Presenters: Varuni Witana, Ian Stevenson, Sipei Zhao
The Sydney section of the AES had its first meeting for several years on the 11th June 2021 at the University of Technology Sydney Tech Lab at Botany. There were 35 attendees including AES members and interested people from the Sydney audio engineering and research community. The event included an overview of the section goals and committee organisation, a guest presentation by Varuni Witana co-founder and CTO at Audinate, and a demonstration of new experiments in active sound field control by UTS researchers in the acoustics lab facilities.
Nominations for committee positions were received and will be formalised by electronic ballot of current members. The section affirmed its goals to "increase knowledge, stimulate interest, encourage interchange, and maintain high standards in audio engineering and education; and to hold meetings that support this aim".
Varuni Witana provided a fascinating overview of the development and implementation of the Dante audio networking system and its relation to AES67, SMPTE-2110 and other commercial systems. She also introduced the new Dante Video system and its potential applications. A discussion about features and applications resulted, including the potential for integration with the AES70/OCA standard.
Sipei Zhao, lecture at the School of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering of UTS led attendees through a demonstration of his current research in active sound field control with an impressive multi-speaker installation in the anechoic chamber. The facilities at UTS Tech Lab include a large anechoic chamber, hemi-anechoic chamber, reverberation chamber and associated research spaces and equipment.
The event concluded with refreshments sponsored by local business tm stagetec systems and an opportunity for social and professional networking was enjoyed by all attendees.
