Heading to the Big Apple and HRA Demo

I’ve haven’t even begun to pack yet, the files I need to prepare are still undecided, my itinerary is somewhat confused and I just heard the place that I booked through airbnb doesn’t have any hot water. And my wife and I are in the midst of getting a new puppy…so life is a little crazy. But I’m on a United red eye flight at midnight tonight to New York City for four days.

The primary reason I’m headed to the city is the CEA Audio Board meeting on Tuesday AND the HRA audio demonstration session that is happening on Tuesday evening. I’ve got a few meetings with some record labels and friends. And on Tuesday afternoon Scott Wilkinson (the Home Theater “Geek”) is interviewing me about high-resolution audio at 4:00 pm from the CE Week convention. It will be busy but I’m looking forward to it.

The High Resolution Audio Listening Experience event is being held at Jungle Studios downtown. The DEG, CEA and The Recording Academy are presenting the evening, which includes paid sponsors (Sony, Universal and Warner Brothers, HDTracks, SuperHiRez, e Onkyo, Astell & Kern, dCS) and presentations by “top recording professionals” speaking about the high-resolution recording process and its impact on music enthusiasts. After a little jockeying, I’m included as one of the “top professionals”.

I haven’t seen the exact agenda but I’m been told that a number of audio engineers will speak briefly and then play excerpts or an entire high-resolution track for the gathered press and other attendees. As a late addition, I will be speaking at 8:55 pm until the end of the evening at 9:15. If you know anyone that is going to the event, ask him or her to stick around until the bitter end because I’m the last presenter.

The event is taking place in a studio…not a hotel ballroom or special events facility. The main presentations will be taking place in the largest space…I’m guessing the biggest studio. I asked about the playback system but all I could get was that they won’t be playing any surround sound. It’s not clear to me what the playback chain will be…but they will be playing 96 kHz/24-bit audio files and projecting the cover art of the tracks.

My time will be split between talking about my involvement with high-resolution audio (which goes back to the first DVD-Audio disc I produced in 1999), the evolution of HRA and my current activities. I do plan to speak about the differentiation and alternative approaches to the subject. The other engineers will talking about commercial tracking, mixing and mastering in better than CD quality, which I will bring in the audiophile sensibility and the niche markets that are benefiting from the increased fidelity of high-resolution files.

I don’t imagine that the press will stay around long enough to hear what I have to say. As I was told, the primary function of the event is to introduce the major labels and their licensors to the mainstream press. However, I am glad that the DEG and The Recording Academy invited me to participate. As one of the prime advocates for high-resolution for the longest time, it would have been troubling to be left out. I’ll let you know how it goes.