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Processors, Processors, and Processors

Mostly Intel.
il_570xN.2380700464_tigh.jpg
 
Back in the late 70s when I worked for (then) KIOC-FM (K106) we installed an Optimod 8000A....
The boss wanted to "keep it a secret".....so he covered up the Orban nameplate with a cardboard cutout:
"WHATCHMACALLIT III"!!!! If a competitor came in, he/she "won't know what we've got!!"
FWIW.....our station DID have what I felt to be the brightest, cleanest audio of any FM in the Triangle (Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange, TX)....We were running the Drake-Chenault Contempo 300 format, using an SMC DP-2 automation system.
 
In earlier decades some engineers simply kept all processors on display in the rack, turned on and driven by a distribution amplifier from the program line. With all the meters moving and lights flashing in time, no telling what was actually on the air.
 
Not sure... I can say that whoever is processing wish 99.7 has it cranked up waaaay too much - lots of distortion on their signal. Perhaps trying to make up for the reach that DVE & 3WS have. Not sure.

Most of the big guys are probably using digital units. No more analog Orban Optimods lol. A shame, as some of those can sound really fantastic, especially on AM. I've gotten to play with a few on-air and they're real versatile little units.
 
Greg Strickland said:
In earlier decades some engineers simply kept all processors on display in the rack, turned on and driven by a distribution amplifier from the program line. With all the meters moving and lights flashing in time, no telling what was actually on the air.
Click to expand...
And I have mentioned before that at one Top 40 station I built an "audio processor" which had lots of lights and about a dozen controls for High, Low, Mid Band, Presence, Warmth, and others. None of the controls were connected to anything, and the real processors were elsewhere. But the jocks, invariably, would change the settings before each shift and they swore they sounded "better" that way!

Shades of "Spinal Tap!".
 
AMRadioGuy said:
Not sure... I can say that whoever is processing wish 99.7 has it cranked up waaaay too much - lots of distortion on their signal. Perhaps trying to make up for the reach that DVE & 3WS have. Not sure.

Most of the big guys are probably using digital units. No more analog Orban Optimods lol. A shame, as some of those can sound really fantastic, especially on AM. I've gotten to play with a few on-air and they're real versatile little units.
Click to expand...
Yeah very true. The station is all highs and has no life to it.
 
You cannot create more reach on FM with more modulation. It works on AM to drive the antenna current up, but on FM, it just increases bandwidth, which some radios can't handle well. Loudness is all about the psychological effect of being louder, which means being more powerful to the uninformed consumer, and therefore, the more powerful would be somehow better to the uninformed. It's a lie. A trick. like speeding up records to make the competing stations' music sound like it's dragging and create more time for spots.
 
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