The Audio Engineering Societywas holding court at the Javits Convention Center in New York City last week. The show is aimed at recording industry professionals, but I figured I'd find stuff that would possibly appeal to consumer oriented buyers.
I heard a great demonstration of multichannel music at the ATC room. When I strolled in they were playing an Elton John recording, and the five big speakers punched out an incredibly dynamic sound. Classical music was natural and very, very clear. The big monitors are used in recording studios, but ATC offers consumer models as well.
When I spotted Sony's PCM-D50 hand held recorder I flashed back to the Zoom H2 I reviewed here last week. The H2 is a great little machine, but the Sony ups the ante: first of all it's built like a tank; comes with 4GB of built-in flash memory, built-in stereo microphones, digital pitch control than can slow down playback speed without changing the music's pitch, and records 96 kHz/24 bit WAV files. It also has a buffer circuit that can record five seconds of audio BEFORE you hit the record button!
I dropped by the Acoustical Solutions booth to learn about their products that improve room acoustics and their noise/isolation control solutions. A section of the booth featured was treated with sound absorbing panels that significantly hushed the roar of the crowd on the convention floor. If you have a "problem" room definitely check out their site. it offers a vast range of products.
