Audio processing comparison of radio stations from my country

[radiodeviation7]

Hello

I have decided to post a couple of airchecks of FM radio stations from my country. They all broadcast a different format and they all have different audio processing solutions. I am interested in what people from the forum have to say about the sound quality. If this thread receives enough traction, I will post even more airchecks from other stations.

Note: My country uses 50us pre-emphasis so distortion on the highs isn't as obvious as it is in 75us countries. Please don't judge the audio processor based on these clips. Sometimes audio processors are misadjusted and the actual audio processor sounds MUCH better than some of the clips.

Radio Station	Format	Audio processor	Audio Clip
State Broadcaster - Station 1	Varied	Not Known	Vocaroo | Online voice recorder Vocaroo is a quick and easy way to share voice messages over the interwebs. voca.ro
State Broadcaster - Station 2	Hot AC	Omnia ONE	Vocaroo | Online voice recorder Vocaroo is a quick and easy way to share voice messages over the interwebs. voca.ro
Local Commercial Station 1	News	Omnia (model isn't known)	Vocaroo | Online voice recorder Vocaroo is a quick and easy way to share voice messages over the interwebs. voca.ro
Local Commercial Station 2	Oldies	AEV Mirage FM	Vocaroo | Online voice recorder Vocaroo is a quick and easy way to share voice messages over the interwebs. voca.ro

 

[davideduardo]

What country and city are these stations in?

 

[radiodeviation7]

Hello

I have decided to post a couple of airchecks of FM radio stations from my country. They all broadcast a different format and they all have different audio processing solutions. I am interested in what people from the forum have to say about the sound quality. If this thread receives enough traction, I will post even more airchecks from other stations.

Note: My country uses 50us pre-emphasis so distortion on the highs isn't as obvious as it is in 75us countries. Please don't judge the audio processor based on these clips. Sometimes audio processors are misadjusted and the actual audio processor sounds MUCH better than some of the clips.

Radio Station	Format	Audio processor	Audio Clip
State Broadcaster - Station 1	Varied	Not Known	Vocaroo | Online voice recorder Vocaroo is a quick and easy way to share voice messages over the interwebs. voca.ro
State Broadcaster - Station 2	Hot AC	Omnia ONE	Vocaroo | Online voice recorder Vocaroo is a quick and easy way to share voice messages over the interwebs. voca.ro
Local Commercial Station 1	News	Omnia (model isn't known)	Vocaroo | Online voice recorder Vocaroo is a quick and easy way to share voice messages over the interwebs. voca.ro
Local Commercial Station 2	Oldies	AEV Mirage FM	Vocaroo | Online voice recorder Vocaroo is a quick and easy way to share voice messages over the interwebs. voca.ro

I can't edit the post, so let me just add this:

How does the sound of these stations compare to the sound of US radio stations? Which areas of the sound of these stations can be improved? Or do you think they sound good? Why do you think so?

 

[Kelly A]

I can't edit the post, so let me just add this:

How does the sound of these stations compare to the sound of US radio stations? Which areas of the sound of these stations can be improved? Or do you think they sound good? Why do you think so?

You didn't answer David's question. Frankly, I wouldn't click on the links. Just the fact that the OP didn't answer a simple question makes me question what might be in those links other than audio.
Better safe than sorry.

 

[radiodeviation7]

You didn't answer David's question. Frankly, I wouldn't click on the links. Just the fact that the OP didn't answer a simple question makes me question what might be in those links other than audio.
Better safe than sorry.

Oh Jesus.

The links are to a simple audio storage/recording service called Vocaroo. The site isn't malicious and you can upload audio files and share them over the internet. If you don't trust me, Google it. If you are still skeptical, I can upload them to another storage service. My intention isn't to do anything malicious, I shared those clips because I wanted to compare audio processing of radio stations from my country with radio stations from other countries and wanted people to comment on the sound quality.

The reason why I didn't answer the question was because I do not want to be discriminated based on my country. My country had a naming dispute with Greece and some people online resent my country because of that dispute. I do not want to be typecast by people on the forum simply because of my country. The country is in Europe and if you're so curious, the country is North Macedonia.

Now I know at least one person is going to have an issue with the country, but I don't care. I assume you are mature people and won't cause conflict.

 

[Kelly A]

Oh Jesus.

Not my name.

The links are to a simple audio storage/recording service called Vocaroo. The site isn't malicious and you can upload audio files and share them over the internet.

That's the point. You can share files. It's what could be linked-to or embedded in those files that I'd recommend not accessing.

The reason why I didn't answer the question was because I do not want to be discriminated based on my country. My country had a naming dispute with Greece and some people online resent my country because of that dispute. I do not want to be typecast by people on the forum simply because of my country. The country is in Europe and if you're so curious, the country is North Macedonia.

David in asking the question wasn't going to discriminate in any way. His question was valid, because radio is different in countries other than the U.S.

Now I know at least one person is going to have an issue with the country, but I don't care. I assume you are mature people and won't cause conflict.

I don't care what country you're from. What I noticed is you were not responding to a reasonable question. That in itself makes one suspicious of the intent.

 

[radiodeviation7]

That's the point. You can share files. It's what could be linked-to or embedded in those files that I'd recommend not accessing.

You can play the files in the player on the website, protecting you from that kind of attack. The files were recorded by me and I can assure you I did not embed anything in the files and I can prove that. You did not have to accuse me of sharing dangerous files or embedding something in them.

David in asking the question wasn't going to discriminate in any way. His question was valid, because radio is different in countries other than the U.S.

You're right, but I am hesitant to share my private details online.

 

[davideduardo]

The reason why I didn't answer the question was because I do not want to be discriminated based on my country. My country had a naming dispute with Greece and some people online resent my country because of that dispute. I do not want to be typecast by people on the forum simply because of my country. The country is in Europe and if you're so curious, the country is North Macedonia.

Get over it. Nobody except a handful of Greek immigrants here in the U.S and Canada cares about a name dispute of that nature.

Now I know at least one person is going to have an issue with the country, but I don't care. I assume you are mature people and won't cause conflict.

I can't think of anyone having any objection to the name of a nation on a radio board where the discussion area is "audio processing".

I live for a good part of my career in Ecuador. We were required by law to put "Ecuador has always been an Amazonic Nation" on all our business envelopes, a result of Perú's invasion and seizure of much of Ecuador in the 1940's during WW II. I learned quickly that, outside of Ecuador itself, nobody but nobody cared at all about that issue.

 

[radiodeviation7]

Now, can we actually start talking about audio processing? This whole discussion has gone south and that definitely wasn't what I expected.

And be not afraid, I haven't hidden some secret virus or embedded stuff in the files, I am not crazy. I was really surprised when I saw that claim.

 

[radiodeviation7]

I can't think of anyone having any objection to the name of a nation on a radio board where the discussion area is "audio processing".

Yeah you're right. The reason I said that was because of prior negative experiences from the most unlikely forums. When I revealed my country I got a few nasty messages on a couple of forums.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

Oh Jesus.

The links are to a simple audio storage/recording service called Vocaroo. The site isn't malicious and you can upload audio files and share them over the internet. If you don't trust me, Google it. If you are still skeptical, I can upload them to another storage service. My intention isn't to do anything malicious, I shared those clips because I wanted to compare audio processing of radio stations from my country with radio stations from other countries and wanted people to comment on the sound quality.

The reason why I didn't answer the question was because I do not want to be discriminated based on my country. My country had a naming dispute with Greece and some people online resent my country because of that dispute. I do not want to be typecast by people on the forum simply because of my country. The country is in Europe and if you're so curious, the country is North Macedonia.

Now I know at least one person is going to have an issue with the country, but I don't care. I assume you are mature people and won't cause conflict.

FYI.. almost no one here will care about the country your from or give you shite for it simply from the fact youre there. thats not what were about or here for.

 

[wadio]

Question for radiodeviation7. You said:

Please don't judge the audio processor based on these clips. Sometimes audio processors are misadjusted and the actual audio processor sounds MUCH better than some of the clips.

Also Vocaroo may do it's own processing and use a low bitrate.

So how are we supposed to evaluate the sound quality based on these clips?

 

[yeoldeschool]

You guys are making too much of this. Vocaroo is one of those independent college student dot-com-bubble-era projects that, for decades, has survived the internet's conversion into a corporate data mining toilet. It's actually a pleasure to use and has never been suspicious or malicious. Its inner workings specifically prevent user-supplied content from being any more dangerous than a native .mp3 file attached directly to a radiodiscussions.com forum post, for example.

As short as I can make it, Vocaroo is just a light-weight, one-click service that allows a person to record his voice through his web browser and get a short auto-generated URL in return where his friends can hear that recording -- all in an instantaneous, direct way sans captchas, ads, or demands to create accounts. Basically, it's a free, one-to-many "internet voicemail" scratchpad service. But one nifty bonus it offers is the ability to upload sound files directly instead of recording stuff through your device's mic. And if such a sound file is uploaded in the .mp3 format, zero transcoding or other file manipulation occurs, making the resulting .mp3 that's heard back in your browser (or clicked on to be downloaded) bitwise identical to the upload. So not only is it good for sharing high quality clips without any trouble, but there's no more danger involved in doing so than to, say, providing a Soundcloud link, or even a generic direct link to a raw .mp3 file.

Some people just like Vocaroo because it never attained real mass popularity, so the cartels still don't know about it and haven't forced any content ID requirements on it (Vocaroo merely asks nicely that you not violate copyright law when uploading files directly -- and short airchecks for fair use evaluation purposes clearly aren't a copyright concern). The service also keeps recordings indefinitely if they are listened to at least once every 12 months, and the maximum time length for them is around 6 hours. So it can be very handy for people on a forum like this. https://vocaroo.com/faq

@radiodeviation7 - I don't have high fidelity speakers available where I'm currently situated, but I listened to all your uploads and immediately recognized the Omnia One's sound. God, that thing's acoustic signature stands out through anything. (In some ways, it reminds me of a lot of the early DSP-X processor racing clips posted here in decades past.) Anyway, I'd say the one that sounded best overall to my ears was AEV Mirage FM clip. It seemed closest to the smooth "big market" sound I'm accustomed to in Los Angeles. The Omnia One sounded the loudest and cleanest. I'll let people with current access to decent speakers make more definitive judgments, though. And Wadio is right, by the way. You really should provide samples at higher MP3 bitrates. ffmpeg says the MP3's you uploaded through Vocaroo were at between 95 and 139 kbit/s.

To everyone else: I just verified again now, to make sure noting had changed and I wasn't putting my foot in my mouth, that Vocaroo passes MP3's losslessly. I uploaded a 2 MB 112 kbit/s mediocre quality MP3, and another, 12 MB 320 kbit/s high quality MP3 and both played and downloaded back bitwise identical -- even their MP3 ID3 tags survived the round trip. See https://voca.ro/1aQUDHQM4gAi and https://voca.ro/1foTZ8DW5GOV to hear for yourself.

 

[Kelly A]

You guys are making too much of this. Vocaroo is one of those independent college student dot-com-bubble-era projects that, for decades, has survived the internet's conversion into a corporate data mining toilet. It's actually a pleasure to use and has never been suspicious or malicious. Its inner workings specifically prevent user-supplied content from being any more dangerous than a native .mp3 file attached directly to a radiodiscussions.com forum post, for example.

Well, that's another problem. MP3 files are lossy and aren't a good reproduction of quality. This is especially true if passing audio through a digital audio processor to MP3, or MP3 files through a digital processor.

 

[yeoldeschool]

Granted. However, I believe that as long as a good MP3 encoder is chosen and run at 320 kbit/s, basic processor evaluations -- like what the original poster seemed to be interested in -- are still possible without the lossy layer's own distortions confusing matters. Certain processing sections with dramatic "remixing" effects (like AGC action and multiband compressor/limiter smoothness/richness/density) are simply too overt to have their sound interfered with by the fine and delicate distortions a 320 kbit/s encoding would bring. My feeling is that PCM would only be completely necessary for evaluating processing artifacts and/or sounds already on the fringe of audibility, like a clipper's psychoacoustic masking prowess, a final limiter's IMD, stereo enhancement, and other subjective colorations introduced by, say, varying some random timing by 5ms. In all those cases, the introduction of any extra subtle distortions by the codec would completely cloud the ability to honestly evaluate them.

 

[radiodeviation7]

You guys are making too much of this. Vocaroo is one of those independent college student dot-com-bubble-era projects that, for decades, has survived the internet's conversion into a corporate data mining toilet. It's actually a pleasure to use and has never been suspicious or malicious. Its inner workings specifically prevent user-supplied content from being any more dangerous than a native .mp3 file attached directly to a radiodiscussions.com forum post, for example.

As short as I can make it, Vocaroo is just a light-weight, one-click service that allows a person to record his voice through his web browser and get a short auto-generated URL in return where his friends can hear that recording -- all in an instantaneous, direct way sans captchas, ads, or demands to create accounts. Basically, it's a free, one-to-many "internet voicemail" scratchpad service. But one nifty bonus it offers is the ability to upload sound files directly instead of recording stuff through your device's mic. And if such a sound file is uploaded in the .mp3 format, zero transcoding or other file manipulation occurs, making the resulting .mp3 that's heard back in your browser (or clicked on to be downloaded) bitwise identical to the upload. So not only is it good for sharing high quality clips without any trouble, but there's no more danger involved in doing so than to, say, providing a Soundcloud link, or even a generic direct link to a raw .mp3 file.

Some people just like Vocaroo because it never attained real mass popularity, so the cartels still don't know about it and haven't forced any content ID requirements on it (Vocaroo merely asks nicely that you not violate copyright law when uploading files directly -- and short airchecks for fair use evaluation purposes clearly aren't a copyright concern). The service also keeps recordings indefinitely if they are listened to at least once every 12 months, and the maximum time length for them is around 6 hours. So it can be very handy for people on a forum like this. https://vocaroo.com/faq

@radiodeviation7 - I don't have high fidelity speakers available where I'm currently situated, but I listened to all your uploads and immediately recognized the Omnia One's sound. God, that thing's acoustic signature stands out through anything. (In some ways, it reminds me of a lot of the early DSP-X processor racing clips posted here in decades past.) Anyway, I'd say the one that sounded best overall to my ears was AEV Mirage FM clip. It seemed closest to the smooth "big market" sound I'm accustomed to in Los Angeles. The Omnia One sounded the loudest and cleanest. I'll let people with current access to decent speakers make more definitive judgments, though. And Wadio is right, by the way. You really should provide samples at higher MP3 bitrates. ffmpeg says the MP3's you uploaded through Vocaroo were at between 95 and 139 kbit/s.

To everyone else: I just verified again now, to make sure noting had changed and I wasn't putting my foot in my mouth, that Vocaroo passes MP3's losslessly. I uploaded a 2 MB 112 kbit/s mediocre quality MP3, and another, 12 MB 320 kbit/s high quality MP3 and both played and downloaded back bitwise identical -- even their MP3 ID3 tags survived the round trip. See https://voca.ro/1aQUDHQM4gAi and https://voca.ro/1foTZ8DW5GOV to hear for yourself.

Thank you for your amazing and detailed post! You said everything that was on my mind and interacted with the post in a way I expected! Thank you very much! If only the other members could be like you!

 

[radiodeviation7]

Question for radiodeviation7. You said:

Please don't judge the audio processor based on these clips. Sometimes audio processors are misadjusted and the actual audio processor sounds MUCH better than some of the clips.

Also Vocaroo may do it's own processing and use a low bitrate.

So how are we supposed to evaluate the sound quality based on these clips?

I will upload more clips soon in higher bitrates

 

[radiodeviation7]

More processing clips, this time in WAV format, CD Quality!

Radio Station	Format	Audio Processor	Audio Clip
Local Commercial Radio Station #3	AC	Not Known	aircheck 1.wav drive.google.com
Local Commercial Radio Station #4	AC	DSPXtreme	aircheck 3.wav drive.google.com
Local Commercial Radio Station #5*	Sports	AxelTech Falcon X7	aircheck 2.wav drive.google.com

Note: While the audio clip of "Local Commercial Radio Station #5" may sound low-bitrate, it was recorded in WAV from an FM tuner. The hum in the background is from their end, not mine. The reason their audio sounds low-bitrate is the STL they're using.

 

[radiodeviation7]

IMPORTANT!

Note: While the audio clip of "Local Commercial Radio Station #5" may sound low-bitrate, it was recorded in WAV from an FM tuner. The hum in the background is from their end, not mine. The reason their audio sounds low-bitrate is the STL they're using.

For Lcal Commercial Radio Station #5 the recording is bad and low-bitrate! It isn't the STL. Here is a new recording @DavidEduardo Can the admins of this forum remove the old link and place this new link in there? Here's the new link: aircheck 2 updated.wav

 

[Kelly A]

The bottom line is: Given competition comes from more than just radio, like streaming, the best audio processing one can have is the kind you can't tell exists.