The PNW Section began the new year with an extended presentation by AES Fellow James D. (jj) Johnston on “Audio Signals vs. the Ear: Time, Frequency, and Bandwidth Revisited,” where he discussed hearing as well as hearing-related phenomena, including sound production, room acoustics, physiology of hearing and psychoacoustics. This hybrid (in-person and on Zoom) meeting was held Saturday January 17 afternoon at the Digipen Institute of Technology in Redmond, WA USA. Some 21 persons attended in-person (11 AES members) and about 129 were on Zoom (81+ AES members).

After opening remarks from PNW Chair Jess Berg, PNW Committeeperson Luke Goodloomis announced the next PNW Section meeting for February 25, 2026, a hybrid meeting on a new horn design from Biamp, with the in-person to be at Biamp in Beaverton OR USA (the Portland  Oregon area).

James D. Johnston, AES Fellow (AKA jj, lowercase), has had a remarkable career in audio research (more CV at the end), with stints at AT&T Bell Labs, Microsoft, DTS, Immersion, and others. This extended presentation was split into two parts over a Saturday afternoon.

Part 1 was about how sound gets to the brain, with reviews of soundwave phenomenon, acoustics of rooms, acoustics of the head/outer ear and the HRTF, ear physiology and middle ear behavior, and cochlear workings.

At break time, Zoomers could chat, while in-person attendees could feast on Costco cookies and water while chatting. Before starting Part 2, door prizes were awarded as thus:

Steve Williams, Fluke hat light
Matt Booty, Fluke Voltlight
Tom Hall, Fluke tool bag
Wayne Edwards, b9 mic angle ruler
Jackson McKagen, b9 mic ruler
Rich Karstens, AES AVAR 2024 Tee-shirt
Jon Hutson, books, The Audio Dictionary & Audio Anecdotes vols 1-2
Aidan Goodman, Audix PDX520 mic

Fluke items courtesy of Rick Rodriguez of Fluke.
b9 items courtesy of Rick Chinn.
Books courtesy of jj
T-shirt courtesy of Lawrence Schwedler.
Audix mic courtesy of Audix.

Next, Scott Holden (on Zoom from Portland) spoke about restarting a Portland AES Section, contact him at  scott@articulatesystems.com  .

jj returned for Part 2, focusing on ear-brain processing, or “what happens after it goes down the auditory nerve?” This included monaural processing, masking, pre-echo, binaural processing, time correlation, frequency correlation, masking effects, and selective post processing

Many thoughtful questions and comments were posed on Zoom and in-person. Recordings and slide decks will appear on the PNW website, archive section. Special thanks to PNW Committeeperson Dan Mortensen for providing the AV for Zoom.