As mentioned often, ASR is not just Amir's measurements and comments but also thrives from the participation of many experts in different fields related to Audio, engineers and designers/manufacturers.
One of them is James D. (jj) Johnston, who later this month will give a Zoom lecture at AES PNW:
https://www.aes.org/sections/pnw/
NOTE: anyone can attend this meeting regardless of their status as an AES member. AES MEMBERSHIP IS NOT REQUIRED.
Masking — What is it, and when does it happen?
Lately, there have been discussions about masking involving several topics, from "can I hear this instrument over that instrument," to "can I hear this at all." The answer to that lies in the phenomenon of masking, wherein the cochlear receptors, which have a total dynamic range circa 90dB, are actually 30dB receptors that are effectively gain-ranged. This means that a second signal that is very close in frequency to a stronger signal is most likely gone completely if it's 30dB down, and in some cases, gone at as little as 5.5dB or even 3.5dB lower than the masking signal.
ZOOM MEETING 6:00PM PST (UTC -8) Tuesday, January 25th, 2022 .
James D. (jj) Johnston is Chief Scientist of Immersion Networks. He has a long and distinguished career in electrical engineering, audio science, and digital signal processing. His research and product invention spans hearing and psychoacoustics, perceptual encoding, and spatial audio methodologies.
He was one of the first investigators in the field of perceptual audio coding, one of the inventors and standardizers of MPEG 1/2 audio Layer 3 and MPEG-2 AAC. Most recently, he has been working in the area of auditory perception and ways to expand the limited sense of realism available in standard audio playback for both captured and synthetic performances.
Johnston worked for AT&T Bell Labs and its successor AT&T Labs Research for two and a half decades. He later worked at Microsoft and then Neural Audio and its successors before joining Immersion. He is an IEEE Fellow, an AES Fellow, a NJ Inventor of the Year, an AT&T Technical Medalist and Standards Awardee, and a co-recipient of the IEEE Donald Fink Paper Award. In 2006, he received the James L. Flanagan Signal Processing Award from the IEEE Signal Processing Society, and presented the 2012 Heyser Lecture at the AES 133rd Convention:
Audio, Radio, Acoustics and Signal Processing: the Way Forward. In 2021, along with two colleagues, Johnston was awarded the
Industrial Innovation Award by the Signal Processing Society "for contributions to the standardization of audio coding technology."
Mr. Johnston received the BSEE and MSEE degrees from Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA in 1975 and 1976 respectively.