The Evolution of Digital Audio Standards

AES involvement with digital audio engineering standardization began in 1977, and continues now with the AES Standards Subcommittee SC-02. The current published standards are listed here, and available for download here. The current projects are listed here.

The history of the activities of the AES in digital audio engineering and standardization from 1977 to 1984 was summarized by Bart Locanthi in “Standardization in Professional Digital Audio Engineering at the AES”, delivered at the 80th Convention, 1986 March. The details of this history are told in the minutes of the meetings of the “Digital Audio Standards Committee” and the “Digital Audio Technical Committee” during that time, and in the technical reports presented to those meetings, which were published in the AES Journal, as listed on the last page of the Locanthi Preprint, and repeated below.

The Locanthi Preprint is included with the AES “Electronic Library”, but the minutes and reports have not been included there, and so that history is not generally easily available. We have therefore obtained permission from the AES Journal and the AES Standards Committee to post the Locanthi AES Preprint 2320 , and to scan and post the minutes and reports as shown in the links below. These PDF files are in the “Searchable Image (Exact)” format.

The Preprint, minutes, and all reports, are Copyright © 1977…1986 Audio Engineering Society. This material is posted here with permission of the AES. Internal or personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution must be obtained from the Audio Engineering Society: contact Managing Editor Bill McQuaide.

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