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Omnia 11 first impressions

W

WNTIRadio

Well, it's here and on the bench!! Equipment used is iTunes (.wav only) out through an Echo Layla 24/96 card into a Wheatstone SP-6. Main SP-6 outs to Ariane Sequel, Ariane AES to 11 in. 11 to a Bext PTX-80 running real low into a 50w dummy load. Monitoring is either a Belar FMM-2, Day Sequerra M2.0X, Inovonics 531 or a Denon TU-680 tuner. This is the preliminary version, for a client somewhere near the Jersey Shore (fist pump if you must).

Now that the picture is painted, I've been running some of the famous "torture test" songs through it. VERY clean and open high-end. Almost too much when you first listen to it. Dialed in the CG Smooth preset and went back and forth turning the wideband AGC on or off and the Ariane on or off. Still like anything with the Ariane better than without it. So with that settled, the Ariane stays on and the listening begins. Went through a bunch of presets just to get the flavor of each.

That Kelly Clarkson song, "Because of You": The shredding is minimal on her humming at the start. Way better than the 8500 that was being evaluated before. Would have liked to try the 8600, but the deal on the O-11 was just too good to pass up and the time frame was starting to crunch.

The other ones on the Orban list of "problem child" songs were very clean as well.

One trip up though, Fleetwood Mac's "Seven Wonders". Try this on your processing set up if you can. The synth on the beginning gets shredded with all sorts of nasty distortion, then Lindsey's guitar comes in high on top of it and it's not pretty. It's clean going in, I did a double check with the audio on the board just to make sure I wasn't losing my mind. Same thing happened on the 8500. Oddly, the one processor that passed it better than all the others (including ye olde 8100a) was Breakaway. The O-11 was more detailed and consistent than Breakaway in almost every other song, other than that intro. Which is what I expect with an $11k processor vs. a $299 piece of software...

That being said, this thing is CLEAN and effortless, no matter what I throw at it (except for Seven Wonders). I've only had it here for about 4 hours, sorry if this post is a bit rambling and disjointed. Kinda like the first ride in a new car right now, exciting and getting to know where all the buttons and knobs are and how the engine goes when you step on it.
 
Thanks very much! I hope to hear more from you on the 11. Pros/Cons, Good/Bad, please treat us to any observations you care to share.
 
No doubt Ariane is the king of AGC's, I have them in front of several brands of processors too! However, I was hoping the new "top boxes" would not require any external AGC's. I take it from your review the AGC in the 11 is very similar to the 6.

WNTIRadio said:
Well, it's here and on the bench!! Equipment used is iTunes (.wav only) out through an Echo Layla 24/96 card into a Wheatstone SP-6. Main SP-6 outs to Ariane Sequel, Ariane AES to 11 in. 11 to a Bext PTX-80 running real low into a 50w dummy load. Monitoring is either a Belar FMM-2, Day Sequerra M2.0X, Inovonics 531 or a Denon TU-680 tuner. This is the preliminary version, for a client somewhere near the Jersey Shore (fist pump if you must).

Now that the picture is painted, I've been running some of the famous "torture test" songs through it. VERY clean and open high-end. Almost too much when you first listen to it. Dialed in the CG Smooth preset and went back and forth turning the wideband AGC on or off and the Ariane on or off. Still like anything with the Ariane better than without it. So with that settled, the Ariane stays on and the listening begins. Went through a bunch of presets just to get the flavor of each.

That Kelly Clarkson song, "Because of You": The shredding is minimal on her humming at the start. Way better than the 8500 that was being evaluated before. Would have liked to try the 8600, but the deal on the O-11 was just too good to pass up and the time frame was starting to crunch.

The other ones on the Orban list of "problem child" songs were very clean as well.

One trip up though, Fleetwood Mac's "Seven Wonders". Try this on your processing set up if you can. The synth on the beginning gets shredded with all sorts of nasty distortion, then Lindsey's guitar comes in high on top of it and it's not pretty. It's clean going in, I did a double check with the audio on the board just to make sure I wasn't losing my mind. Same thing happened on the 8500. Oddly, the one processor that passed it better than all the others (including ye olde 8100a) was Breakaway. The O-11 was more detailed and consistent than Breakaway in almost every other song, other than that intro. Which is what I expect with an $11k processor vs. a $299 piece of software...

That being said, this thing is CLEAN and effortless, no matter what I throw at it (except for Seven Wonders). I've only had it here for about 4 hours, sorry if this post is a bit rambling and disjointed. Kinda like the first ride in a new car right now, exciting and getting to know where all the buttons and knobs are and how the engine goes when you step on it.
Click to expand...
 
Will be happy to work with you and get you dialed in the rest of the way, and to get your feedback directly!

Give a call!

216-241-7225

Thanks!

-Cornelius Gould

WNTIRadio said:
Well, it's here and on the bench!! Equipment used is iTunes (.wav only) out through an Echo Layla 24/96 card into a Wheatstone SP-6. Main SP-6 outs to Ariane Sequel, Ariane AES to 11 in. 11 to a Bext PTX-80 running real low into a 50w dummy load. Monitoring is either a Belar FMM-2, Day Sequerra M2.0X, Inovonics 531 or a Denon TU-680 tuner. This is the preliminary version, for a client somewhere near the Jersey Shore (fist pump if you must).

Now that the picture is painted, I've been running some of the famous "torture test" songs through it. VERY clean and open high-end. Almost too much when you first listen to it. Dialed in the CG Smooth preset and went back and forth turning the wideband AGC on or off and the Ariane on or off. Still like anything with the Ariane better than without it. So with that settled, the Ariane stays on and the listening begins. Went through a bunch of presets just to get the flavor of each.

That Kelly Clarkson song, "Because of You": The shredding is minimal on her humming at the start. Way better than the 8500 that was being evaluated before. Would have liked to try the 8600, but the deal on the O-11 was just too good to pass up and the time frame was starting to crunch.

The other ones on the Orban list of "problem child" songs were very clean as well.

One trip up though, Fleetwood Mac's "Seven Wonders". Try this on your processing set up if you can. The synth on the beginning gets shredded with all sorts of nasty distortion, then Lindsey's guitar comes in high on top of it and it's not pretty. It's clean going in, I did a double check with the audio on the board just to make sure I wasn't losing my mind. Same thing happened on the 8500. Oddly, the one processor that passed it better than all the others (including ye olde 8100a) was Breakaway. The O-11 was more detailed and consistent than Breakaway in almost every other song, other than that intro. Which is what I expect with an $11k processor vs. a $299 piece of software...

That being said, this thing is CLEAN and effortless, no matter what I throw at it (except for Seven Wonders). I've only had it here for about 4 hours, sorry if this post is a bit rambling and disjointed. Kinda like the first ride in a new car right now, exciting and getting to know where all the buttons and knobs are and how the engine goes when you step on it.
Click to expand...
 
@ wtni,

Thanks for a truthful post.increased latency and new DSP can make a huge improvement.Did you try the U2 With or without you"? Nice to see the Ariane doing it's job,it is the best AGC ever.Still amazing it's used to help these high price boxes do their job.New Breakaway software and the hardware box on the way.Gonna get interesting!!! $299.00, dam that's a steal.
 
Going to try U2 later, forgot about that one.

The AGC in the 11 can certainly hold its own, it's much improved from the 6EXi and features an adjustable "window" so it can sit and do nothing, like a single band Ariane. You could easily run it barefoot and make it play really well, I tried that out too. I guess it's more personal preference, and the fact that the Ariane is going to sit in front of the T1 on the way to the transmitter, so I have to make both boxes play nice. Which isn't hard with the Ariane, I've got it running with an IDR of 6 and the bands coupled by 6dB, so it can't skew too far from home.

One minor con is that the boot up takes about a minute. Run this thing on a big UPS to make sure it stays up if there are power glitches. I wouldn't run any processor not on a UPS, including ye olde 8100a, at any transmitter site. Especially one that is in this price range!

More later... off to fix an AM coil issue that's been bugging me for weeks, time to crawl around a phasor cabinet (with the station OFF, naturally).

I'll be calling Corny tomorrow to chat too!
 
WNTIRadio said:
Going to try U2 later, forgot about that one.

The AGC in the 11 can certainly hold its own, it's much improved from the 6EXi and features an adjustable "window" so it can sit and do nothing, like a single band Ariane. You could easily run it barefoot and make it play really well, I tried that out too. I guess it's more personal preference, and the fact that the Ariane is going to sit in front of the T1 on the way to the transmitter, so I have to make both boxes play nice. Which isn't hard with the Ariane, I've got it running with an IDR of 6 and the bands coupled by 6dB, so it can't skew too far from home.

One minor con is that the boot up takes about a minute. Run this thing on a big UPS to make sure it stays up if there are power glitches. I wouldn't run any processor not on a UPS, including ye olde 8100a, at any transmitter site. Especially one that is in this price range!

More later... off to fix an AM coil issue that's been bugging me for weeks, time to crawl around a phasor cabinet (with the station OFF, naturally).

I'll be calling Corny tomorrow to chat too!
Click to expand...

The bootup time will be reduced. It should be pointed out Omnia.11 is still running pre version 1.0 software. Part of the work slated for version 1.0 will be a reduction in bootup time.

Also, we gave "Seven Wonders" a serious listen here, and don't hear what was described prior. Looking forward to learning more about your situation.

Thanks for the feedback...

-Frank Foti
 
Anytime Frank!

I totally understand that this is "post beta testing but pre full blown release" version and that there will still be some things to work out like the boot time. But honestly, what really matters is what comes out of the speakers and that has been nothing short of amazing. I almost think, "hey, this isn't loud" and then tune off to another station to find out it's way louder, just about 5 times cleaner. So it doesn't "sound" as loud as what we're used to, which in reality, that "loud" is just distortion and smeary highs. Kind of the turn the boombox all the way up scenario, and it sounds "louder" than the big stereo because there's about 10% THD on it (or more). But it's really not louder at all.

Compared to others I've both used and auditioned, old and new, from most of the major players, it's like taking a pillow off the speakers.
 
WNTIRadio said:
So it doesn't "sound" as loud as what we're used to, which in reality, that "loud" is just distortion and smeary highs. Kind of the turn the boombox all the way up scenario, and it sounds "louder" than the big stereo because there's about 10% THD on it (or more). But it's really not louder at all.

Compared to others I've both used and auditioned, old and new, from most of the major players, it's like taking a pillow off the speakers.
Click to expand...

Look forward to getting your feedback tomorrow! In the last few lines of your post, you've been echoing what others have been telling us!

I've been collecting thoughts and feedback from as many of the early users as I can. It's been great collaborating with the end users!

-C
 
Another observation tonight:

Was messing around with various settings and thinking, "damn, I can't get the highs dialed in clean." Listening on the TU-680NAB tuner on the speakers and thought, well, let's switch to the Day Sequerra M2.0X and see. There was the problem! Even what I had usually thought to be a "very good" FM tuner came up short. The output from the Day Sequerra was noticeably cleaner and fuller. Duh. Should have thought about that before I drove myself crazy...
 
WNTIRadio said:
Another observation tonight:

Was messing around with various settings and thinking, "damn, I can't get the highs dialed in clean." Listening on the TU-680NAB tuner on the speakers and thought, well, let's switch to the Day Sequerra M2.0X and see. There was the problem! Even what I had usually thought to be a "very good" FM tuner came up short. The output from the Day Sequerra was noticeably cleaner and fuller. Duh. Should have thought about that before I drove myself crazy...
Click to expand...

You bring up a good point!

When working on CHR presets, I found that I have a few PLL synthesized radios where the AFC would start unlocking on the strong bass notes the Omnia.11 is able to reproduce. :eek:

Always double check your tuners!

Keep this in mind if you have older exciters / STL's with so-so AFC loops! :eek:

-C
 
cgould said:
WNTIRadio said:
Another observation tonight:

Was messing around with various settings and thinking, "damn, I can't get the highs dialed in clean." Listening on the TU-680NAB tuner on the speakers and thought, well, let's switch to the Day Sequerra M2.0X and see. There was the problem! Even what I had usually thought to be a "very good" FM tuner came up short. The output from the Day Sequerra was noticeably cleaner and fuller. Duh. Should have thought about that before I drove myself crazy...
Click to expand...

You bring up a good point!

When working on CHR presets, I found that I have a few PLL synthesized radios where the AFC would start unlocking on the strong bass notes the Omnia.11 is able to reproduce. :eek:

Always double check your tuners!

Keep this in mind if you have older exciters / STL's with so-so AFC loops! :eek:

-C
Click to expand...

I should point out that when the radios were unlocking, the audible effect was along the lines of what WNTI was saying. You KNOW the performance is there, but it didn't come across on that particular brand of radio. In my case, using a test transmitter and A/B'ing against the Omnia.6 with, say, a lady GaGa song with strong deep bass, produced no difference in the low end, even though I could CLEARLY see that the Omnia.11 had cleaner stronger lows on the scope. Switched to a different radio, and the difference was CLEARLY audible. The previous tuner was putting the distortion back in on the cleaner sounding 11 feed by way of the crappy PLL design.

On a typical GM / Ford, etc. factory car radio made in the last 7 years or so the difference is VERY noticable. On older car radios or cheap after market ones, your results may vary...so make sure you listen across a variety of radios when demo'ing any audio processor.

In fact, that is one of th age old rules of processing!

-C
 
As a suggestion...

When demoing a new processor, consider monitoring the MPX output through a known good sounding MPX demodulator. This offers the sonic performance of the box and stereo gen only. Get to know the beast in this setup, then insert it into the transmission path. If the path is transparent, there should be little or no difference in performance, if something changes (usually not in a good way) then there's a weak link somewhere in the path.

This method will help with getting the most out of the new processor experience, as well as a fair test to see how good the rest of the transmission chain is, once the processor is inserted.

-Frank Foti
 
Is the box finally finished or is the diversity delay not done?

I'm also curious as to what the front panel looks like since it seems to change everytime I see a new ad :D

I've heard an 8600 and it does sound good... and it was finished. The AirAura sounded very good for the day I got to play with it and it easily beat the 8500 on hand. The wideband AGC in the AirAura was very transparent. The AGC in the 8600 was also improved and it looks like Ariane is still needed for Omnia. :(

I'd love to get an 11 to dispell that theroy BTW :)
 
I wouldn't say the Ariane is necessary for the 11. I'm using it because the final install is going to have the Ariane in front of a Harris Intraplex, so the goal is to make both boxes play nice together. The AGC in the 11 can easily hold its own, and has a windowing feature like the Ariane. I found it to be very unobtrusive, and wouldn't hesitate to use it on its own. But, and this is just my personal preference here, I like the level of control I have with the Ariane. Nice to have, yes. Necessary, no.
 
BabyDJ said:
Is the box finally finished or is the diversity delay not done?

I'm also curious as to what the front panel looks like since it seems to change everytime I see a new ad :D

I've heard an 8600 and it does sound good... and it was finished. The AirAura sounded very good for the day I got to play with it and it easily beat the 8500 on hand. The wideband AGC in the AirAura was very transparent. The AGC in the 8600 was also improved and it looks like Ariane is still needed for Omnia. :(

I'd love to get an 11 to dispell that theroy BTW :)
Click to expand...

Omnia.11 does have diversity-delay. Units are installed with it now. Version: 1.0 software is in the process of being completed and all in-field units will be updated. Already, Omnia.11 has been selected by many customers over all others, even with pre-version 1.0 software.

The important aspect is the sonic performance. I'm not aware of any processing purchase made due to utility functions being more important as compared to what the listeners hear.

BTW: No one has made any claims of needing a front-end pre-processor with Omnia.11. I'm sure once you demo a unit, your myth will be dispelled. Actually, the prior post from WNTI supports this notion now.

I'm guessing you're referring to the look of the GUI, as the front panel has not changed since inception. We have various skins for the GUI and some of those have been used in prior ads. This furthers the flexibility of the product's adaptation.

-Frank Foti
 
cgould said:
WNTIRadio said:
Another observation tonight:

Was messing around with various settings and thinking, "damn, I can't get the highs dialed in clean." Listening on the TU-680NAB tuner on the speakers and thought, well, let's switch to the Day Sequerra M2.0X and see. There was the problem! Even what I had usually thought to be a "very good" FM tuner came up short. The output from the Day Sequerra was noticeably cleaner and fuller. Duh. Should have thought about that before I drove myself crazy...
Click to expand...

You bring up a good point!

When working on CHR presets, I found that I have a few PLL synthesized radios where the AFC would start unlocking on the strong bass notes the Omnia.11 is able to reproduce. :eek:

Always double check your tuners!

Keep this in mind if you have older exciters / STL's with so-so AFC loops! :eek:

-C
Click to expand...

My studio monitor unlocks sometimes on Hard Bass from my Optimod 8300.
 
FFoti1 said:
The important aspect is the sonic performance. I'm not aware of any processing purchase made due to utility functions being more important as compared to what the listeners hear.
Click to expand...

I was just surprised the box would get out in so many hands without things being finished

FFoti1 said:
I'm guessing you're referring to the look of the GUI, as the front panel has not changed since inception. We have various skins for the GUI and some of those have been used in prior ads. This furthers the flexibility of the product's adaptation.
Click to expand...

I just saw the new BSW catalog and the GUI's are totally different looking.

http://www.bswusa.com//product_popu.../assets/product_images/large/omni_omnia11.jpg

http://www.savediffusion.fr/local/cache-vignettes/L500xH285/arton2807-1b575.png

This doesn't look like different skins. It looks like a totally different approach.
 
BabyDJ said:
FFoti1 said:
The important aspect is the sonic performance. I'm not aware of any processing purchase made due to utility functions being more important as compared to what the listeners hear.
Click to expand...

I was just surprised the box would get out in so many hands without things being finished

FFoti1 said:
I'm guessing you're referring to the look of the GUI, as the front panel has not changed since inception. We have various skins for the GUI and some of those have been used in prior ads. This furthers the flexibility of the product's adaptation.
Click to expand...

I just saw the new BSW catalog and the GUI's are totally different looking.

http://www.bswusa.com//product_popu.../assets/product_images/large/omni_omnia11.jpg

http://www.savediffusion.fr/local/cache-vignettes/L500xH285/arton2807-1b575.png

This doesn't look like different skins. It looks like a totally different approach.
Click to expand...

The box is in very high demand. Customers begged us for it, even with version: 1.0 not complete. That alone says something about how it sounds.

Different skins/approach, it's all the same. The system is extremely flexible, and can take on numerous looks.

-Frank Foti
 
BabyDJ said:
FFoti1 said:
The important aspect is the sonic performance. I'm not aware of any processing purchase made due to utility functions being more important as compared to what the listeners hear.
Click to expand...

I was just surprised the box would get out in so many hands without things being finished

FFoti1 said:
I'm guessing you're referring to the look of the GUI, as the front panel has not changed since inception. We have various skins for the GUI and some of those have been used in prior ads. This furthers the flexibility of the product's adaptation.
Click to expand...

I just saw the new BSW catalog and the GUI's are totally different looking.

http://www.bswusa.com//product_popu.../assets/product_images/large/omni_omnia11.jpg

http://www.savediffusion.fr/local/cache-vignettes/L500xH285/arton2807-1b575.png

This doesn't look like different skins. It looks like a totally different approach.
Click to expand...

There's a lot going on behind the scenes, and what Frank is referring to is some of the new thinking going on from the team. A new way of thinking about GUI's and Audio Processing configurations. There's a BUNCH of further developments and flexibilities in the works for Omnia.11 - even beyond what we've publicly promised!

Stay tuned!

-C
 
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