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CBS-FM Audio (Again)

L

LenoxAve

I've lost track of how many times this has come up. I've steered clear of the station recently due to the awful audio and just turned it back on this afternoon on the ride home. Seems like they fixed the loudness issue. Seems fairly competitive. Lots of thumping bass but no treble! Heard a Beatles song, and it sounded like they were muffled and singing underwater.

PLJ also sounded very flat and muddy over the past few days. Christmas tunes on LTW sound pretty good though.
 
Sadly this is another station that has driven me away as a listener. I couldn't believe a station owned by a corporate megaplayer is allowed to sound THAT BAD! A far cry from what they sounded like when I participated in meetings of the NYC chapter of the SBE. I don't know if it's a different breed of engineer or a mandate from corporate, but I'd be embarrassed to have any of my stations sound that bad.

I rarely bother to tune it in anymore. Hopefully somebody will get their act together and fix it.
 
Oh, I'm not surprised at all that a station owned by a corporate megaplayer is allowed to sound that bad. Do you really think the corporation cares about the quality of the product as long as they can sell the ad time?

Never mind about the processing for the moment, let's start with the source. I'll bet all the music is stored in a digitally compressed, lossy file format, right? Well as they (used to) say, garbage in = garbage out.

Our product is audio. And really, it's not that hard to work with audio and keep it sounding good with minimal investment, but does anyone at the top care? Seems to me pride in the quality of the product and attention to all the little details went out the window a long time ago. Let's narrow it down... 1996?
 
There are CBS stations in other markets that sound terrific. Their stations in Orlando, FL come to mind. Don't blame corporate.
 
Boston cluster sounds great too. In NYC Fresh sounds good. Now sounds decent. WFAN was being tweaked yesterday and today. WFAN-AM sounds great since the IBOC was shut off. WINS and 880 sound good.

I have no idea what's going on a CBS-FM. Is it a PD or engineering thing going on there. Mike left and so did Brian Thomas. But Jim Ryan knows what he's doing. I don't get it, there's no reason for it to sound this crappy for so long.
 
WNTIRadio said:
Boston cluster sounds great too. In NYC Fresh sounds good. Now sounds decent. WFAN was being tweaked yesterday and today. WFAN-AM sounds great since the IBOC was shut off. WINS and 880 sound good.

I have no idea what's going on a CBS-FM. Is it a PD or engineering thing going on there. Mike left and so did Brian Thomas. But Jim Ryan knows what he's doing. I don't get it, there's no reason for it to sound this crappy for so long.
Click to expand...

Fresh and Now still with the Omnia 6 boxes?

CBS FM still sounds muddy and pressed together. No open loud sound what it was in the Mike E. days.
 
I have no idea what's going on a CBS-FM. Is it a PD or engineering thing going on there. Mike left and so did Brian Thomas. But Jim Ryan knows what he's doing. I don't get it, there's no reason for it to sound this crappy for so long.
[/quote]

Sounds like their Optimod lost it's memory and they don't remember the custom settings. NY FM's are all overprocessed and can't compete with Vinyl or CD's. L + R and L - R ain't that discrete either - LOL It's true, all these stations only worry about are loading up on commercials. They could care less about music, culture, audio quality etc.
 
JollyRancher said:
Giacomo Siffredi said:
LenoxAve said:
Heard a Beatles song, and it sounded like they were muffled and singing underwater.
Click to expand...

Could the song have been "Yellow Submarine"?
Click to expand...

HaHaHa that's funny...almost as funny as Scott Shannon and Lew Dickie having dinner last week :eek:
Click to expand...
No, it really was funny.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
 
badjef said:
JollyRancher said:
Giacomo Siffredi said:
LenoxAve said:
Heard a Beatles song, and it sounded like they were muffled and singing underwater.
Click to expand...

Could the song have been "Yellow Submarine"?
Click to expand...

HaHaHa that's funny...almost as funny as Scott Shannon and Lew Dickie having dinner last week :eek:
Click to expand...
No, it really was funny.

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!
Click to expand...

I would rather "have dinner" with Lew than to have him show up with and ask for your keys and parking pass!
 
secondchoice said:
I would rather "have dinner" with Lew than to have him show up with and ask for your keys and parking pass!
Click to expand...

Judging how poorly some of their properties are performing, I might consider this a blessing!

Took another listen to CBS-FM this morning. Instant tune-out! I actually tuned into an AM oldies outlet instead!
 
Fresh and WBLS are the best sounding stations in the city at the moment in my opinion. These stations have all what CBS FM don't have... Don't know why because Fresh is from the same engineer who is responsible for that horrible CBS FM sound, I guess. WBLS (Omnia.6) is done by another sound engineer who also mentioned here a while ago.
 
You would think who ever made WCBS's "box" would "help". If I was in a "radio war" in a smaller market, and a NYC station was winning with a similar format, I would be checking out playlists (not lifting but seeing what they are doing), and audio processing of the NYC station.
 
secondchoice said:
You would think who ever made WCBS's "box" would "help". If I was in a "radio war" in a smaller market, and a NYC station was winning with a similar format, I would be checking out playlists (not lifting but seeing what they are doing), and audio processing of the NYC station.
Click to expand...

I agree, especially when it could be a poor reflection on their product solely because an incompetent person at the station is programming the box. However, I doubt anyone who does business in market number one would want to make waves.

As to Bill's point, yes, AM oldies stations actually do have cleaner sounds than CBS-FM. I have been tuning to WMTR when I am in need of oldies now. So done exposing my ears to that mess.
 
secondchoice said:
You would think who ever made WCBS's "box" would "help". If I was in a "radio war" in a smaller market, and a NYC station was winning with a similar format, I would be checking out playlists (not lifting but seeing what they are doing), and audio processing of the NYC station.
Click to expand...


I am willing to bet that whoever is in charge of the audio of CBS-FM (Engineering, Programming, or both) probably think it is just fine and don't think that they need any help.
 
Maybe since they're not in direct competition, whoever set up the Optimod at New Jersey 101.5 can come over to CBS-FM and help set up their own Optimod to sound just as good!
 
WCBS-FM Processing

On the dentist's site a posting mentions the FM processing is flat and that "something has happened in the past several months". If it indeed is flat (I listen on-line where I am)..it could be because they have a new PD.

How does it sound to you?
 
Re: WCBS-FM Processing

Giacomo Siffredi said:
LenoxAve said:
Heard a Beatles song, and it sounded like they were muffled and singing underwater.
Click to expand...

Could the song have been "Yellow Submarine"?
Click to expand...

Phenomenal! Don't know how I missed this until now. If only it were! Kudos to you for what could possibly be response of the year... ;D

TomBenson said:
On the dentist's site a posting mentions the FM processing is flat and that "something has happened in the past several months". If it indeed is flat (I listen on-line where I am)..it could be because they have a new PD.

How does it sound to you?
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure I - and everyone else who has commented on this thread - would say that it still sounds dreadful. It's almost as if whoever set up the box had to try to make it sound that terrible. It's bad. Apparently, no one up there notices or cares!
 
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