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What is the secret to ultimate loudness?
- Thread starter 192khz
- Start date
no they are using someone who knows how to set it up
(in the bad days we'd confiscate the green Excelite screw drivers from PD's and GM's who thought they could turn it up to 11)
(in the bad days we'd confiscate the green Excelite screw drivers from PD's and GM's who thought they could turn it up to 11)
Some stations may have a particular arrangement of gear interacting to make their sound. However commercially available processors have dozens of factory pre-sets for different sounds, and dozens of adjustments that can be applied to pre-sets, or used to create original custom presets. One modern processor can have many different flavors.
Think music. How many different sounds and emotions can be expressed with one musical instrument, such as a piano? Same piano, different artist. Huge difference. Sound is an expression of creativity, skill, available instruments and the performance environment.
Ultimately it is about talent, skill and being in a mental state and physical environment where creativity and performance can happen. Since radio is a business, cost and time devoted to on air sound has to fit into the business plan.
192khz, unless stations are exceeding FCC modulation rule or something is broken or maladjusted, all stations are hitting the same peak level. (unless it is offset as permitted in the rules)
192khz now think about how audio could sound louder to the ear without increasing peak level.
Think music. How many different sounds and emotions can be expressed with one musical instrument, such as a piano? Same piano, different artist. Huge difference. Sound is an expression of creativity, skill, available instruments and the performance environment.
Ultimately it is about talent, skill and being in a mental state and physical environment where creativity and performance can happen. Since radio is a business, cost and time devoted to on air sound has to fit into the business plan.
192khz, unless stations are exceeding FCC modulation rule or something is broken or maladjusted, all stations are hitting the same peak level. (unless it is offset as permitted in the rules)
192khz now think about how audio could sound louder to the ear without increasing peak level.
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Those two statements appear to be in conflict, to me. Could you elaborate please?
The majority of SDR tuners in modern vehicle receivers have Automatic Gain Control's built in to the software. It does two things: Prevent one station from appearing louder or much quieter than another when the consumer switches between stations. Adjusts the apparent audio volume based on the speed of the vehicle.
AGC is similar to what you would find in the first stage of audio processing software, involving a form of compression and limiting to 'level' the audio. It's not nearly as advanced though.
Stations trying to revive loudness wars force these rather crude algorithms in the tuner software to potentially go into clipping, adding unnecessary distortion at the listener's end. And believe me, it sounds nasty.
It doesn't even take a wimpy AGC in an automobile to make an over-processed station sound bad. A decent set of headphones will do the trick.
And that's the thing. Modern listener's don't just listen to radio alone anymore. And there have been several discussions on this board about how younger folks don't bother with radio. Why would someone intentionally over-process an FM station, knowing full well it's competing against less processed audio from streaming, or via the listener' own personal playlist?
Even back in the days of stupid loudness wars, there was no basis of reality that overly processed stations got better ratings in the form of cume or TSL. In fact, it's been proven through focus groups and ratings results that over-processed stations drove female listeners into lower TSL. All listeners have ever been interested in, is enough processing to keep the listening experience consistent and clear, while the station remains operating within legal limits of modulation.
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