in August 2004 25 Years of DSP in Sound Reinforcement By Joseph
Bocchiaro III, PhD, |Audio enhancement systems are being used in
arenas, concert halls and multi-use spaces, such as the Tokyo
Internatioanl Forum (left) and the Hamamatsu (Japan) Arena
(right). Digital Signal Processing revolutionized the market.
inclusion of DSP (digital signal processor, or processing) in an
ever-widening array of audio products, it is easy to overlook
the fact that DSP is now only 25 years old. This makes 2004 an
appropriate year to review the state-of-the-art, and to
postulate on its future. According to Richard F. Lyon, in his
column “DSP 4 You,” (acm queue, March 2004), “…1979 saw the
design of the first wave of user-programmable DSP chips: the
Intel 2920, the NEC uPD7720 and the Bell Labs (AT&T) DSP-1….The
conversion of traditionally analog media to digital began
slowly, with the invention of PCM (pulse code modulation) by
Alec H. Reeves in 1937. The 1948 paper, ‘The Philosophy of PCM,’
by Barry Oliver, John Pierce and Cl