OMNIA 6EXI

[wgliradio]

Very impressive. I really like the spectral balance you've achieved.

But you know that the first thing some people are going to say is "Yeah, but how LOUD is it?.


Kind Regards,
David

More than loud enough... actually, there is room for louder with the clipping control, but why push it? No box in this market sounds as good, and this market is loaded with the latest digital boxes.

 

[RadioFixerCLE]

Female formats you should be careful with not having too much high end or too much low end. because women's hearing is different than men's hearing.

Supposedly women are more sensitive to high ends and don't like them as much. I don't know. I love high ends....I find many radio stations to be too muddy-sounding for my taste. Big on bass, heavy on presence....but the highs.....ehhh...they just kinda sit there. If they're even THERE. It's like there's no middle ground in processing anymore, almost.

 

[RadioFixerCLE]

More than loud enough... actually, there is room for louder with the clipping control, but why push it? No box in this market sounds as good, and this market is loaded with the latest digital boxes.

Ehmm.....I would also say it's loud enough. Any more loud and you'll end up sounding like a screeching banshee (Z-100 anyone? Hmm....) or a cannon from the 1812 Overture....sending your speaker cones out for a flying lesson.

 

[littlejohn]

Women have more acute high frequency hearing than men. They will respond to high end grunge more quickly. In fact, if you begine to see the - 34 females drop off in ratings with no change in product, look to the audio quality... often you'll find some crud appearing in the high end. When you do focus groups, you find the women in this circumstance will tell you they dropped that station becuase they 'didn't like it'. We tend not to articulate that sometheing is wearing on us so much as we tend to simply remove it. It is insidious, you can chase your female demos off without knowing it if you aren't careful.

 

[RadioFixerCLE]

Women have more acute high frequency hearing than men. They will respond to high end grunge more quickly.

I guess that would explain why I can sometimes noticed trashed highs quicker than other people and why I can't stand the sound of WALK-FM in this area -- they are mashed to the hilt. :-[

 

[wgliradio]

No, WALK is making square wave and is probably the most distorted thing I have heard in ages. Omnia 6 (no EXI,). I don't think I've heard a processor adjusted so poorly.

 

[gtomas]

Same song, my 8100 and Ariane Sequel

http://fserver.redirectme.net/

USER Processing
PASS clips

Same song, development version of DSPXmini-FM

http://processingclips.gorantomas.com/

This is the soon to be released official version of DSPXmini that uses the new crossover, revised gain structure, improvements in the bass and final clipper, tweaks in the AGC + a version 2 of the new 4-band limiter algorithm. Thanks to a few new ideas this algorithm is cleaner and more musical than what the beta users had to play with

Keep in mind that what you are listening is a processor that costs half the price of the Ariane Sequal alone!


Regards,
Goran Tomas

P.S. With 75us pre-emphasis, recorded off-air.

 

[menotti1]

Very NICE.congrats Goran.i'm no stranger to BW products, i have your DSP-X on an FM in Vicksburg MS and your DSP-Extra on a New FM in Alamosa CO.Both owners are very pleased.You did a good job on the Mini.I know Scott is proud of your work.

 

[The F Mister]

Impressive clip of the mini. Sounds very mature for a mini, great job Goran.

 

[rorban]

Women have more acute high frequency hearing than men. They will respond to high end grunge more quickly. In fact, if you begine to see the - 34 females drop off in ratings with no change in product, look to the audio quality... often you'll find some crud appearing in the high end. When you do focus groups, you find the women in this circumstance will tell you they dropped that station becuase they 'didn't like it'. We tend not to articulate that sometheing is wearing on us so much as we tend to simply remove it. It is insidious, you can chase your female demos off without knowing it if you aren't careful.

Very true, and one reason why Optimod factory presets can sometimes sound "too clean and a little bit dull" for the tastes of the (mostly male) posters here. When Greg Ogonowski and I design them, we are always very aware that "clean and without over-hyped highs" never caused anyone to tune out. In other words, we try to make presets that keep audiences listening, because ultimately that is what builds ratings and helps stations bring in revenue.

(As an aside, I think that record companies need to learn the lesson that broadcasters learned long ago. I don't think it's a coincidence that the brighter, louder, and more distorted CDs get, the more CD sales decline.)

Bob Orban

 

[fm-engineer]

Women have more acute high frequency hearing than men. They will respond to high end grunge more quickly. In fact, if you begine to see the - 34 females drop off in ratings with no change in product, look to the audio quality... often you'll find some crud appearing in the high end. When you do focus groups, you find the women in this circumstance will tell you they dropped that station becuase they 'didn't like it'. We tend not to articulate that sometheing is wearing on us so much as we tend to simply remove it. It is insidious, you can chase your female demos off without knowing it if you aren't careful.

Very true, and one reason why Optimod factory presets can sometimes sound "too clean and a little bit dull" for the tastes of the (mostly male) posters here. When Greg Ogonowski and I design them, we are always very aware that "clean and without over-hyped highs" never caused anyone to tune out. In other words, we try to make presets that keep audiences listening, because ultimately that is what builds ratings and helps stations bring in revenue.

(As an aside, I think that record companies need to learn the lesson that broadcasters learned long ago. I don't think it's a coincidence that the brighter, louder, and more distorted CDs get, the more CD sales decline.)

Bob Orban

You're right. Cleaner sound keeps people tuned in. However, the listener's money makes it to my wallet through the GM or owner. No matter how you try to explain it, they want loud and bright at all cost. I try to meet them halfway with the listener in mind. The rock-open presets on newer Optimods sound wonderful on new rock and hyper compressed material. A bump in the brilliance section is all that is needed to satisfy the brightness debate. A lot of the distortion is masked by this preset, and the bass line is punchy. The same goes for the Omnia 6. The cosmic preset also works well with new junk music.

 

[stace]

The new software update is much cleaner and brighter. If you're competing in a market with Omnias, usually you will need to make some adjustments. I found our sound in this situation, by actually dialing out some of the distortion controlling protection of the clippers. Overall it sounds more exciting, with more bass punch, crisper highs and more overall loudness, at the expense of some added harmonic distortion EG the beginning of Kelly Clarksons - Because of You track. Which is an abortion of a mix.

Heres a question.

How does the max dist control actually work? From what I understand, it interacts with the final clipper and reduces drive if it feels necessary to prevent distortion. Is this a similar control to 'clipper silk' in the Omnia.

 

[cgould]

From what I understand, it interacts with the final clipper and reduces drive if it feels necessary to prevent distortion. Is this a similar control to 'clipper silk' in the Omnia.

Actually (in the Omnia 6EXi) what you describe is kind of what happens with the lo-IMD clipper algorithm. The silk control changes the high frequency texture of the Omnia clipper. The regular Omnia 6ex does not have the lo-IMD feature.

-Cornelius

 

[rorban]

How does the max dist control actually work? From what I understand, it interacts with the final clipper and reduces drive if it feels necessary to prevent distortion. Is this a similar control to 'clipper silk' in the Omnia.

The 8400 introduced the "clipping distortion controller" algorithm to Optimods. The details of its operation are proprietary, but, in broad terms, it reduces the drive to the distortion-cancelled clipper if it decides that not doing so would cause audibly objectionable clipping distortion. It's the main mechanism that allows present-day Optimods to get loud while still preserving clean speech.

However, to preserve punch it's sometimes better to clip certain transients like snare drum hits even if this results in a sound that is "distorted" compared to the original drum hit. The Max Distortion Control allows users to clamp the maximum amount of clipper drive reduction that the distortion controller can cause. It turns out that setting this control in the range of 5 to 7 dB allows the distortion controller to work well on most critical material (like speech) while still preserving a reasonable amount of punch in percussion. As the setting of the control is lowered, punch increases but so does clipping distortion on critical material.

Bob Orban

Bob Orban

 

[stace]

Very true, and one reason why Optimod factory presets can sometimes sound "too clean and a little bit dull" for the tastes of the (mostly male) posters here. When Greg Ogonowski and I design them, we are always very aware that "clean and without over-hyped highs" never caused anyone to tune out.

You're right. Cleaner sound keeps people tuned in. However, the listener's money makes it to my wallet through the GM or owner. No matter how you try to explain it, they want loud and bright at all cost.
[/quote]

And would it be fair to say that the majority of GM's and PD's would be male? Do you think a conservative approach to the brightness tradeoff would cost sales here? HF content is very attractive to both sexes, Females are more aware of distortion.

Since the 8100, the Optimod has developed a large amount of anti-distortion algorithms. Look ahead processing, distortion cancelled clipping, extra HF limiting, Max distortion control. All good technology, but the 8100 XT2 without all the clipper protection managed and still manages to create a sound that is crisp, punchy while still being clean and loud enough to attract large audiences. Like it says in the manual, a moderate amount of clipping doesn't produce unwanted side effects. A few presets with this in mind would be nice, perhaps call them 'Classic'

I'll upload some clips of what I've achieved with the 8500. Not everyones cup of tea, but a different approach.

It's been said in this thread before that its not so much the box, but the ears and the time those ears spend. I know it will never happen, but I'm curious to know what Frank or Cornelius would do with an 8500 or Bob with and Omnia 6, after a couple of months playing round

 

[DudeFan]

There are two issues: distortion and spectral balance. They are in some way related, but not necessarily. You can have clean, distortion free audio, but still have the balance wrong for your target audience. You can always err on the side of having it less "bright" because guys will generally brighten it up by turning up the volume. Women will just turn off overly bright or boomy audio.

 

[cgould]

It's been said in this thread before that its not so much the box, but the ears and the time those ears spend. I know it will never happen, but I'm curious to know what Frank or Cornelius would do with an 8500 or Bob with and Omnia 6, after a couple of months playing round

Let me step in, go out on a limb, and say that as audio processing designers, we live to create processing algorithms that addresses what we perceive as weaknesses in our previous offerings, or the offerings of our competitors. So, if any of us were stuck with a competitor's box, we will make them do what we want (as best we can), and be really annoyed with what we don't like about "brand X the whole time

-Cornelius

 

[whit979]

Since the 8100, the Optimod has developed a large amount of anti-distortion algorithms. Look ahead processing, distortion cancelled clipping, extra HF limiting, Max distortion control. All good technology, but the 8100 XT2 without all the clipper protection managed and still manages to create a sound that is crisp, punchy while still being clean and loud enough to attract large audiences. Like it says in the manual, a moderate amount of clipping doesn't produce unwanted side effects. A few presets with this in mind would be nice, perhaps call them 'Classic'

Orban "Classic" presets...now that's a good idea!

 

[rorban]

both sexes, Females are more aware of distortion.

Since the 8100, the Optimod has developed a large amount of anti-distortion algorithms. Look ahead processing, distortion cancelled clipping, extra HF limiting, Max distortion control. All good technology, but the 8100 XT2 without all the clipper protection managed and still manages to create a sound that is crisp, punchy while still being clean and loud enough to attract large audiences. Like it says in the manual, a moderate amount of clipping doesn't produce unwanted side effects. A few presets with this in mind would be nice, perhaps call them 'Classic'

The XT2's architecture's weak point has always been that it is subject to voice distortion. There is nothing between the multiband and the final clipper to throttle back the clipping if it otherwise would have produced distortion. Six bands helps, because voice is narrowband compared to music so most of the vocal energy is in a few bands, so the peak level does not add up the way it does with a signal like music that fills up all of the bands.

Until the 8400's clipping distortion controller, we were severely constrained in how we could tune the multiband compressor in Optimods because tuning was the *only* way to mitigate clipping distortion with critical material. In practice, this required relatively fast attack times to minimize overshoots and extreme care in setting compression thresholds. This was the main reason why we did not make these controls available to users -- it took a very long time to test a change because it had to been checked on many different kinds of program material to make sure that nothing really fell apart.

I sometimes think that I am more critical than most people when it comes to clipped, distorted speech. It really bothers me, and until the 8400, I didn't really have a good way to deal with it in a way that still allowed latitude in customizing the sound of a processor.

Right now, the closest thing to the XT2 sound in an 8500 is the ultra-low-latency (ULL) structure. For the sake of low delay, this does not have the clipping distortion controller, which uses look-ahead techniques. It also only has hard bass clipping, which is like the XT2. But, unlike the 8200, the 8500's ULL structure's clippers run at 256 kHz and are anti-aliased.

The ULL structure suffers from the same tuning constraints as all other Optimods without the clipping distortion controller. Accordingly, its presets are typically 2-3 quieter than the presets that fully exploit all of the distortion control technology we developed for products starting with the 8400 and continuing to the present day

Bob Orban