which one is beter Stereomaxx or orban 222a

[ElCheapo]

I won't even address the "betterment" of multipath problem...


Regards,
Goran Tomas

By all means Goran - please address it. I'd love to hear your take on this.

Explain to us how running audio through an airchain that produces an air sound almost identical to the original is better with regard to multipath.

 

[jboydingram]

point explained....thanks...JBI

 

[ElCheapo]

point explained....thanks...JBI

Yeah... I guess the rest of the world will have to keep on making millions with heavily processed FM while rural Mississippi radio does it the right way.

 

[gtomas]

By all means Goran - please address it. I'd love to hear your take on this.

Explain to us how running audio through an airchain that produces an air sound almost identical to the original is better with regard to multipath.

I'm not talking about 'sound almost identical to the original'. I like my on-air sound fairly compressed, but the one that still has some dynamics and depth and that is not heavily clipped and distorted. I'll say it again, most of the dynamic range reduction you get is from levelling, compression and limiting. Excessive peak clipping will only give you a couple of dBs, but it will also severely distort and degrade your audio. If you want loudness, that's fine. Just don't justify it with the argument of better S/N ratio...

One of the stations I work for is a small college station with 300W ERP with antenna situated only on a 5-stories high building. This is in the city with lots of tall buildings and the city itself is on hilly terrain just beneath the large mountain. In short - very multipath prone area, especially for a transmitter located so low. Now, I'd be the first one that would be extremely happy if heavy processing would help multipath. The truth is it does not I've tried many different processors and I've tried setting them up for very heavy processed and compressed sound, lots of L/R clipping and lots of composite clipping. The difference in multipath problem and coverage was negligible... It doesn't help. If anything, composite clipping degrades the situation somewhat.


Regards,
Goran Tomas

 

[BofH]

100% agree with you there Goran. Here's an example of a station playing modern Pop/Dance. Most of the tracks are victims of "hypercompression" in mastering as well - a broadcasters nightmare and even more difficult to process.

http://switch.fm/128k.m3u

- larger than life sound
- multiband AGC and look-ahead limiting
- audio averages around -3 dBFS with peaks to 0 dBFS
- no processor clipping

Even for FM broadcast, I don't think clipping is truly necessary with the quality of modern AGC and limiting!

 

[BofH]

.

 

[ElCheapo]

By all means Goran - please address it. I'd love to hear your take on this.

Explain to us how running audio through an airchain that produces an air sound almost identical to the original is better with regard to multipath.

I'm not talking about 'sound almost identical to the original'. I like my on-air sound fairly compressed, but the one that still has some dynamics and depth and that is not heavily clipped and distorted. I'll say it again, most of the dynamic range reduction you get is from levelling, compression and limiting. Excessive peak clipping will only give you a couple of dBs, but it will also severely distort and degrade your audio. If you want loudness, that's fine. Just don't justify it with the argument of better S/N ratio...

One of the stations I work for is a small college station with 300W ERP with antenna situated only on a 5-stories high building. This is in the city with lots of tall buildings and the city itself is on hilly terrain just beneath the large mountain. In short - very multipath prone area, especially for a transmitter located so low. Now, I'd be the first one that would be extremely happy if heavy processing would help multipath. The truth is it does not I've tried many different processors and I've tried setting them up for very heavy processed and compressed sound, lots of L/R clipping and lots of composite clipping. The difference in multipath problem and coverage was negligible... It doesn't help. If anything, composite clipping degrades the situation somewhat.

Who in this discussion has said anything about composite clipping? For that matter, who has said anything about using "excessive peak limiting?"

The argument here is that someone has a station that uses "1/4 of the processing most stations employ" and it supposedly sounds better than anything else on the dial anywhere. It was suggested that limited dynamic range is the reason people are leaving radio and turning to other forms of entertainment. The argument is that if radio started processing to pass the source material much truer to its original form, we would not be losing listeners.

My argument is that good processing which alters the dynamic range and apparent width of the source material and makes it appear more exciting is one of the weapons radio has in its arsenal and can use to stem the tide. In fact, this was my first contribution once the discussion turned anti-processing...

If that's true, why do the most heavily processed stations win so frequently?

Personally, I don't think ultimate loudness is the reason - especially in the era of pushbutton digital tuning - but I do believe having an exciting sound that appears larger than life does contribute to the success of a station - and that's what spatial expanders are all about. These days, that's one of the ways you can set yourself apart from XM and iPods.

Nowhere in this discussion have I said to crank it to 11 with a composite clipper - though I do believe you can get very good results with a well designed composite clipper like Clear Channel's proprietary unit. Properly designed and implemented clippers and limiters can help make a station very loud without objectionable distortion when used judiciously.

 

[phr8trayn]

Nowhere in this discussion have I said to crank it to 11 with a composite clipper - though I do believe you can get very good results with a well designed composite clipper like Clear Channel's proprietary unit. Properly designed and implemented clippers and limiters can help make a station very loud without objectionable distortion when used judiciously.
[/quote]

Ahhhhh.....Mike Gideon's baby. Unobtainable unless you be CC. Too bad.....good box.

 

[mr_elbows]

I'm not talking about 'sound almost identical to the original'. I like my on-air sound fairly compressed, but the one that still has some dynamics and depth and that is not heavily clipped and distorted. I'll say it again, most of the dynamic range reduction you get is from levelling, compression and limiting. Excessive peak clipping will only give you a couple of dBs, but it will also severely distort and degrade your audio. If you want loudness, that's fine. Just don't justify it with the argument of better S/N ratio...


Regards,
Goran Tomas


well said, Goran

VERY well said

 

[taylorengineer]

The station with 1/4 the processing is an AM station. And a whole lot of work goes into makin' an AM station sound breathtaking!!
On an AM station, high density is desirable. Many folks are running positive peaks in excess of 125% (although the net effects of this practice are questionable.) Your coverage is absolutely improved as modulation density is increased.
But making an AM sound good demands a modern, well engineered plant, from the mic to the antenna. There are many variables which make AM facilities sound the way they do.
Sounds like this guy is doin' it all the way your supposed to....my hat is always off to a well engineered facility!

 

[littlejohn]

Goran Thomas sez "If anything, composite clipping degrades the situation somewhat. "

Yeh. Anything which increases the 38KHz level - and in particular its time alignment with the L+R signal - is going to exacerbate multipath. Stereo synthesizers being the worst offenders, because most of them try to shift the L-R in the time domain. We used to refer to the 38KHz gain control on the stereo generator as the "Multipath Control".

 

[ElCheapo]

The station with 1/4 the processing is an AM station.

Are you sure about that? We're talking about one of J Boyd's stations here. His 50 kW station is an FM. His AM is a class D with 730 watts day and 91 at night.

 

[taylorengineer]

My mistake....thought he had a 50 Kw AM!!