NAB, AES New York Create a Sound Combination at the Javits Center

Huge crowds make the expo look and feel like 2019

Updated November 28, 2022, 5:24 p.m.

With apologies to Prince, last week’s combined NAB/AES New York expo at the Javits Center could have served as the 20th-anniversary remix of the Purple One’s hit “1999.” People — and there were lots of them, lines out the door on Wednesday suggesting far greater attendance than the NAB’s announced preliminary 9,576 registrations — jammed the convention center aisles like it was 2019, an oft-noted comparison.

“It’s like 2019 all over again,” said ESPN Senior Specialist Henry Rousseau as he surveyed the throng from near the Lawo and Calrec booths. “It doesn’t feel like the survival mode we’ve been in for the last three years here. We’ve made a lot of technical advances during that time, though we’re still dealing with supply-chain shortages and things like that. But seeing the show like this feels great.”

A bustling show floor marked the in-person return of NAB Show New York.

Said NAB Senior VP, Communications, Ann Marie Cumming, “The main challenge for NAB was the volume of attendees, but we did our best to keep the line moving. Our exhibitors are thrilled with the traffic on the show floor, and conferences are sold out.”

A relatively late 10 a.m. start to the show floor likely also added to the lobby crowding.

Despite occurring only a month after IBC in Amsterdam, the show featured many new items. One example is Shure’s recently unveiled AD600 Axient Digital Spectrum Manager, the successor to its AXT600 Axient Spectrum Manager, for planning and managing frequency coordination, fast-scanning software that finds available frequencies and analyzes the RF spectrum in real time, streamlining site surveys and spectrum management. (Shure also announced at the show that it’s improving its packaging to be even more environmentally friendly, part of its overall sustainability initiatives, with 75% recyclable and/or renewable materials planned in 2023.

Growth in Over-the-Ears Monitoring

Interestingly, headphones reflected more broadcast-industry market- and mind-share, a reflection of the often contradictory and increasingly conflicting growth of immersive audio when fewer environments are spacious enough for proper deployment of a 5.1.4 mixing/monitoring system.

“Headphones are just getting better and better,” said Chris Berens, support manager, Audeze, which showcased its LCD series of headphones that use planar-magnetic transducers, the latest buzzword in headphone technology. “It’s like listening under a magnifying glass. It’s the only way to fully monitor Atmos under headphones.”

The migration to headphone monitoring has been propelled in part by new software solutions, such as Fraunhofer’s Cingo binaural rendering software, and room- and head-modeling software, such as the VSX headphones with integrated modeling software from Steven Slate Audio. (A successor to software-focused console pioneer Slate Digital, whose acquisition was announced this month by Audiotonix, parent company to Calrec, SSL, and DiGiCo.)

The AES New York registration lobby at Javits Center

And managing all those channels — or objects — is becoming more complicated. RTW’s Touch-Control 5, for example, is a Dante-based AoIP monitor controller with metering aimed at the expanding immersive-audio–management market and demonstrated at Dale Pro Audio’s booth.

“It’ll take you up to 22.2,” explained Dave Prentice, systems sales representative, Dale Pro Audio. “Immersive has arrived; now it’s all about controlling it.”

Audio-Technica Marketing Director Gary Boss sees the shift to headphone monitoring for immersive audio as “more out of necessity than preference,” given the lack of appropriate mixing environments. “[Music mixers and A1s] know the shortcomings of mixing on headphones. It’s not perfect, but at least, with headphones, it can be consistent.”

Speaking of consoles, Calrec VP, Sales, Dave Letson noted that the new Argo virtualized work surface and products like the Impulse Core, introduced last year, represent an inflection point for broadcast audio, marking the transition from digital to IP-based operation. “These new products aren’t designed to replace products like Apollo and Hydra, but they all came before AES67 and ST 2110. They’re next-generation, aimed at virtualized mixing and remote production. It’s a new world.”

Supply-Chain Effects

These days, the impact of supply-chain shortages plaguing the broadcast and other media industries have been noticeably lessened, and that was a topic of conversation on the show floor. As Paul Shorter, sales and product manager, Studer, Evertz Technologies, put it, “For a while, it was like Apollo 13 every day, having to come up with sometimes ad hoc solutions. But we’re moving forward now.”

Said Lawo CMO Andreas Hilmer, “Just three years ago, REMI was a pioneering workflow. Now it’s a standard, and it’s being supercharged by IP. There has been more reliance on existing technologies, such as MADI, to get through for some users and manufacturers. People want 2110-30, but there has been a lot of overpromising and underdelivering because of the supply-chain uncertainty.”

Greg Siers, director, sales, TSL Products, which emphasized extending its SAM-Q audio-monitoring–management suite to IP-compatibility, said manufacturers have been trying to parse what audio customers want versus “what they really need.” The effort has been complicated by both supply-chain issues and near-constant flux in the broadcast-audio market as new IP-based formats, protocols, and standards arrive and broadcasters increase their remote-production operations.

It’s impossible to discuss supply-chain shortages without including Dante. The proprietary signal-transport format has become ubiquitous, an integral part of the majority of high-end pro-audio products and systems. Audinate CMO Joshua Rush discussed both Dante’s migration into video — Dante AV-H, a new software solution designed to allow OEMs to incorporate Dante control into existing H.264-based IP video product designs, was announced a month earlier — and that pesky supply-chain imbroglio.

Dante AV-H is, Rush said, “a natural progression. Customers and users on the audio side wanted the ability to control video as well.” Regarding the impact of chip availability on products, he noted that the Dante Brooklyn card’s mini‐PCI module has been redesigned to accommodate FPGA circuits. “It’s essentially a software-based version of Dante and can run on any processor,” he said. “We shipped more modules [of that solution] this year than even last year.”

Emphasis on Engineering

A trending phrase for new products has been “ease of operation.” It’s not a purely marketing play. Pliant Technologies’ Tempest 2.4-GHz wireless intercom systems are now part of all 32 MLB stadiums’ infrastructure and will be part of all USFL matches next year, and Pliant VP, Global Sales, Gary Rosen noted that the amount of engineering required in new products has significantly increased: “Fewer workers today understand RF technology, so new products need to be much easier to use, right out of the box. That has put more emphasis on the engineering needed to develop them.”

In-Venue Sound

Live sound, whether in the concert hall or the sports venue, has mostly moved to the InfoComm Show, which took place in Las Vegas last June after being canceled in 2020 and 2021. (Only Meyer Sound had a demo room at the New York event last week.) But there was evidence that it remains relevant to an AES event that has become heavily focused on DIY recording, mixing, and mastering. Though eschewing a demo room, d&b audiotechnik, which has installed systems in London’s Wembley Stadium and Seattle’s T-Mobile Park, did have a spartan booth on the floor, and VP, Marketing, Americas, Marc Lopez said he expects immersive sound to add another dimension to live sports sound in more ways than one.

“Hi-res immersive-audio systems in arenas and stadiums can be leveraged for advertising and marketing applications in ways they never had been before,” he suggested, noting such features as localization that can call patrons’ attention to messages in venue like no other form of advertising has been able to. “It sounds kind of futuristic, I know, but that’s what shows like this are for: to look ahead and see what’s possible.”

This expo was the fifth NAB Show New York after it was rebranded in 2015, after NAB acquired Content & Communications World (CCW) show. After the 2020 event was canceled, the 2021 event was held virtually. No official announcement had been made at press time, but the combined NAB/AES Show New York is expected to take place in October 2023, again at the Javits Center.

On Nov. 28, AES announced the final attendance tally: 16,500-plus.