Can't Y'all Hear?

[Curl]

It was so wonderful. Three days of bliss. Three days of being able to hear those good old songs as they were recorded. This was quite a wonderful sonic experience and I enjoyed it immensely. Now its gone.

After the format change, I had exactly 3 days to listen to quality oldies on 96.7. Now its gone. The sound is now smashed & squashed just like with the unlistenable previous format. I have decided to write a letter to the FCC every day of my remaining life to complain. And I will do that until it gets fixed. Some of us actually care that you turkeys have destroyed radio.

Most of you who run radio stations should try to understand that you are slowly destroying yourselves in a way that you surely don't realize. There are at least three ways to destroy the listenability of music: harmonic distortion, frequency distortion, and amplitude distortion. AM radio is now destroying itself with amplitude distortion (compression) and frequency distortion (filtering). Some AM stations get really nasty with excessive harmonic distortion (over modulation) also. FM radio is destroying itself with amplitude distortion. I'm guessing that the FCC has some kind of regulations regarding distortion - but obviously not enforcing it.

If you are a radio station, its pretty obvious that YOU HAVE NOTHING ELSE TO OFFER BUT AUDIO. Why would you cannibalize the only property that you have?

The AM situation is horrendous, with its unbelievable degradation of itself from a 15 Khz Hi-fi medium to a 5 Khz telephone quality nightmare with terrible IBOC hissing that renders the scan button useless. Y'all are surely suicidal from a business perspective!

FM has deteriorated gradually over the years. The music is unlistenable at reasonably loud levels for more than a few minutes because the natural dynamics have been removed. Obviously its not technically necessary because some (very, very few) stations sound fine. Platinum 96.7 sounded really great from Monday through Wednesday. WTF happened? CANT YOU PEOPLE HEAR?

 

[TheRover]

I HATE the way Bone jock's voices are so over-emphasized when compared to the sound level of THE MUSIC they play.

I hope that your FCC Complant gets some answers.

Who does the FCC work for anyway ???

Oh yeah... that's right.... Big Business and Wall Street Interests....

Maybe someday, if we're luck, we, the people will have govt. to actually repesent US...

 

[kc4rae]

I can't stand over compressed audio. It's a mess.

I can't hear Platinum over-the-air because it's too far from my home (Taylor). It doesn't need that kind of processing.

Come to Austin and listen to KFMK. It sounds horrible. By far the worse I've heard. Sure it's plays Rhythmic Oldies, but wow...it's really bad.

 

[Dndsh237]

Programmers today generally want their station to be louder than everyone else. There's this notion that if they aren't loud enough, they'll be at risk for this theory called falling off the dial. Personally I don't mind some minor processing, but yeah this squish it to death craze is out of hand. And this craze is also what caused this same loudness war among music mastering. This is why that CD you just bought sounds clipped and distorted.

 

[kc4rae]

I could understand that theory during the days of slide-rule tuners. Everyone had a radio with a slide-rule tuner. It makes sense to have that kind of loudness. When tuning around the dial manually, which some still do with cheaper radios that don't pick up worth a darn, it helps. Loudness stands out and grabs. Dropping off the dial would happen if someone is not modulating at the full potential. People would skip over the station not noticing it at all when tuning, unless they knew the station already exists. We know that most don't do that. They scan.

However, with digital tuning, it isn't as necessary anymore, especially with preset tuning. You're really not going to notice the loudness when switching between presets unless you have a great ear for noticing a greater than 2dB difference. Then that person probably won't really care for such a minor difference anyway. Maybe when a traveler is riding through town and scanning the band to find a station that plays the content they like, then processing loudly might have an advantage. The radio should catch the carrier and stop the scan. If the station is loud enough, people should hear the audio.

I'm not saying that all stations should just drop the processing boxes. The one thing I hate most is tuning to one station with one level of consistent loudness and then tuning to another that just about forces the cone of the loudspeaker out of the frame. This happens with television, but more so with cable. Processing audio is not a bad idea. I do here at the house with my music collection with a five bander. It's great. Minor processing is what I do, but I'm not on the air...I stream content over the internet where it's really not required. At least some level of loudness is needed however. Not to the point to driving people nuts.

A new standard should be set for more quality than loudness, but we know that will never happen unless everyone agrees that they will do it. I like consistency throughout the band. I don't like having to grab the volume control every time I decide to change the station. I personally would like to see that happen. Perhaps I have too much hope ;D

 

[kc4rae]

As for the CD-DAs, it seems like they clipped the audio as a business decision. It doesn't seem that the industry cares for quality. Just a personal opinion.

 

[Dndsh237]

Right but even if slide rule radios are not the norm, falling off the dial is not the only factor. Everybody wants to be louder than everybody else because they think it makes them sound bigger and better than everyone else. Kinda like some stations speeding up songs by a couple of percentage points. It makes other stations playing the same songs at normal speed, sound slower.

While it would be nice for everyone to just stay at the same level, it's not practical. For one thing, there are numerous different audio processors on the market for these stations. Each processor works differently, plus not every station has the same pre-processor equipment in the chain, plus they aren't all using the same transmitter brand. All of these variables come into play.

The FCC is only concerned with the modulation limitation rule. As long as no one is exceeding the 100% modulation limit (give or take a couple of percentages) the FCC won't really care.

 

[Dndsh237]

As for the CD-DAs, it seems like they clipped the audio as a business decision. It doesn't seem that the industry cares for quality. Just a personal opinion.

They are doing it because they want the CD's to sound as loud as the stations that play them.

 

[LibertyNT]

Sounds the same to me ???

 

[GeneSavage]

Considering the topic, I have a request for anyone who considers themselves to have "golden ears." This will sound like an ad, but I promise that's not the goal.

I run an internet radio station (kc4rae, what's your station?) and am using a 5-band software audio processor. I think it sounds pretty good, but am always looking for more feedback.

Obviously on the internet you're not worrying about "falling off the dial," but especially with the crazy mix of music I play ('20s to now!) I benefit from the re-equalization and some equalizing of the density from song to song. Additionally, I don't want the music to get lost in the noise of a cubicle or a room full of computers.

If you get a chance, could you listen to blacklightradio.com and give me your impressions of the fidelity? I understand the music may not be your cup of tea; I'm wondering if it sounds "squashed," "colored," or maybe TOO open.

You can send me private messages on this board or my email's on the website, so we don't hijack this thread.

P.S. - Is perhaps one of the goals of Platinum to recreate the stomped-on sound of the AMs that originally played this music? I haven't heard it personally, so they may just be crushing to try to get a few extra feet of listenability. Being outside the metro, I could see "jumping off the dial" as a real goal.

Also, I think there was a time the FCC required distortion measurements, but I'm pretty sure Dndsh237 is right: you could pretty much transmit square waves as long as you legal ID...

 

[Curl]

I just plugged blacklight.com into my big studio speakers. The music quality is pretty impressive. Your voice is a little heavy on the sibilance, however. For my taste, I rolled the mids down a hair around 1Khz, but thats just me.

I have determined that the FCC doesn't care about the distortion of audio compression. In fact, I find that they have very little interest in technical performance at all. So, I guess sending a complaint every day would just be a waste of my time. The marketplace will eventually fix the problem - when cars get internet radio capability.

 

[Dndsh237]

I wouldn't count on the problem ever being fixed. Many Internet broadcasters use audio processing as well. There are processors just for that purpose.

 

[kc4rae]

Right but even if slide rule radios are not the norm, falling off the dial is not the only factor. Everybody wants to be louder than everybody else because they think it makes them sound bigger and better than everyone else. Kinda like some stations speeding up songs by a couple of percentage points. It makes other stations playing the same songs at normal speed, sound slower.

I realize that folks are trying to gain loudness and the industry hasn't stopped trying to get even more loudness in the finite room to do so. For the illusion of more loudness, comes degradation of a quality signal. And with the increase in loudness is the decreasing peak to average ratio and increasing fatigue for listeners. I can believe that this works. With a station that knows it's getting less TSLs, listener fatigue is not really a problem. As long as people are tuning them in long enough to hear ads. Not being in the broadcast radio loop anymore, I would suspect that two hours is all a station gets for listens throughout the day.

I can see the reasoning behind speeding up songs, especially in Top 40 pop. It does sound more energetic and that is a good move, within taste. A station that I grew up listening to, WYHY now WRVW Y107 in Nashville, sped up songs so much that I had a hard time listening to it. Yet it got some of the highest ratings in it's heyday. That was back in the 80s. When the speed increased, I tuned to out-of-market stations that didn't play music so fast. I'm sure just personal taste on my part. I just didn't like it.

While it would be nice for everyone to just stay at the same level, it's not practical. For one thing, there are numerous different audio processors on the market for these stations. Each processor works differently, plus not every station has the same pre-processor equipment in the chain, plus they aren't all using the same transmitter brand. All of these variables come into play.

The relative amount of loudness difference at least on the FM BC band, is not so much different between stations that I would complain about. At least they are all within at least somewhat consistent. A minor difference that I'm hearing is not an issue with me, and most certainly not with the average listener. We're talking difference so minute that even the average ear can't tell. It's been said that the human ear can't tell a difference of 1dB of loudness. This is what I'm referring to as minor. So it's not all bad there. I might be concentrating on sound differently.

The FCC is only concerned with the modulation limitation rule. As long as no one is exceeding the 100% modulation limit (give or take a couple of percentages) the FCC won't really care.

You're right. So glad that we don't have band splatter!

 

[kc4rae]

They are doing it because they want the CD's to sound as loud as the stations that play them.

Thankfully, I have some older CDs that don't have too much clipping. The processor here does well with them and I have had no problems. If the industry wants to sound as loud as the stations that play them, using a processor would be a better idea. Not raising the levels to purposely clip the peaks. I would rather listen to compression at 7:1 than to listen to the equivalent of 50:1

 

[kc4rae]

P.S. - Is perhaps one of the goals of Platinum to recreate the stomped-on sound of the AMs that originally played this music? I haven't heard it personally, so they may just be crushing to try to get a few extra feet of listenability. Being outside the metro, I could see "jumping off the dial" as a real goal.

Having not been around too many stations that have a problem like that until I moved to Texas, it doesn't surprise me that the increased loudness may be because of the rim shot signal. The stream however is actually kind of strange. It sounds like they took the audio from the board and hooked it up a stream overlay and then to the encoders.

Like you, I can't listen because I live too far away. Besides, we have a signal on that frequency in Austin.

 

[kc4rae]

The marketplace will eventually fix the problem - when cars get internet radio capability.

I don't think a fix is likely. I doubt that they would consider over processing, or near over processing an issue. So far they have attributed the drive away from radio to be internet, and iPods...not the sound quality.

 

[Dndsh237]

P.S. - Is perhaps one of the goals of Platinum to recreate the stomped-on sound of the AMs that originally played this music? I haven't heard it personally, so they may just be crushing to try to get a few extra feet of listenability. Being outside the metro, I could see "jumping off the dial" as a real goal.

Having not been around too many stations that have a problem like that until I moved to Texas, it doesn't surprise me that the increased loudness may be because of the rim shot signal. The stream however is actually kind of strange. It sounds like they took the audio from the board and hooked it up a stream overlay and then to the encoders.

Like you, I can't listen because I live too far away. Besides, we have a signal on that frequency in Austin.

Yeah their stream is actually very good! They probably are using a different processing system for the stream, which really is the ideal way to go. I've heard some streams where the off air signal was used, and it's horrible!!!

 

[kc4rae]

I'm impressed with the stream, even if it's at 32kbps at 22050 samples per second in stereo.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

After the format change, I had exactly 3 days to listen to quality oldies on 96.7. Now its gone. The sound is now smashed & squashed just like with the unlistenable previous format.

I wouldn't complain until you compare the sound to K240DS (the 95.9 translator in Garland). Now THAT is messed up audio that shouldn't be on the air until it is FIXED!

 

[LibertyNT]

After the format change, I had exactly 3 days to listen to quality oldies on 96.7. Now its gone. The sound is now smashed & squashed just like with the unlistenable previous format.

I wouldn't complain until you compare the sound to K240DS (the 95.9 translator in Garland). Now THAT is messed up audio that shouldn't be on the air until it is FIXED!

Yea I Noticed that. Its So Quiet. Had a Hard Time Finding it on a Dial Tuned Radio.