Excel Trend Line

Foster's Test Bench !
by Alvin Foster !    Click the logo: —>
The rapidly-becoming-famous BAS Headphone Test Article is now available in the BASS VOLUME 25, ISSUE 4, on Page 17, available HERE   PDF 3mb
Visit our PODCAST PAGE for:
The LIVE video podcast of our meetings,
Archived video of past meetings (only one so far!),
and Audio Podcast interviews by Alvin Foster
There is a supplemental and further explanation addendum paper to the E. Brad Meyer / David Moran paper published in the September, 2007 issue of the AES Journal. That page, which documents the experimental protocol and audio systems/source material is here:
www.bostonaudiosociety.org/explanation.htm   
There is a Power Point Presentation of the lecture given by Dr. Barry Blesser at the March 2007 Meeting. The Meeting page synopsis is HERE; the Power Point Presentation (as a web page) is HERE

Some earlier BASS issues, previously available only directly by mail, are now available online, on the BAS SPEAKER page, HERE

Show your appreciation for the immense amount of dedicated work that went into both the original writing, gathering, editing and printing, PLUS the more recent scanning and conversion to PDF format, by joining the Society, HERE !


A L L   O F F S I T E   L I N K S   O P E N   I N T O   A   N E W  T A B  O R  W I N D O W

- AND FOR CONVENIENCE -

AES Future Meetings
www.bostonaes.org

Acoustical Society of America
www.gbcasa.org
SMPTE New England
www.smpte-ne.org

There is a posting of an ABX article, The Digital Challenge by Stanley P. Lipshitz HERE


The Boston Audio Society
PO BOX 260211
Boston MA 02126


updated 4/14/23