AES - Audio Engineering Society
"The Audio Engineering Society, now in its fifth decade, is the only professional society devoted exclusively to audio technology. Its membership of leading engineers, scientists and other authorities has increased dramatically throughout the world, greatly boosting the society's stature and that of its members in a truly symbiotic relationship.
The AES serves its members, the industry and the public by stimulating and facilitating advances in the constantly changing field of audio. It encourages and disseminates new developments through annual technical meetings and exhibitions of professional equipment, and through the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, the professional archival publication in the audio industry."
The name might be familier to you due to the work their member have done on industry standards, inventing the AES/EBU digital audio standard, which is used extensively in the Broadcasting industry.
They also produces a monthly journal for their members, provides access to many white papers on many aspects of Professional Audio from Acoustics to Electronic Design which is available worlwide, both on-line and paper versions
They are also active all year round with events and conferances across Europe and America where people will come to hear about new technologies and to see the latest equipment demonstrated first hand by exhibitors.
Membership to the AES has always been restricted to Engineers with a relevant degree, or with the appropiate real life experience. This is because it is concerned with the technologies behind what the every day user sees when only operatping the equpipment. They do have other levels of membership, in the forms of Associate and Student Members, with limited functions in the Society, such as voting. It does give them access to the monthly journal, and thus the infomation contained within the AES.
Sources: http://www.aes.org/