Orban OPTIMOD-FM 8600Si, Operating Manual

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OPERATION ORBAN MODEL 8600Si
what more “automatic equalization” than is
CLASSICAL-2 BAND
. It can therefore re-
equalize older program material, but there is also more risk that it will cause colora-
tion that might offend the classical purist.
CLASSICAL-5B+AGC,
like its two-band counterpart, uses the AGC set for 2:1 compres-
sion ratio.
The five-band structure is not phase-linear, so the
CLASSICAL-5 BAND
preset is likely
to have slightly less audible transparency than the
CLASSICAL T
WO
-B
AND
structure.
Customizing the Settings
Each Two-Band Factory Preset has a
L
ESS
-M
ORE control (located in the Basic Modify
screen) that adjusts on-air loudness.
L
ESS
-M
ORE simultaneously adjusts all of the pro-
cessing controls to optimize the trade-offs between unwanted side effects as proc-
essing levels are decreased or increased.
If you wish, you may adjust the Modify parameters to your own taste. Always start
with
L
ESS
-M
ORE to get as close to your desired sound as possible. Then edit the Mod-
ify parameters using the Basic, Intermediate or Advanced Modify screen, and save
those edits to a User Preset.
The Two-Band Structure’s Setup Controls
The tables below show a summary of the Two-Band controls in the dynamics section.
These controls are available only from PC Remote.
AGC, Equalizer, Stereo Enhancer, and Clipper controls are common to
both Two-Band and Five-Band structures and are described in their own
sections earlier in Section 3.
Except as noted, these controls affect both the analog and HD processing
chains.
2B Drive control adjusts signal level going into the two-band compressor and there-
fore controls the density of output audio by determining the amount of gain reduc-
tion in the two-band compressor. The resulting sound texture can be open and
transparent, solid and dense, or somewhere in between. The range is –10 to 25 dB.
Regardless of the release time setting, we feel that the optimum amount of gain re-
duction in the two-band compressor for popular music and talk formats is 10-15 dB.
If less gain reduction is used, loudness can be lost. For classical formats, operating
with 0-10 dB of gain reduction (with the gain riding
AGC
set to
O
FF
) maintains a
sense of dynamic range while still controlling levels effectively. Because OPTIMOD-
FM’s density gently increases between 0 and 10 dB of compression, 10 dB of com-
pression sounds very natural, even on classical music.
2B Release
control determines how fast the two-band compressor releases (and
therefore how quickly loudness increases) when the level of the program material
decreases. This release time only applies when the Two-Band Compressor is not gat-
ed by the silence gate.