IABM Standards Monitoring Group – AES Projects

The AES develops standards concerned with all aspects of audio technology. It also provides a range of member services including lectures and conventions. The Audio Engineering Society is the only professional society devoted exclusively to audio technology.

The IABM attends the two Standards development meeting rounds that the AES holds each year, usually April/May and October/November (through the COVID-19 period, these meetings have been held online and currently there is no plan to return to in-person meetings).

The Standards Monitoring Group has been formed to solicit IABM member feedback on Standards that are in development or revision – reminder: draft documents linked on this page are for review and must not be distributed outside of the SMG, as required by the participation agreement.

The SMG is monitoring and contributing to the development of the AES projects listed below.

2025-06-30 Note: this page has not been updated for some while. The projects have been slow-moving and reference material has been disrupted by serious issues on the AES Standards website. These issues have prevented the groups from doing their standards development work and has disrupted the distribution of plenary meeting materials. The disruption has been going on for many months and has even prevented new and revised standards being made available in the AES standards store.
If members need help with any of the projects mentioned below, please contact me and I will try to help.

How to use this page:
The IABM report from the most recent six-monthly meeting round provides the project status and background information. The report (May 2025, SMG contents page) should be read together with information for each project below that provides:

  • status updates from the telecons we attend between meetings
  • documents we want SMG members to review so that we can submit any comments into the document development process.

The AES does not assign numbers for new documents until late in the development process; instead they assign project numbers in the form AES-Xnnn.

View the report here.

The concept for this project (AES-X242) was introduced in a presentation at the October 2017 meeting round, and the project was started shortly afterwards. It had been based on a SMPTE standard ST 2109 but is now based on a SMPTE standard, ST 2110-4 (that was in draft form when the change was decided upon)

Project AES-X242 – Streaming Audio Metadata over IP

The intent is to define an RTP-based audio metadata transport that can support any audio metadata format. The group worked for some while on many use-cases to gain confidence that the standard will include features that support a wide variety of use-cases.
Short documents defining each type of audio metadata will need to be published so that the data types can be registered in SMPTE.

Update

This group’s work is just about to resume. It had been waiting for progress on the SMPTE ST 2110-41 document on which it is based. That document is now published. After that, employment changes for the document author caused further delays.

Documents for review

AES-X242 draft dated October 2021. This is the most recent draft posted (believe it or not, but reasons explained above). A new version is expected when the meetings resume very shortly.

Full title: AES67 – High-performance streaming audio-over-IP interoperability.

The AES67 Standard was published 11 September 2013 and revised 2015, 2018, 2023 plus some small corrections later in 2023.
This information is retained here to provide context for this important standard; it is unlikely that significant further revisions will be made.

Be aware that the main audio document in the SMPTE ST 2110 family (-30) is based on AES67, but with some small constraints and additions  that make it more suitable for the managed broadcast environment.

AES67 over WAN Study Group

AES67 is designed for use on a LAN. This group has completed a report on the problems encountered with extending AES67 operation into WAN and Cloud environments. It also offers some potential solutions.

Update

The group’s report was published as  AES-R20-2021: AES Standards Report – AES67 beyond the LAN. It is available here (free to AES members or available for purchase)

AES67 Revision
As explained above, there is no current revision work. However, a spreadsheet has been maintained to record revision proposals. The current list is here; use the “General” tab.

Update

–

Document for review

None

AES67 Protocol Implementation and Conformance Statement (PICS)

The PICS is a table that has been incorporated into AES67 as an annex. It serves as an AES67 conformance checklist that implementers may publish with their product data.

Update

It was recognized some while ago that the PICS is quite formidable  – 34 pages long. To make it more manageable, a PICS Summary has been developed. The intent is that this should be seen as a “cover sheet” to the main PICS to help steer users to the sections they are interested in.

Member Alert: I’m not aware of any full PICS that have been published, though manufacturers may keep them privately.

The AES is collecting submitted PICS summaries here. At last count, 52 entries from 11 manufacturers.

The PICS summary to fill out is here.

Document for review

None

AES67 Plugfests

There have been three AES67 plugfests organized by the AES to date. A feeling has grown over the last few years that no further interops are needed because AES67 is mature and test equipment is freely available.

The first plugfest was held at the IRT, Munich, DE 27-30 October 2014 – aes-r12.
The second plugfest was held at NPR, Washington, US 2-5 November 2015 – aes-r15.
The third plugfest was held 13-16 February 2017 at BBC Broadcasting House, London UK – aes-r17.

Update

–

Document for review

zip of first three plugfest reports

AES67 and ST 2110-30 interoperability

This is not an AES project, but the subject of an AES report – aes-r16. In June 2016, a number of AES67 vendors took part in a joint SMPTE-AES plugfest that tested how the AES67 and SMPTE ST 2059-2 PTP could co-exist. This report identifies parameter ranges that should enable interoperability among equipment conforming to the different profiles and on which the joint tests were based.

Update

This report has been retained because AES67 has not been updated yet to recommend the “overlap” PTP values for interoperation in ST 2110 networks. The SMPTE document ST 2059-2 was updated in 2021 and aes-r16 has been revised to take account of the changes and to replace insensitive language.

AES-R16 is available here (free to AES members or available for purchase)

Documents for review

None

 

AES 70 is a scalable control-protocol architecture for professional media networks. The three core parts, noted below, were published in June 2024 and represent a substantial change from the previous publication in 2018. One major change is the adoption of a much improved connection management scheme – CM4 (2018 version specifies CM3).
Another change is that the scope and title of Part 3 has changed. It was: Protocol for IP Networks – defines remote control and monitoring of media devices over IP networks (TCP, UDP, Websockets) and it has been widened to “Binary Protocol” ; not confined to IP networks and supporting point-to-point connection.

AES70 Part 1 : Framework – describes the models and mechanisms of the AES70 Open Control Architecture. These models and mechanisms together form the AES70 Framework.

AES70 Part 2 : Class Structure – specifies the AES70 control class structure that defines the control and monitoring functional capabilities of the standard and includes class relationships in machine-readable XML Interchange format (xmi 2.0)

AES70 Part 3 : Binary Protocol

A project to define an adaptation of AES70 connection management for AES67 has been underway for some time (see below). Feedback from this work inspired some of the AES70 changes.

There is another project to produce an adaptation for the IEEE MILAN transport; this is being done outside of the AES groups.

AES-X243 project: AES70 connection management for AES67 – now numbered AES70-21

This work “fell out of” the improved connection management process in AES70 called CM4. The project scope is: “Define a new standard in the AES70 family for using the AES70-CM4 connection management mechanism to set up, manage, and tear down AES67 and SMPTE ST 2110-30 media stream connections.”

Update

This document was posted for public Call-for-Comment, version below. Some comments were received and the task group has responded.

Documents for review

Latest draft of AES70-21 (a draft partially addressing some comments is available, but better to wait for the final comment resolution version).

AES-X252: AES70 Milan Adaptation – now numbered AES70-22

The document will specify a common way to control routing of AVDECC/Milan audio streams using an adaptation of the AES70 connection management feature set. The document will also define a programmatic interface between AES70 and AVDECC software drivers that is suitable for implementing the defined adaptation. Milan was developed out of AVB.
Perspective: I don’t think Milan installations will be seen in Broadcast installations, but it is featured here as it is a member of the AES-70 family. 

Update

The document was also posted for public Call-for-Comment that closed around 6th October. No comments that we have been made aware of.

Documents for review

Latest draft of AES70-22

AES-X252: Using AES70 to manage Dante® media transport – now numbered AES70-23

The document will specify a common way to control routing of AVDECC/Milan audio streams using an adaptation of the AES70 connection management feature set. The document will also define a programmatic interface between AES70 and AVDECC software drivers that is suitable for implementing the defined adaptation. Milan was developed out of AVB.
Perspective: I don’t think Milan installations will be seen in Broadcast installations, but it is featured here as it is a member of the AES-70 family. 

Update

The document draft is essentially a framework. We have been made aware of some changes in the underlying technology and editing on the draft is in abeyance for a while.

Documents for review

Latest draft of AES70-23  This is a very early draft

This is a fairly new project that aims to standardize the use of the Ultra Wide Band (UWB) interface for audio carriage applications. Best known for its precision tracking capabilities, this interface can also provide a very robust, low latency audio transport. The precision tracking is also seen as useful in audio applications to track the on-stage position of artists using wireless microphones or wireless instrument links.

Update

At the last AES standards meeting round, there was only a verbal report and it seems like the initial enthusiasm may have slowed.

Documents for review

Introductory ppt from early 2024

Last meeting notes (24/25 April 2024)

 

This topic started with a project – AES-X246 – Application of RJ45-type connectors and quad twisted pair cable for audio interconnections. The document, published as AES72, assigns pattern codes to each implementation pinout to help users determine interconnection compatibility.

There have been proposals to develop this theme for other connectors and to document applications. If these materialize, we will monitor them in this section.

Another project has been revived – AES-X152.

AES-X152 project

To develop a standard for signal levels and circuit impedances of audio system components and for the specification of these quantities in product data sheets [balanced, unbalanced]

Update

This project has attracted a huge number of emails and uploaded documents. However, as happened when this project was originally launched, it seemed like contributors were more interested in recounting their interconnection nightmares than writing a standard. Nonetheless, a document is being developed and it has grown to 50 pages (still far from looking like a standard).

Documents for review

The latest plan is to produce a report rather than a standard. Until the dust settles, I don’t think it is worth presenting anything from this group (even if I could find it)!
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IABM standards representative: paul.treleaven@theiabm.org

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