In the best tradition of a leading audio engineering and development magazine, audioXpress August 2018 reaches your mailboxes and email inboxes with a collection of great content that is certain to inspire. In this month's edition, we focus on Acoustics.Acoustic science is where everything starts, determining how sound and audio systems behave in practice. Since we refreshed audioXpress’ contents in 2013, we have made acoustics an integral part of our mission, together with every other critical discipline in audio development and product design.
Featured on our cover, Robert Manassero provides a fascinating account of how, after experiencing its own challenges with noise in an open office, Plantronics tested and developed its own solution to noise and distraction using biophilic acoustics or acoustics based on elements from nature. In "Curing the Open Office Noise Epidemic… With Nature?", Mannassero details how the team arrived at the current Habitat Soundscaping solution. This completely integrated approach to working spaces, intelligently monitors and improves workplace acoustics, while adding biophilic elements, specifically the sights and sounds of nature, to create welcoming environments where focus work and collaboration can happen and employees can thrive.
Our second cover feature - "Measuring the Performance of Diaphragm Absorbers" - is an account of cutting-edge research by leading experts, Jorge Castro, Nathaniel Bailey, Bruno Fazenda, and Kelvin Griffiths to determine improvements on precise low-frequency absorption. The article describes empirical and finite element analysis prediction of the performance of weighted diaphragmatic membrane absorbers, the predominant acoustic core employed in Artnovion's low-frequency absorbers, such as the “Corner Bass Trap” and the “Sub Trap” range.
Making the case for acoustic modeling software and simulation apps, Mads J. Herring Jensen, explains why the latest tools in the COMSOL Multiphysics Acoustics Module are able to respond to any application related to acoustic phenomena and the design of increasingly complex systems.
Our Acoustic Focus special - which runs every year in August - always includes an Acoustical Solutions product round-up, introducing several acoustic treatment companies and their acoustic materials and solutions. This 2018 edition features products by Wenger, IsoAcoustics, Acoustics First, Auralex Acoustics, GIK Acoustics, Acoustics Science Corp. (ASC), Primacoustic, and Acoustic Geometry, and includes an updated Acoustics Vendor and Services Directory.
Complementing the Acoustics Focus this month, in his Sound Control column, Richard Honeycutt writes about sound masking, what it is, how it works, and why and how it should - or should not - be present.For our readers who dived into the fascinating explication by Christopher Paul on the design, analysis, simulation, building, and testing of voltage and current feedback amplifiers, in this issue the author follows up with a detailed examination of some commercially available current feedback amplifiers and voltage feedback amplifiers.
There's also much more in this issue, including our report of the High End 2018 show in Munich, where Ward Maas shares his findings in speaker design, amplification, turntables, and anything that showed innovations, an important improvement, better design, or simply because he couldn't resist it... Enjoy all his highlights while he walks the Munich Order Center (MOC) in this exciting edition, which was also complemented by a small but very enjoyable concurrent CanJam show in a nearby building.
And for all our readers, Neville Roberts shares his fascinating visit to Venice, Italy, to report on a live recording experience with the internationally famous Interpreti Veneziani, playing in the world renowned and beautiful San Vidal Church, and masterfully captured in analog and digital for the Chasing The Dragon record label. As Neville teases, "Making a high-quality audio recording in a recording studio is one thing, but making a similar recording at a live concert has its own challenges." There's even a sample recording of the concert for our readers to appreciate! Download it here.
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