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Audacy audio

101tm

101tm

Is it just me, or does WYRD-FM’s HD audio sound like absolute garbage now? They turned the stereo pilot back on a few weeks ago (no idea why) and now it’s over modulated sounding about half of the time on the HD.

WYRD-HD2 (WSPA-FM simulcast) sounds like utter garbage. Sounds like it’s about 32kbps with all of the bass removed and the treble cranked all the way up. The WSPA-FM simulcast on WFBC-HD4 sounds like crap - similar audio issues as 98.9-2 but it’s like it’s coming and going in a wave the bitrate is so low. Per FCCInfo there are no translators currently rebroadcasting WFBC-HD4 - the only translators being fed by WFBC are 96.3. 104.5, 107.7, (HD2 simulcast)and 97.7 (HD3 simulcast) Summit’s HD channels sound great so it’s obviously something that can be resolved
 
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101tm said:
Is it just me, or does WYRD-FM’s HD audio sound like absolute garbage now? They turned the stereo pilot back on a few weeks ago (no idea why) and now it’s over modulated sounding about half of the time on the HD.
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There is more to this than what you state. But first, this is a local station issue, not an Audacy issue... local engineers do the day to day work.

But "overmodulation" is an arbitrary thing on FM. 100% modulation has a US standard of +/- 75 kHz. But it could be 100 kHz or 50 kHz. In AM, overmodulation causes the carrier signal to be suppressed, and that is when horrible distortion occurs. In FM, the limit is more like the bandwidth of consumer radios. In one market I worked in, Santo Domingo, we decided that 130% was the ideal modulation point where were were as loud as everyone else, but did not introduce distortion on even the cheapest radios.
101tm said:
WYRD-HD2 (WSPA-FM simulcast) sounds like utter garbage. Sounds like it’s about 32kbps with all of the bass removed and the treble cranked all the way up. The WSPA-FM simulcast on WFBC-HD4 sounds like crap - similar audio issues as 98.9-2 but it’s like it’s coming and going in a wave the bitrate is so low. Per FCCInfo there are no translators currently rebroadcasting WFBC-HD4 - the only translators being fed by WFBC are 96.3. 104.5, 107.7, (HD2 simulcast)and 97.7 (HD3 simulcast) Summit’s HD channels sound great so it’s obviously something that can be resolved
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Have you written to the manager of the cluster to, politely, say that the audio is driving listeners away in your opinion?
 
All the Aduacy stations in the GSP market analog sound like crap and now the HDs do as well I think there engineer doesn't know or care about audio processing and the bitrate on the HD.
 
DavidEduardo said:
There is more to this than what you state. But first, this is a local station issue, not an Audacy issue... local engineers do the day to day work.

But "overmodulation" is an arbitrary thing on FM. 100% modulation has a US standard of +/- 75 kHz. But it could be 100 kHz or 50 kHz. In AM, overmodulation causes the carrier signal to be suppressed, and that is when horrible distortion occurs. In FM, the limit is more like the bandwidth of consumer radios. In one market I worked in, Santo Domingo, we decided that 130% was the ideal modulation point where were were as loud as everyone else, but did not introduce distortion on even the cheapest radios.

Have you written to the manager of the cluster to, politely, say that the audio is driving listeners away in your opinion?
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When I said "Audacy" I was referring to the local Audacy cluster. I'm not sure if they still employ a full time engineer on a local level, but I did reach out to them as I have in the past regarding engineering feedback or questions. Engineers used to be pretty interesting to talk with and responsive but I'm not sure if many clusters, at least in smaller markets still have a staff engineer sitting around all the time.

What I'm referring to as "overmodulation" may be better described as "clipping" - a quick stop during Mark Levin's show several times, when the guy starts getting loud, there's obvious distortion that gets very harsh. It's not enough to run a dedicated listener off, but I'm curious to how it got this way. This just started when the stereo carrier was turned back on a couple of weeks ago, and on the HD signal. I'm not sure how, if at all, the HD signal is processed differently than the analog. I've read a lot of people say HD doesn't sound any better than analog - maybe it's my radios, but there's a very noticable "dynamic" effect once the HD signal kicks in that the analog doesn't have on almost every HD station I've ever listened to.

The HD1's for WROQ and to an extent WFBC sound great. WGTK-HD1 for a talk station sounds very good also, very clean. All of iHeart's HD's sound absolutely amazing, I was listening to WMYI the other night and whoever configures their processing did an AMAZING job!
 
Their one guy who really knew what was going on passed away a bit ago. Relatively young, too, by "old engineers" standards. I'm betting they didn't replace him.

Also, although they have a local engineer last I heard, I'm going to guess they fall under an umbrella where someone in Charlotte or Atlanta is the real head of the engineering department.
 
WYRD-FM/HD/HD2 are back in mono as of today after about a month. The sound is cleaner for sure with all of the talk programming, the clipping still happens from time to time but it seems like they’re doing doing some stuff with it so perhaps it will be resolved soon.
 
101tm said:
WYRD-FM/HD/HD2 are back in mono as of today after about a month. The sound is cleaner for sure with all of the talk programming, the clipping still happens from time to time but it seems like they’re doing doing some stuff with it so perhaps it will be resolved soon.
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And I think the mono helps the signal coverage just a bit further.
 
I think iHeart does a good job with audio processing. The sound quality on 96.1 from Charlotte always sound very good, and I think 102.5 and WSSL-100 sound good.
 
iHeart’s Asheville stations sound great too. The analog and HD signals for GSP sound great.

98.9 was advertising a “crystal clear” signal from Rock Hill to somewhere in GA which I’m pretty sure is a stretch. 98.9 is receivable in Rock Hill, but it’s not exactly crystal clear all over town. I prefer talk stations in mono because it helps clear out the little static “flicks” and interference that can be heard with a lot of the pauses during the talking within the 60dbu a bit further. It definitely helps the 97.7 and 97.1 translators.
 
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