[BC] QUESTION FOR THE "MIND" MASSES

[Rich Wood]

------ At 03:03 AM 12/8/2005, Robert Orban wrote: -------

>Because the HD radio receiver has 5 dB more gain in the HD channel 
>than the FM analog channel, you can absolutely trash your FM analog 
>and still have the HD sound fine because of the dramatically smaller 
>amount of peak limiting necessary on the HD to get loudness parity 
>with FM analog during crossfades. No GM in his right mind is going 
>to insist on dramatically different loudness for the FM and HD 
>channels because inconsistent loudness is a known, proven consumer 
>irritant and will almost certainly lead to tune outs when the radio 
>starts to randomly blast at the listeners in weak signal areas.
>
>But you knew this already, didn't you?

Yes. That's why I don't believe there will be universal separate 
processing. As I discovered traveling around New England, only two 
stations appeared to be processing separately. In both cases the mode 
switching was obvious. The rest of the stations sounded virtually 
identical in both modes, clearly not taking advantage of the alleged 
superiority of the digital audio.

When I refer to loudness I'm including audio density. Those who 
processed separately and did it well sounded noticeably thinner in 
digital than analog. For formats other than Classical it's going to 
take a while to get used to "gently processed" audio. Knowing General 
Managers and Owners as I do I guarantee they'll perceive the thinner 
(more natural) sound as not as loud. The apparent loudness of "gently 
processed" digital is lower.

I agree with you in wanting clean processing. I just don't believe 
it'll happen. In popular music formats it almost doesn't matter. The 
CDs are already smashed and mashed before they get to us.

Rich


Rich Wood
Rich Wood Multimedia
Phone: 413-303-9084
FAX: 413-480-0010