All Eyes on AES
Summer’s here, the solstice near, and things are heating up in the audio industry. AES Europe, organized annually by the Audio Engineering Society, wrapped just a few days ago in Madrid, where the industry was on full display for three days. Shively Acoustics International (SAI) and president Roger Shively were there for it all at the Polytechnic University of Madrid’s Nikolai Tesla Communications Center, immersed in the latest and greatest in Audio.
Café, por favor (Photo: SAI)
‘Immersed’ is the key word here. Of AES Europe, Roger said “the three-day convention might just have proven to us that we are in an immersive world,” noting that more than half of the presentations at the conference had to do with the evaluation and production of immersive audio. The SAI chief especially appreciated the talk given by Hyoungkook Lee, who discussed immersive audio, and in particular how the concepts of ‘presence’ and ‘involvement’ are crucial in determining the immersiveness of an audio event, as perceived by the listener and influenced by their internal reference of experience and expectations.
Other immersive highlights included the convention’s Best Paper Award, which went to Roman Kiyan for his paper titled “Determining the Immersion Sweet Area in Multichannel Loudspeaker Reproduction using Spatial Sound Field Features”, and Genelec’s room dedicated to presentations, demos, and playtime, as Roger put it, with immersive audio.
While this topic took the lion’s share of the discussion, things were rounded out by a variety of content in audio applications and product design, machine learning/artificial intelligence, and high resolution audio, among others. A lineup of automotive-related presentations provided a preview of AES Automotive 2024, which is now just around the corner and will feature some of the same presenters.
Roger goes into much greater detail about AES Europe in his coverage for the latest Audio Voice newsletter from industry periodical audioXpress. Dive into the recap and see the conference through the eyes of an industry expert in edition #472 of the newsletter. These post-event write-ups are becoming a regular thing for SAI, and we hope you, dear blog readers, are as happy to have the additional content as we are to put it out (see below, for more of the same 📰).
SAI’s stay in Europe, however, is only just getting started. With Madrid in our rearview mirror. . .
…all roads now lead to Gothenburg
Look back at Dearborn 2022 (Video: SAI)
The time has finally come. After two years of anticipation, the industry is now only days away from the 2024 AES 5th International Conference on Automotive Audio in Sweden, which kicks off on June 26. Get ready, because it’s going to be a full house! We are excited to report that the conference has sold out, reaching capacity at 300 attendees, which, Roger points out, means the growing Automotive Audio conference is becoming more on par with some of the main conventions; by comparison, AES Europe 2024 saw 375 attendees. You can still register here to snag a spot on the waitlist — Thermometer: Hot! 🌡️
AES Automotive is the culmination of the hard work of many, but the event also marks an important milestone for Shively Acoustics and Roger personally, who as Vice-Chair and Treasurer took an active role in the conference’s organization and planning. This process was set into motion almost immediately after the previous edition concluded two years ago in Dearborn, Michigan, which Roger also chaired — for which he won an award.
Counted among the successes of Dearborn were the attendance, an expanded technical scope, an additional full day dedicated to NVH (noise, vibration, and harshness) and Audio, and continued growth in sponsorship. Looking ahead to Gothenburg, these areas of development were targets for continued growth, Roger recalled, while a new area was also added: speech recognition and control.
“It is our industry’s one time every two years to focus together on the ideas, problems, and solutions that really matter to us.”
In no time at all, a lead chairman was secured, euroside, while Roger became Vice-Chair stateside. The conference committee followed soon after, comprising faces old and new to the industry. Parallel to all of this, Roger said that the AES itself had gone through structural changes at the time, a new support team brought in, and the organization’s website given a makeover. “How we and the AES worked together changed, and grew tighter and better as we both learned new ropes,” the SAI chief said, thinking back.
The committee got to work on creating an outline for the event and drawing up a budget, while focusing on the goals mentioned above of expanding content, sponsorship, and attendance — the last of these clocked in at 220 attendees in Dearborn, which Gothenburg (spoiler) has already surpassed, and then some. Further aims included reducing fees and above all attracting more participants at all levels, from OEMs to suppliers to consultants. Most importantly, of course, was finding a venue. For the first time, locations were reaching out, requesting to be made the venue. The growth of and attention for AES Automotive Audio were undeniable, palpable.
By the time AES Europe 2023 rolled around last May, Roger and the committee had a location, a finalized budget, and a whole lot of “lofty goals” for the event, as he put it, which by the end of the year started showing progress. In the first half of 2024, the work became focused on getting the word out, attracting submissions, and registering attendees. Check, check, and check.
“It always begins quietly, like water slowly dripping through a stone wall,” the bonafide man-of-metaphors said of the planning process. “It slowly increases, but with little effect on the wall. In the weeks before the conference, there is a sudden rush and the wall falls and the water begins to steadily rise.” To orient you, dear readers, we are now at the fallen-walls, steady-rise-of-water stage for Gothenburg, waiting for the coming flood.
“Even on the first day of the conference, the numbers will increase and the auditorium will be full, the exhibits will be buzzing, and the ideas will flow.”
Madrid Atocha railway station: is there a direct train to Gothenburg? (Photo: SAI)
You can now count the days remaining until the conference on one hand — go ahead, try it. In other words, we are one good high-five away from the best Automotive Audio conference yet. Come say hej for a day, or three, in Sweden.
And of course, next month, you can be sure we’ll have a full recap of the conference right here in the SAI Blog, so check back in July!
Popping up in print 📰
We’ve mentioned it a few times now, but the building collaboration with audioXpress means steadier written output on the part of SAI. As covered above, Roger’s post-event recap of AES Europe 2024 is appearing in the magazine’s Audio Voice online newsletter, which has just been released. Read it now while it’s still hot!
But that’s not all. Last month, we attended the Mobility Voice and Noise Conference organized by HEAD acoustics, which Roger also covered for audioXpress’s weekly newsletter. Read the full guest editorial in The Audio Voice #471 to travel back to Mobility Voice and Noise.
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Roger was also featured in a Q&A in the 2024 Loudspeaker Industry Sourcebook. In the 5-question one-pager, he was asked about the automotive industry and market as well as the state of SAI and its development over the past 12 months, and more. You can read the Q&A online, or in your latest physical copy of the LIS.
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Last, the SAI boss contributed an article for the recently published June 2024 edition of audioXpress, which had a special focus on Automotive Audio. In his article titled “Moving Audio Into an Era of AI and SDV”, Roger details the paradigm shifts in the industry resulting from the rise of both artificial intelligence and the software-defined vehicle.
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Keep your ‘radios’ tuned to the SAI channels over the next week for real-time updates from Sweden, before the SAI blog returns in July to put them all together. Ta ta for now! ■
Shively Acoustics International — Modern Audio Solutions, Worldwide
