Best Currently Available AM Processor?

[everydayguy]

I'm helping out a friend who just purchased a 500 watt non-directional small town AM about 25 miles from a growing, populated county that's way under-radioed.

Of course, the bigger county is where he wants to develop an audience with local news and high school sports (the small town he's licensed to already has a good local AM station, so they won't miss him.)

Question: what do you recommend for a loud but clean-sounding AM processor that might increase his reach by a few extra miles?
I know there's no "right" answer, but I welcome hearing about your experiences with the current crop of AM processors.

By way of background, the new owner has a new solid state transmitter and the site is in good shape including the antenna, radials, etc. The audio chain is new.

The format is adult standards/local news and sports.

Sorry, I'm not an engineer -- I do appreciate all the expertise on this board. Thanks for your suggestions.


everydayguy

 

[greenie]

Since the 9100 and the 9200 are no longer made, I would go with the 9300 from Orban. I really don't care for the sound of the 9400, especially on talk.

 

[Bengalsfan]

Omnia is making some good stuff. I have an AM using a Patriot POTS feeding an Omnia 3AM and you can't tell it.

I also have a 9100 I might be willing to part with.

 

[Fenway Frank]

Omnia One AM. Powerful, sounds great and is VERY affordable. No debate here.

 

[dspxscott]

Get a demo of the Omnia, Vorsis and the BW Broadcast Am units.

The BW Broadcast DSPXmini-AM obviously gets my vote, It is half the cost of any other DSP 4 band processor on the market ($1500 list, street pricing much less) but offering sound that is equal and arguably better than units costing a lot more. If you can stretch to $2500 go for the DSPX-AM which has dual path processing so can process an internet stream at the same time as your analogue AM service.

www.audio-processor.com

Ask SCMS for a no obligation demo.

 

[N1WVQ]

Get a demo of the Omnia, Vorsis and the BW Broadcast Am units.

The BW Broadcast DSPXmini-AM obviously gets my vote, It is half the cost of any other DSP 4 band processor on the market ($1500 list, street pricing much less) but offering sound that is equal and arguably better than units costing a lot more. If you can stretch to $2500 go for the DSPX-AM which has dual path processing so can process an internet stream at the same time as your analogue AM service.

www.audio-processor.com

Ask SCMS for a no obligation demo.

Do any of those A.M. processors do C-QuAM? They look like solid boxes!

 

[wgliradio]

I would recommend the Vorsis or BW mini IF you're on a budget.

The VP-8 Plus is so much improved and sounds really good on AM. If you wish I have some presets that are not included from the factory if you want to try.

 

[N1WVQ]

Do you have any audio samples? I'm on the Yahoo AM Stereo e-mail list.

 

[busterluck]

What processor for mono AM would you buy today?
The best ones seem to be Orban 9300 or Omnia 1-AM. For mono AM the Orban sells for $3,915, and the Omni 1 AM sells for Only $2350. Question is why is the Orban priced so much higher than the Omnia? There can't be a $1565 dollar difference between the two as far as performance.
What is the best pick between the two and why do you think so?
I have a client who has a pop music format and is looking for the best one of the two products.
I have heard that Omni outsells Orban processors by a large margin these days.

 

[fm-engineer]

Are you sure there is that much difference with the price? Maybe the Orban is the "list" price. I believe the 9300 is an updated 9200, same processing structure and sound. Maybe Bob O will chime in. I would demo both and make the decision that way. Also, Vorsis and BW have some AM selections around $2k. My guess is the Orban is the list price. Good luck.

What processor for mono AM would you buy today?
The best ones seem to be Orban 9300 or Omnia 1-AM. For mono AM the Orban sells for $3,915, and the Omni 1 AM sells for Only $2350. Question is why is the Orban priced so much higher than the Omnia? There can't be a $1565 dollar difference between the two as far as performance.
What is the best pick between the two and why do you think so?
I have a client who has a pop music format and is looking for the best one of the two products.
I have heard that Omni outsells Orban processors by a large margin these days.

 

[N1WVQ]

What processor for mono AM would you buy today?

I have a client who has a pop music format and is looking for the best one of the two products.
I have heard that Omni outsells Orban processors by a large margin these days.

If they're running pop, why not upgrade them to stereo!

 

[rorban]

Are you sure there is that much difference with the price? Maybe the Orban is the "list" price. I believe the 9300 is an updated 9200, same processing structure and sound. Maybe Bob O will chime in. I would demo both and make the decision that way. Also, Vorsis and BW have some AM selections around $2k. My guess is the Orban is the list price. Good luck.

What processor for mono AM would you buy today?
The best ones seem to be Orban 9300 or Omnia 1-AM. For mono AM the Orban sells for $3,915, and the Omni 1 AM sells for Only $2350. Question is why is the Orban priced so much higher than the Omnia? There can't be a $1565 dollar difference between the two as far as performance.
What is the best pick between the two and why do you think so?
I have a client who has a pop music format and is looking for the best one of the two products.
I have heard that Omni outsells Orban processors by a large margin these days.

To start with, audio processors are not interchangeable. Each has a different sound and different technology. So making price comparisons between brands is important when one has a fixed budget, but it is far more important to evaluate the *sound* of the processing with your physical plant (many AM plants have antenna that are sufficiently narrowband to interact with the audio processing) and with your format.

The 9300 is indeed an updated 9200 with the following extra features:

1. Anti-aliased clippers running at 256 kHz sample rate. (The 9200's clippers are not anti-aliased and run at 128 kHz.)

2. Parametric system lowpass filters whose transition region shape is selectable by the user to trade off ringing against brightness according to the user's preference.

3. Improved PC Remote software, which can connect via Ethernet or RS232 serial.

4. More versatile customization of presets.

In my opinion, AM processing is the hardest to design because the bandwidth of real-world radios varies widely but is never enough to render a real "high fidelity" sound compared to FM. (Yes, I know that there are a few AM radios with 10 kHz audio around, but they are just a drop in the ocean of radios whose -3 dB audio bandwidth averages around 2 kHz.)

At Orban, when we make AM factory presets we tune and test with three radios (representing 1.5 kHz steep-slope narrowband audio, 2 kHz audio with a gentle rolloff, and 5 kHz with a steep rolloff) and we also introduce impairments like white noise (representing distant reception) and power line buzz. More than any other processing, AM processing represents the art of compromise, where the goal is to provide an enjoyably listenable signal to as many of a station's potential audience as possible.

As for the 9400, we adjusted the presets to have more energy in the 3 kHz region compared to the 9200 or 9300. This choice was based on the new NRSC study of AM radios and the fact that the AM band has moved more towards talk, so effortless speech intelligibility, even on narrowband radios in the presence of substantial interference, is a higher priority than it was when the band had more music programming. And even in music programming, speech intelligibility is important.

The 9400 also has a number of general purpose and music-oriented presets. All of these sound substantially different, so its is important to "shop" presets when evaluating the processing--the 9400 doesn't have just one "sound." Other than the fact that the 9400 is a stereo processor, the main difference between the 9300 and 9400's processing algorithms is that the 9400 has a clipping distortion controller like the one we first introduced in the 8400, so speech (in particular) is cleaner than it is when processed by the 9300. We feel that this improvement justifies the 9400's price premium, particularly because its effect can be dialed back to any degree desired, so at its limit, a 9400 can provide 9300-style processing. However, the converse is not true.

Because the 9400's compressor threshold controls and parametric equalizer controls are available to the user, users can dial back this presence peak if they wish. But as always with AM radio, it is important to take into account the effect such a strategy will have on speech intelligibility in narrowband radios in the presence of noise and interference, which only seems to grow worse in the AM band.

Bob Orban

 

[busterluck]

Thank you for all the information concerning the Orban 9300 and the Omnia AM-1

The only question remaining is why does the Orban cost $1,500 more for a product such as the Omnia that seems to do about the same overall job. Is it computer design and manufacturing methods that make the Omnia less cost?

Or is it simply the competitive marketplace?

Omnia claims they outsell Orban these days by quite a large margin. There must be a reason for that marketplace acceptance.

I have been a long time Orban fan, In fact I bought one of the first 8000 Optimods from the first 100 produced, back when Eric Small was associated with Orban.

The 8000 changed the sound of FM broadcast forever.

 

[rorban]

Thank you for all the information concerning the Orban 9300 and the Omnia AM-1

The only question remaining is why does the Orban cost $1,500 more for a product such as the Omnia that seems to do about the same overall job. Is it computer design and manufacturing methods that make the Omnia less cost?

The 9300/Omnia 1 comparison is apples-to-oranges. The two processors have different sounds, different feature sets, and different signal processing algorithms at the most fundamental level. Audio processors from different manufacturers sound different and are not interchangeable.

Ever since the 8200 was introduced, we have considered ourselves a software company that happens to produce hardware. The software is what provides the main value in our products.

Most of the development cost of our products today is the software, not the hardware. We price our processors according to what how we think the marketplace will value the sound produced by our software. Moreover, there is a certain minimum price that we need to get in order to support our engineering and software test/quality control team. We have two employees whose only job is to do quality assurance testing of new software releases. The patient efforts of these employees and our dedication to quality are why a version 1.0 Orban product is never a joke.

As I posted previously, AM processing is the most technically and artistically challenging processing to design because of the variation in radios, transmission plants, and reception conditions that must be taken into account. We believe that this combination of careful development and proven performance make the 9300 makes it worth the price. It and its predecessor have been used on a huge number of top-rated stations over the last 15 years. Unlike certain marketing claims by our competitors about who is outselling whom, when a station is using a 9200 or 9300, its success can be verified using reliable, publicly available information -- the stations’ Arbitron ratings. This track record means that no station is going to lose audience share because it installed a 9300 -- it is a no-risk purchase that can only help a station compete.

Bob Orban

 

[BROADCAST]

The 9300 is indeed an updated 9200 with the following extra features:

1. Anti-aliased clippers running at 256 kHz sample rate. (The 9200's clippers are not anti-aliased and run at 128 kHz.)

Bob Orban

Bob,
Regarding the 8200 optimod's clippers that are not anti-aliased,when you released the 8400 you said that in your opinion the anti-aliased clippers made no sonic difference to non aliased clippers(or words to that effect),but you were once and for all going to put the debate to bed (so to speak).
Is that still your own opinion today or do you think differently on this matter ?

Thanks,
Paul.

 

[satech]

I must say I was impressed at how much Orban was able to improve the 9200 with its latest firmware update. Aside from the obvious lack of stereo, it was transformed into a nearly equal match for the 9100, despite the relatively limited DSP power and having one fewer processing band. So with the additional improvements, the 9300 should be an excellent choice for a mono AM station.

However, I would emphasize the need to carefully review any change in processing, due to the extreme variability in AM receivers. Some sound very muddy, while others (especially recent DSP-based tuners) have an excessively strident midrange, which may be pushed beyond the point of comfort if additional midrange boost is employed in the processing.

 

[rorban]

Regarding the 8200 optimod's clippers that are not anti-aliased,when you released the 8400 you said that in your opinion the anti-aliased clippers made no sonic difference to non aliased clippers(or words to that effect),but you were once and for all going to put the debate to bed (so to speak).
Is that still your own opinion today or do you think differently on this matter ?

When you do measurements of the effect of anti-aliasing, it becomes very hard to see the difference in the distortion spectrum when you are testing with three or more sinewaves because at this point there are a huge number of clipper-induced IM products in the spectrum anyway. The more complex the program material, the more the distortion spectrum looks like program-correlated noise when examined an FFT spectrum analyzer. This is true for both analog and digital clippers.

I recently had occasion to compare the sound of a 256 kHz sample rate FM clipper, both anti-aliased and normal. I could switch the anti-aliasing in and out instantaneously, enabling easy A/B tests. Although I could see the aliasing-induced spectrum change by about 40 dB with high frequency single sinewave excitation, with program material I couldn’t hear a difference--I believe that the aliasing products were masked by both the original program material and the other clipping products that would have also been present if the clipper were analog. Because I heard no difference in a more-or-less “high fidelity” FM context, I am convinced that antialiasing makes no audible difference in an AM processor as long as the clipper sample rate is 256 kHz or higher.

Regarding our adding anti-aliasing to the 8400, in the late ‘90s a competitor’s marketing campaign attacked the 8200 and 2200 for having no anti-aliasing, so I decided that the easiest thing to do from a marketing perspective would be to develop a technique for clipper anti-aliasing and implement it in future products. The alternative would have been to do a bunch of ABX tests and white papers, but in marketing, it’s much easier to convince someone that they want a feature than that the feature is unnecessary. To this day, I consider anti-aliased clipping to be a “marketing checkbox” feature and not one that audibly affects the sound of processing with program material, provided that the clipper’s sample rate is at least 256 kHz. The only context where I believe that it makes an audible difference is with synthetic test material like swept sinewaves.

Bob Orban

 

[FFoti1]

Regarding our adding anti-aliasing to the 8400, in the late ‘90s a competitor’s marketing campaign attacked the 8200 and 2200 for having no anti-aliasing, so I decided that the easiest thing to do from a marketing perspective would be to develop a technique for clipper anti-aliasing and implement it in future products. The alternative would have been to do a bunch of ABX tests and white papers, but in marketing, it’s much easier to convince someone that they want a feature than that the feature is unnecessary. To this day, I consider anti-aliased clipping to be a “marketing checkbox” feature and not one that audibly affects the sound of processing with program material, provided that the clipper’s sample rate is at least 256 kHz. The only context where I believe that it makes an audible difference is with synthetic test material like swept sinewaves.

Bob Orban

We have plenty of test examples using program material, not sinewaves, that show the effects of clipper generated aliasing in a digital system. This is not new information.

-Frank Foti

 

[Fenway Frank]

BW Broadcast....really?
Vorsis...............REALLY? ummmmm puh-lease!

In my estimation, the Omnia One is the way to go. I have heard both, seen the comparisons and it just sounds awesome for a box in the $2500 range. Ok I understand that audio preferences are subjective and we all have opinions, but to even consider anything other than Omnia or Orban is just ludicrous. Why wouldn't you go with companies that have been making AUDIO PROCESSORS exclusively for over 20 years? I think Frank and Bob know a thing or two about this.

 

[BabyDJ]

BW Broadcast....really?
Vorsis...............REALLY? ummmmm puh-lease!

In my estimation, the Omnia One is the way to go. I have heard both, seen the comparisons and it just sounds awesome for a box in the $2500 range. Ok I understand that audio preferences are subjective and we all have opinions, but to even consider anything other than Omnia or Orban is just ludicrous. Why wouldn't you go with companies that have been making AUDIO PROCESSORS exclusively for over 20 years? I think Frank and Bob know a thing or two about this.

Maybe you're tired of the sameness in the audio? I don't play with audio processing, but I can tell you that I'm tired of listening to the same hyped up bass, laser brite treble and flat, clipped audio you hear on most stations in New York City. I don't know what boxes they run, but I wouldn't want those.