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My first Omnia ONE question

I have a question for the board regarding the stereo separation settings inside the Omnia ONE. I assume this setting is on all recent Omnia processors. We are in an area with lots of hills and valleys, the highest peak being about 2,000 feet. I am concerned about multipath but I want to get other Omnia users' opinions on this separation setting. What kind of terrain do you deal with, and how do you have yours set? Thank you all!
 
I'm not familiar with the One, but if the stereo separation settings are close to the 6 or the .fm, why don't you try -3 to start? Contact Mark @ Omnia.

Assuming you're a music station, try changing your music library over to linear. Excessive bit reduction aggravates multipath. Any extra garbage makes it more obvious. How much stereo enhancement are you running? You might want to back that off, as well.
 
whitfm said:
I have a question for the board regarding the stereo separation settings inside the Omnia ONE. I assume this setting is on all recent Omnia processors. We are in an area with lots of hills and valleys, the highest peak being about 2,000 feet. I am concerned about multipath but I want to get other Omnia users' opinions on this separation setting. What kind of terrain do you deal with, and how do you have yours set? Thank you all!

I suggest that before adjusting the seperation mode in the processor, you drive the signal first, to determine if there is a problem. Additionally, there are other RF related items which affect the sensitivity of multipath. Make sure your transmitter is tuned for minimal AM noise, and the antenna is a good load match to the transmitter. Both of these affect RF group delay of the system, and that has as much affect on perceived multipath as the amount of transmitted L-R level.

-Frank Foti
 
Stereo separation turns out to be fine on the standard STEREO setting. There's no stereo enhancement in the ONE so multipath is not really as big of an issue as I had originally thought. What we are dealing with now is a lot of harmonic distortion in the low end. We've been using the as-is factory presets so there's obviously something in the bass that's one toke over the line. Sounds like a gargling rumble. I got in touch with Frank's support folks, so I hope to hear something back on that issue soon.
 
whitfm said:
What we are dealing with now is a lot of harmonic distortion in the low end. We've been using the as-is factory presets so there's obviously something in the bass that's one toke over the line. Sounds like a gargling rumble. I got in touch with Frank's support folks, so I hope to hear something back on that issue soon.

What's your format?
 
Actually a better question....

What are you using for an Exciter & transmitter? How old is your exciter? What's your entire air chain that lives around the Omnia?

If ALL the factory presets sound distorted on the low end, I'd have to wonder about the stuff downstream from the Omnia.

-C
 
sounds like an exciter or STL issue, very seriously doubt it's in the Omnia.Need a sweep of the system from studio to
transmitter.may be over driving the system.Do you have a contract engineer that you pay monthly fees to? Not to sound short but some of this is probably outside your area of expertise.C gould is one of the best,hopefully he can help you with this issue.
 
I remember a low, unnatural bass sound using a Mosely DSP, bit-reduced STL...with the processor at the transmitter. Awful.

Gotta agree...sounds like a level issue somewhere or perhaps the AFC is unlocking in the exciter due to too much bass. A lot of older exciters just can't handle the bass transients of today's music, much less the souped up output of a Omnia One.
 
Sgeirk said:
I remember a low, unnatural bass sound using a Mosely DSP, bit-reduced STL...with the processor at the transmitter. Awful.

Gotta agree...sounds like a level issue somewhere or perhaps the AFC is unlocking in the exciter due to too much bass. A lot of older exciters just can't handle the bass transients of today's music, much less the souped up output of a Omnia One.

Well that totally stinks. Menotti is correct...definitely outside my area of expertise...but darn it, I sure would like to have the kind of bass you can get out of an Omnia. Guess we'll have to sweep through the system.
 
The entire airchain makes up the sound of your station, as countless posters have said, .i had a client wanting a digital box running a very aged ,on it's last leg exciter.i suggested he just keep the older analog processor until he beefed up the airchain.But all may not be lost in your case.it just needs to be checked out.
 
another thought, lower the output on the omnia and try a less aggressive preset and see what happens.i agree with sgeirk, sounds like some level issues somewhere, too much input coming in to the exciter, possibly.hard to do distance troubleshooing. like we use to tellem in the air force, you gotta land it before we can fix it.Most of the later exciters would handle an Omnia one easily.surely you're not running a dinosour..
 
Well, I know for fact that everything has been refurbished or replaced in the past 2-3 years. When we first installed the unit, we ran it on very low levels (60-80 db max output) with the default preset. It was not loud but the garbled rumbling was still there.
 
menotti1 said:
The entire airchain makes up the sound of your station, as countless posters have said, .i had a client wanting a digital box running a very aged ,on it's last leg exciter.i suggested he just keep the older analog processor until he beefed up the airchain.But all may not be lost in your case.it just needs to be checked out.

Regarding digital processors on analog/composite systems, here is the other confusing thing to me. Before the One we had been running an Optimod 8400 for years, and aggressively for quite some time. So to suddenly have bass problems when going from an aggressive 8400 setup to a factory-standard One setup is very confusing.
 
whitfm said:
Sgeirk said:
I remember a low, unnatural bass sound using a Mosely DSP, bit-reduced STL...with the processor at the transmitter. Awful.

Gotta agree...sounds like a level issue somewhere or perhaps the AFC is unlocking in the exciter due to too much bass. A lot of older exciters just can't handle the bass transients of today's music, much less the souped up output of a Omnia One.

Well that totally stinks. Menotti is correct...definitely outside my area of expertise...but darn it, I sure would like to have the kind of bass you can get out of an Omnia. Guess we'll have to sweep through the system.

Aw man...the Moseley DSP 6000. I had to deal with one of those....definitely had some weird audio characteristics that would drive me nuts!
Which brings to mind...*IS* there an STL in the chain? if so, what kind (Analog, linear Digital, or Compressed Digital ?) Is it before or after the Omnia?

Is the program material linear or compressed? (i.e. mp2's, mp3's, or some other compression scheme)

It's OK to PM me again like before if you wish...

-C
 
whitfm said:
Thank you very, very much for the help. I've sent you another PM!

You're very welcome!

Another thought (as a follow up on our private messages) - What does the audio sound like when listening to the front panel
headphone jack on the Omnia?

That will rule out everything downstream, and will reveal the bass as the Omnia sees it! 8)

For the folks in the crowd:

Including public responses to specifics in the PM's -- for those bystanders to think about while not revealing any airchain info specifics in a public forum....Just in case anyone else has (or will have) similar issues.

-Cornelius
 
whitfm said:
menotti1 said:
The entire airchain makes up the sound of your station, as countless posters have said, .i had a client wanting a digital box running a very aged ,on it's last leg exciter.i suggested he just keep the older analog processor until he beefed up the airchain.But all may not be lost in your case.it just needs to be checked out.

Regarding digital processors on analog/composite systems, here is the other confusing thing to me. Before the One we had been running an Optimod 8400 for years, and aggressively for quite some time. So to suddenly have bass problems when going from an aggressive 8400 setup to a factory-standard One setup is very confusing.

The bass line from an Omnia product in my experience is earth shaking compared to Optimods. I haven't used the Omnia 1, but the 5 and 6 have amazing bass. The Tsunami presets, later called cosmic, I believe were an attempt to satisfy users who prefer a different type of bass sound. The cosmic preset is my favorite, and I see it quite often dialed up at stations. C. Gould has an even better sounding preset called rock smooth. I have installed it on seven stations this past month. It handles hypercompressed material even better than cosmic.

The Optimod is a different animal all together. Slowing down the attack times and playing with the bass clip threshold is the only way to get the kind of bass most people want. Adjusting the EQ doesn't do much at all. The multiband section tends to remove any eq adjustment you may make.

I would put the 8400 and Omnia 1 on an A+B composite switch so you could quickly compare source material on air.
 
What did Omnia Tech Support suggest when you called them? They can probably give you some tips on how to take care of the problem you're having.

We know from reading your previous posts that you had a difficult time tuning the 8400 you had before you purchased the Omnia One. Perhaps there's a problem elsewhere in the chain as previous posters have indicated. It could be as simple as a poor soundcard in the on-air automation PC.

Like I've posted before, we're running an Omnia One into a BE exciter with the Cosmic preset and there isn't an ounce of distortion on the bass. Cgould had a good point, plug a high quality pair of headph0nes into the Omnia's head phone jack and compare.
 
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