The BEST audio processing on a station.

[cc333]

I was listening to the ScratchMoney SDR down near Lafayette, LA awhile back, and I was dismayed to find that KVOL, which previously had a rather nice, open sound with a good frequency response all the way to 10 kHz, has now become more typical of modern stations by applying a brickwall high pass filter on their signal, reducing it down to 6 kHz, and in so doing, making it sound less good, which is disappointing as it sounded impressively good for an AM station, I thought (that the ScratchMoney SDR has a 20 kHz bandwidth helped considerably).

The processing is still otherwise fair, though.

I sometimes wonder what people would think of the quality of my Part 15 jukebox station. I've tried to make it as best as I can to make it sound good, and I think I've more or less succeeded, but given that I have an audience of one (myself), it's hard to be objective about it.

c

 

[Oldie919]

For AM, the Schlockwood SW-200 LPAM processor does a really nice job....
It was designed by Jim Woods, founder of Inovonics....
A fraction of the cost of a comparable Inovonics branded unit!!

 

[Kelly A]

I was listening to the ScratchMoney SDR down near Lafayette, LA awhile back, and I was dismayed to find that KVOL, which previously had a rather nice, open sound with a good frequency response all the way to 10 kHz, has now become more typical of modern stations by applying a brickwall high pass filter on their signal, reducing it down to 6 kHz, and in so doing, making it sound less good, which is disappointing as it sounded impressively good for an AM station, I thought (that the ScratchMoney SDR has a 20 kHz bandwidth helped considerably).

That would be a low-pass filter.

The processing is still otherwise fair, though.

I sometimes wonder what people would think of the quality of my Part 15 jukebox station. I've tried to make it as best as I can to make it sound good, and I think I've more or less succeeded, but given that I have an audience of one (myself), it's hard to be objective about it.

Nobody will ever know. That, and only radio nerds listen for audio processing.

 

[Kelly A]

thats how i feel about the BBC World Service announcers/anchors on the satellite feed.. they sound like they're in my studio in BFE Alaska and not actually in London!

It's funny, a few years ago when the BBC was being moved from their original 'Broadcast House' home to the new building, switching over from having board ops, IP audio tech, and all new studios. Staff who were faced with having to run their mixer to old crusty engineers and radio nerds were all claiming that this would surely spell the end of quality for BBC broadcasts. They're not saying that anymore.

 

[cc333]

That would be a low-pass filter.

Oops, right. Of course!

Nobody will ever know. That, and only radio nerds listen for audio processing.

Right again!

For AM, the Schlockwood SW-200 LPAM processor does a really nice job....
It was designed by Jim Woods, founder of Inovonics....
A fraction of the cost of a comparable Inovonics branded unit!!

Hmm, I had forgotten about that. I have been using Stereo Tool, and it works OK for my needs.

c

 

[Greg Strickland]

Back in the late 70s or early 80s, WAXY in Ft Lauderdale sounded better than any station had a right to. Does anyone know what they had in their air chain?

bigdonho-

Because it has been so long and is history, I hope no one will mind if I opine and speculate.

WAXY engineers were pros, and they had RKO resources. The studios were amazing.

Someone may have told me that WAXY was using Optimod 8100, which according to Orban website timeline, was introduced in 1980. If PR&E Mulitmax was available at the time, it could have been in front of the 8100.

There could have been a plug in "aftermarket" card in the Optimod, or Texars in front, (if they were available at the time).
I doubt it, because WAXY/RKO culture seemed to be PR&E, and odds are the Multimax and 8100 would have done the trick, along with Tomcat Max-Trax.

An audio processing person might say WAXY was playing to the cheap seats. However they did it with RKO money, excellent engineering and top notch equipment. Meanwhile across the street...

bigdonho, audio processing aside, what you were probably hearing and noticing on WAXY were PR&E Tomcat cart machines operating in matrix mode. If this speculation by me is correct, this meant the station audio was rock solid in-phase in mono, which was significant considering the meat and potatoes of the format was oldies. The trade-off was mono compatibility vs stereo separation. WAXY stereo separation on carted material would have been compromised in order to prioritize mono compatibility.

Anyone could buy Tomcats, a station I worked for in another market had them.
Someone might have run them at 15 ips (which Tomcat could do). This put more audio on more tape real estate.
Doing this required making arrangements to auto-switch the playback decks to 7 1/2 ips for long songs that could not fit on a cart at 15 ips.

In addition, PR&E Tomcat had Max-Trax, which was their trade name for a tape track format that was not compatible with other cart machines. As I recall Max-Trax is two audio tracks and a much smaller track for the cue audio. Again, this was about putting more audio on more tape real estate.

If you want the "track width blues", imagine recording music on a 24 track 2 inch machine.

Finally- RKO may have had better sourcing of music audio, compared to other stations. WAXY could have dubbed from a carefully curated music library, in terms of audio, and version/mix/pressing "authenticity" in the judgement of programmers. This makes a big difference.

In summary- I think you were hearing the result of excellent engineers, top quality equipment, and the full resources (financial, engineering and programming) of the owner.

 

[Kelly A]

WAXY engineers were pros, and they had RKO resources. The studios were amazing.

I was sent to check out WAXY after the company I worked for at the time purchased the remaining stations from the holding company in charge of liquidating what remained of RKO. Yes the studios were nice for the day with lots of windows.

Someone may have told me that WAXY was using Optimod 8100, which according to Orban website timeline, was introduced in 1980. If PR&E Mulitmax was available at the time, it could have been in front of the 8100.

From what I remember from a TX site tour, they just used an 8100 Optimod.

An audio processing person might say WAXY was playing to the cheap seats. However they did it with RKO money, excellent engineering and top notch equipment.

Can't recall the Chief's name, but they were very attentive to things like microphones and minimal audio paths. That, and their custom GMC motorhome used for remotes. He insisted on driving me around in the motorhome for some reason

bigdonho, audio processing aside, what you were probably hearing and noticing on WAXY were PR&E Tomcat cart machines operating in matrix mode. If this speculation by me is correct, this meant the station audio was rock solid in-phase in mono, which was significant considering the meat and potatoes of the format was oldies. The trade-off was mono compatibility vs stereo separation. WAXY stereo separation on carted material would have been compromised in order to prioritize mono compatibility.

Yes they were using Tomcat cart machines. Maintenance hogs not very forgiving if tasked with playing different cart brands from what the machines were set up with.