87.7 Bradford

[ehsanspicedigital]

hello hello lads. Hope you’re all doing well. Running 87.7 from bradford right now. only a few days to go before we go off-air. I wanted to ask if anyone is able to evaluate the audio quality in terms of how the audio sounds going out on air? Anyone able to catch 87.7? Thanks

[Frequent Lee]

What equipment is being used for the audio processing that feeds the transmitter? Is the transmitter a Broadcast Warehouse BW50 all in one unit like Kalloo uses?

[ehsanspicedigital]

on the FM Side we got an IDT FM Soundstyle going into a TX-FM1. That’s what you’re hearing on the output. Old processor but very nice sound. I’ve got a Optimod in the other rack for DAB… Got a pic of the FM Side attached. Also Kaloo has got a Omnia 3 on his FM Output i’m sure…

[teckniqs]

What's this for, Ramadam Radio?

[ehsanspicedigital]

apart from Ramadan we have a lot of other RSL’s going from here. Having a full time station pakistan we spent the money once and made a good setup.

[jvok]

How much of that is actually in use at once? I'm seeing 2 processors + 2 standalone compressor/limiters (one turned off)

Is the Nexia for phone-ins?

[ehsanspicedigital]

Believe it or not all of the equipment that is turned on is in use. The IDT for the FM TX, the DSPX FM for audio going into the other studio, The ALTO Unit acting as a limiter, and the Behringer is there to limit the audio output from the desk going to our Shout Cast stream.

The Nexia was a little project of mine... I needed a cheap 1RU enclosure to put a RDS Encoder in for temporary use, I saw this Nexia on eBay for £5 and there was a problem with the unit, I pulled out the rest of the things in there and used its power supply and put a RDS Encoder in there, Soldered wires to the daughterboard for the LED's and it was my kind of DIY take at making them AliExpress RDS Encoders rackmount! It worked perfectly and is not in use at the moment.

The Delay system is no where near the studio but I've got a remote panel wired up to allow for the presenter to dump the last 10 seconds from the buttons.

We're actually using dual Sonifex HY-03 as they're simple and easy to use, Looking at a Comrex though...

Even though it may look overkill, when you consider that the audio from one studio is being fed to many different destinations, it still might kind of be overkill but works for me and has good sound quality ON-AIR. IMO these older style analogue processors have superior sound!

[Frequent Lee]

All good kit except throw the bw dspx FM in the bin, they're mushy over processed rubbish, Albert will back me up on that one

In the audio processing domain, LESS IS MORE!

[Albert H]

Lee's right - the DSPX is HORRIBLE!

[ehsanspicedigital]

what would you recommend to replace the DSPX with??

[Albert H]

My favourite (for all sorts of reasons) is the Inovonics "David". The last all-analogue version (Version III) is one of the best sounding processor / stereo coders available. It was designed as a one-box solution to replace the expensive combination of Gentner Prism, Orban Optimod and Bext coder that was used all over the USA.

The Prism is a good compressor / limiter, but it's very easy to set it up to sound really bad! The orban Optimod just adds lots of distortion - I always hated clippers, and Orban's effort is just a boxful of frequency-selective clippers. The Bext coder was a good product, but the "David" achieved better separation with lower distortion. It was designed for ease of manufacture, and to eliminate - as far as possible - alignment. The use of PWM attenuators gave a wide control range, with vanishingly small distortion, and really precise channel-to-channel matching.