Cricket Radio Bay Area

[Ed]

The Reference Setting will always sound closest to the original, because it only adjusts the AGC (similar to Ots), so there it should only be used a starting point (reference).

"it should only be used a starting point" is a personal opinion. I use the reference setting like so many others do, power 50 speed 50 range 50 bass normal bass shape 0 and it sounds great. I find the "French Kiss" way too wet....but to each his own

[renovicini]

I guess I should have left well enough alone.
Back to reference setting for the time being.
Thanks for the input.

Btw, Yes, Ots DSP is turned off.

[milky]

"it should only be used a starting point" is a personal opinion. I use the reference setting like so many others do, power 50 speed 50 range 50 bass normal bass shape 0 and it sounds great. I find the "French Kiss" way too wet....but to each his own

Anything I write here is only a personal opinion (which we were asked to express).

I assume that you are listening in the comfort of your lounge room, and I agree that many of the presets over-process in that environment. However, BA1 is primarily designed for broadcast processing, where the name of the game is to sound louder than the opposition stations. This is a fine line to tread, because radio receivers take many forms, and the preset which sounds good in a good quality car or home audio system may sound awful in other radio configurations. As I said, my AM station is in rural Australia, where most listeners tune in on everything from mono tractor radios, old mantle systems and bedside clock radios, so "wet" is actually a good choice.

Obviously, any of the "stereo enhancement" presets are useless for AM, but our sister FM station and streaming service has settled on "Twente".

[milky]

I guess I should have left well enough alone.
Back to reference setting for the time being.

Don't give up hope. It is a time-consuming process, and there may never be a completely "right" option - especially if you are mixing genres in different sound hours. Most of the recently produced "pop" songs already have a lot of electronics going on. The preset which makes them jump out of the radio would probably not work with "Easy Listening" or earlier recordings.

The developer of BreakAway (Leif Claesson) has also developed the software for the Omnia 9 hardware which many stations use. It has so many options and controls, that a good sound engineer will take many hours tweaking to get just the right sound, and will revisit the settings from time to time to confirm that they are still at the leading edge.

"Hasten slowly".

[Ed]

The hardware/software products milk is referring to are very price hefty and are not needed, if you've got that kind of money to spend then great,  but most of us do not. The basic breakaway reference setting is much better than what comes with ots and find it a very good choice.

[renovicini]

I do appreciate all the feedback. But milky, you are right that I won't find that one preset being that we play all genres.
So I did do a couple changes.
It's at reference setting.
First, I up'd the bitrate to 256 aac from 128 (which may or may not make that much of a difference)
And I ticked on the stereo enhancer (its at 48).
I may change it to reference hot because I do want that little extra but we'll see.

[milky]

Increasing the bitrate will make a difference to listeners with high-end equipment, but do little for the average punters. It will, of course, dramatically increase your bandwidth and data usage, which may restrict the number of listeners who can login.

I am liking the new "Nebula" preset available with the latest release. Still got some comparisons to do in different environments, but it sounds clean and open with modern CM, and doesn't make old recordings sound "tinny".

[Tim Gainer]

Checking you out from Chicago...AC/DC into Migos is a bit of sonic whiplash for me personally! But overall, sounding really good; punchy and clear.

[renovicini]

Thanks for tuning in.
With the exception of 4 songs during an hour, the template generates complete random.

[renovicini]

i'm not able to modify my original posts to update.

we are no longer in trial mode with breakaway.
and now streaming 256 aac

still considering going 320 mp3.
hoping for some more feedback on that.

[Ed]

i'm not able to modify my original posts to update.

we are no longer in trial mode with breakaway.
and now streaming 256 aac

still considering going 320 mp3.
hoping for some more feedback on that.

I dare say anyone will be able to hear the difference from 256 aac to 320 mp3...

[milky]

AAC (really a wrapped version of MP4) is a much better lossy encoder than MP3, and BA1 is geared around optimising AAC, because that's what all the "big boys" use and it is built into the Optimod series (along with lossless PCM), which many, many stations use. Whereas MP3 loses audible frequencies, AAC compresses "disguised" audio, but augments the undisguised audio.

For instance, consider the Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture. The orchestra is still playing many instruments when the canons go off, but they are disguised or hidden from our ears by the louder passages, so AAC drops these disguised or inaudible instruments out to save space. Of course, with lossy codecs, you cannot re-constitute the dropped content (although Leif has a very nifty algorithm which very accurately guesses at the missing content).

You also need to consider your listener base. If you are doing "drive time" (6am to 10am or 4pm to 7pm - depending on traffic density), you can assume that your listeners are in vehicles with commercial (read "boring") audio devices, so you don't want to over-process the audio, because it will be lost through crappy receivers and crappy speakers. Similarly, if you are doing breakfast or even earlier in the morning, they are hearing you through clock or mantel radios whilst they listen in bed or prepare breakfast. Only the purists will sit and listen to streamed radio through good audio equipment and/or headphones. How much of your listener base is that? Personally, I can't listen to it for long, because of the fatigue brought on by mentally compensating for the "missing bits".

One more thing to throw into the mix is your ISP bandwidth. In the perfect world, you could stream PCM without any dropouts. However, the very delicate net cannot allow anyone to "hog" the system like that. You will have a maximum usage AND bandwidth agreement with your ISP (look in the fine print). If you find that AAC will fit inside your bandwidth allocation, you will probably find that MP3/320 will not.

BTW, what preset in BA1 are you using now?

[renovicini]

Thanks milky. And Ed.
I'll stick with the aac. I was using French kiss for a bit. But changed it back to reference yesterday when I updated ba1 and took it out of trial mode.
I have the bandwidth needed to go up to 320. But if aac is the way to go, what about 320 aac?

[milky]

But if aac is the way to go, what about 320 aac?

Read the above. If you (and your audience) are listening to your stream via a pocket transistor or bedside (mono) radio, you will not hear the difference, but the penalty will be a whole lot more data usage. If your listener base are lounge listeners, with theatre audio systems, maybe 20% with the best audio equipment MIGHT pick the difference.

[Ed]

What milky is saying in a lot less words is it's simply "overkill"

I can see however your point renovicini on maybe wanting your station to have the lastest and greatest technology going for it and that comes down to what makes you happy.