Meeting Report: 20 April 2026 – Paul Messick on Low Jitter Clock Generation

2026/04/272026/05/03Paolo Menolotto

Hardware Designer Paul Messick presented on the topic of:

Low Jitter Clock Generation for Digital Audio

We gathered in the Collarts Critical Listening Room, where Section Chair, Graeme Huon welcomed us and introduced Paul, giving a brief outline of his career to date covering 40 years of designing all types of electronics, working for a wide range of companies, including Dallas Semiconductor, JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratories), M-Audio, Digidesign and more. Graeme told us that Paul was head of engineering at M-Audio/Digidesign and later founded Avermetrics, which made production line and bench top audio analyzers. Since moving to Australia, he founded Glassworks Audio, designing high-performance studio gear for his own brand and for other select clients.

Vale Monty Maizels

2026/04/102026/04/10Secretary

We are sad to report the death of Monty Maizels at the age of 102¾.
Monty was involved in recording and broadcasting from1939, and was a stalwart of the AES Melbourne Section during its formative years, and had attended some recent online meetings.
Here is Monty (circled) at a 1975 Melbourne Section meeting

Image from 1975 of a group of AES members including Monty Maizels — *It seems like Monty is keeping the score*

He was still creating music right past his 100th birthday.
This real character of the Melbourne audio industry will be sorely missed.

His son John wrote this tribute for the radioinfo.com.au website:
https://radioinfo.com.au/news/vale-monty-maizels-102-years-of-radio-words-and-music/
(© RadioInfo Australia)

Vale indeed, Monty!

Meeting Notice: April 2026 Low Jitter Clock Generation for Digital Audio

2026/03/312026/03/31Secretary

The next meeting of the AES Melbourne Section will be an in-person event held on
Monday 20^th April 2026 at 7:30pm at the Collarts Collingwood campus.

It will also be live-streamed on our YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/AESMelbourneSection

Paul Messick will present on the topic of:

Low Jitter Clock Generation for Digital Audio

The demands of modern audio converters make low-jitter audio clocks a critical requirement if high-performance is to be achieved. It is now possible to find affordable ADCs and DACs that approach or exceed 130dB SNR and -120dB THDN. Run-of-the-mill clock generators will not cut it for performance at this level. In this presentation, Paul will show how jitter affects audio, how much jitter is allowed given an audio-quality target, what kind of clock generators can achieve these specs, and how to measure jitter. Since most pro-audio systems need to interface to the outside world for timing, He will also talk about clock recovery and jitter attenuation. Finally, he’ll tie this all together with measurements on a real product that achieves suitably stratospheric performance.

Meeting Report: 16 February 2026 – Luke Howard on The AES67 and AES70 Protocols

2026/02/252026/03/06Paolo Menolotto

Composer, performer, and software & hardware developer Luke Howard presented on the topic of:

The AES67 and AES70 Protocols

We gathered at Luke’s personal studio and workshop, where Section Chair, Graeme Huon welcomed us and introduced Luke, with a quick run-through of Luke’s background, revealing that Luke has a background as Internationally recognised music composer who has seen the opportunity to develop and was currently developing an IP-networked personal monitor mixer which supports the major protocols (Dante, AVB, and AES67).