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Boston
Audio Society
FOUNDED 1972
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| Meetings
and other Notices |
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Date: Sunday, May 27, 2012, 5:00
PM (Monitors earlier)
Place: Boston University, Life Science & Engineering Bldg,
24 Cummington St.
Room: 103, Boston, MA 02215
Featured: The Best Monitor Speaker
Topic: Monitor Speaker Shootout
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The Boston Audio Society monitor/speaker
shootout will permit you to compare speakers supplied by members.
Due to time and space limitations, only one speaker is requested.
Two playback systems will be setup and operating, one for listening
while the other table will be getting ready. Please limit your
monitor to a height no greater than two-feet, a woofer size
of ten-inches or less, and all price categories qualify. Builders
of DIY speaker are especially encouraged to supply a monitor.
As a supplement to your listening results, the Omni Mic system
will be used (near field) to measure the speakers; you will
be provided a copy. A score sheet to evaluate and rank/select
the 'best' monitor loudspeaker will be passed out to all. Photos
of some members' speakers available at the clinic are on the
left.
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The playback-system listening tables will
be prepared to accept RCA connector amplified speakers, Speakon
connectors, banana plugs, and bare wire. If your speaker connection
type does not accept any of these, please bring adaptor with
your monitor.
To minimized duplication, send an e-mail
to Dave Hadaway (dbsys2@att.biz) with the name and model number
of your speaker. It will be listed on the 2nd BAS Meeting notice,
prior to the meeting. Due to time constraints, the number of
monitors will be limited to ten.
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To facilitate your quality listening experience,
bring along your favorite CD. Some well-recorded CDs will be
on hand to provide evaluation consistency. The mono setup will
have two different speakers - one to the Left side of the listening
chair; the other speaker on the right side of the listening
chair. Please note the 5:00 PM meeting starting time. Members
with monitors are asked to arrive earlier, 4:00 PM
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Directions:
At Boston University, Cummington
St is an east-west street just south of Commonwealth
Ave. It is one-way going west.
Parking on both Commonwealth Av and Cummington
St. is free and available.
From Storrow
Drive going east, take the first BU exit.
At the stop sign turn right on Commonwealth
Ave (A left is not permitted). Bear left and
at the 3rd light take a u-turn, go half a
mile and turn right on Blandford St. (at a
traffic light) and turn right on Cummington
St.
From Commonwealth
Ave going west, after Kenmore Square,
after the tracks come up out of the tunnel,
there is a traffic light at Blandford (on
your left). You should turn left on Blandford,
but no left is permitted. Instead, turn right
and make a U-turn. Continue on Blandford and
turn right on Cummington St. The entrance
is on your left, number 24.
MBTA Green
line - exit at Kenmore Square or the next
stop, Blandford St. & Commonwealth Ave.
Walk a short distance and make a left turn
onto Blandford St. and right onto Cummington
St.
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| Below,
other meetings and notices which may be of interest to BAS members |
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WEBMASTER'S
NOTE: The FCC has mandated
that OPERATION OF WIRELESS MICROPHONES IN THE 700 MHZ
BAND IS PROHIBITED AFTER JUNE 12, 2010. Inasmuch as
there is a LOT of misinformation about this, the ONLY correct
and relevant page is here:
www.fcc.gov/cgb/wirelessmicrophones
There is also a page with full lists of products affected
and a comprehensive list of manufacturers. |
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Foster's
Test Bench !
by Alvin Foster ! Click the logo:
> |
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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 |
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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 |
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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
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| 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 |
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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 !
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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 W I N D O W
- AND FOR CONVENIENCE -
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The
BAS Message
May 2012
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1. The annual
drawing for the Meeting Summary Writer bonus will be held at the May meeting,
covering BASS V33-3, 4, and 34-1. Writers are JS Allen (Sean Olive), Alvin
Foster (CES 2012), JS Allen (Dave Moulton, JS Allen (Mark Schubin), David
Hadaway (Favorite Recordings).
2. V34N1 of the BAS Speaker has been published.
It features the Oct '11 meeting, Sean Olive, by J.S. Allen and CES 2012
reports by Alvin Foster. Also highlights of CES by David Weinberg and Jim
Buchanan. 29pp
3. Along members of other societies, 19
BAS members made the journey to Hartford CT to hear the home theater of
Arnold Chase. It seats 103 people on plush red seats in a movie theater
ambience with gold cloth side panels. Many thanks to Arnold Chase for his
generosity in hosting this meeting. Also to Brian Kobylarz of CT SMPTE who
organized it.
The hall is 37' below grade and NC17 (no child under
the age of 17 admitted without parent or guardian). Chase talked about how
he got into video from the earliest days. When very young he read about
the advertised gizmo that would "turn your house wiring into a giant
antenna". Not having any money to buy one he took some zip cord and
stripped the insulation off the ends. Then he twisted the ends together
in a loop behind the TV and plugged it into the AC. His mother was wondering
why the lights flickered. Much later he learned about capacitive coupling,
and besides the house wiring in that time was armored cable which would
shield the signal anyway.
John F. Allen reviewed the technical side of designing
the sound system. He uses a mathematical formula to precisely place the
surround speakers accompanying the HPS-4000 sound system to give uniform
coverage for every seat. It turned out that his placement conflicted with
the structural columns. After locking horns with the architect for 4 hours,
a compromise was reached: he added two more surround speakers and a steel
support column was moved. By toeing in the main speakers virtually every
seat has a stereo image. Sensitivity is 109 dB at 1 watt, 1 meter.
It was an enveloping experience with an excerpt from
Hugo (which won 5 Oscars including sound mixing). I heard some metallic
edge on the sound effects, maybe from what I call the "Foley disease"--that
everything you see happening in the picture has to have a prominent sound
effect associated with it. (An example is "Contact" with SETI
astronomer Jodie Foster. When she pushes a pushpin into a cork board there
is a "thunk" and she says "one down and 100 billion to go").
Afterward we were invited to tour and hear demonstrations
of his large collection of mechanical music machines including the large
orchestrions. Also a side room had maybe a hundred old arcade games, in
working order. One that caught my attention involved dropping atom bombs
(!).
Explanation: The beauty of NC contours (Noise Criteria)
is that a single number gives a spectrum specification. They resemble simplified
Fletcher Munson curves at mid and low frequencies. A specification of NC20
means that on an octave basis, the noise in the room does not exceed the
NC20 curve at any frequency. A concert hall or recording studio should meet
NC15-25. Boston's Symphony Hall meets NC17 (at least when the subway is
not passing underneath).
Because no recording was allowed, there will not be
a writeup of this meeting.

email me here
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There is a posting of an ABX article, The Digital Challenge
by Stanley P. Lipshitz HERE
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| Webmaster's
Corner: |
| Once
again, for 2012, here's a very useful calendar of audio/related events,
with kudos to any and all who put this list together: www.stiernberg.com/events.html |
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Barry
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