Orban OPTIMOD-FM 8700, Operating Manual

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3-54
OPERATION ORBAN MODEL 8700i
This control’s range is
±
6 dB relative to an arbitrary 0 dB setting that provides a
competitively loud sound without objectionable distortion on most program materi-
al. Settings above 0 dB are likely to produce objectionable distortion with some pro-
gram material, while settings below 0 dB trade off lower loudness for a cleaner
sound.
Bass PreLimit Mode allows you to operate the bass pre-limiter in
M
EDIUM
mode,
which produces some low-order harmonic distortion below 100 Hz,
S
OFT
mode,
which produces essentially no harmonic distortion but may reduce bass punch com-
pared to
M
EDIUM
mode, or
H
ARD
mode, which produces the most distortion but also
the most punch. The modes are very similar to the
S
OFT
and
M
EDIUM
bass clipper
modes in the 8500-style presets. See
B
ASS
C
LIP
M
ODE
on page 3-48.
Bass Clip Threshold sets the threshold of the bass clipper with respect to 100%
modulation, which corresponds to 0 dB. Starting with v1.1.0 software, it works in
S
OFT
and M
EDIUM
bass clipper modes in addition to H
ARD
mode. See B
ASS
C
LIP
M
ODE
in page 3-48 for more detail.
Bass PreLimiting The MX bass pre-limiter can intelligently reduce the bass applied to
the main peak limiter to reduce or prevent audible IM distortion. It does so when
the pre-limiter’s analysis of the program material indicates that this action is needed
to prevent or minimize audible IM distortion between the bass (125 Hz and below)
and other program elements in the main peak limiter. The
B
ASS
P
RE
L
IMITING
control
allows you to specify the maximum amount of bass reduction that can occur. Lower
settings increase bass punch but do not protect against IM distortion as effectively as
higher settings do.
There are two controls, one for Speech mode and one for Music mode, allowing you
to have separate settings depending on whether the 8700i automatically detects
speech or music input.
Bass Limiting Like the bass pre-limiter, the main peak limiter can automatically re-
duce bass when it detects potentially audible IM distortion. The
B
ASS
L
IMITING
control
allows you to limit the amount of potential bass reduction at the expense of a pos-
sible increase in IM distortion.
Distortion Control This control determines the amount of audible distortion that the
main peak limiter is permitted to create. Higher settings can increase loudness and
punch at the expense of audible clipping distortion. Lower settings are cleaner but
may reduce punch and loudness. We prefer it at
0, which is its cleanest setting. All
MX factory presets use this setting.
The best way to familiarize yourself with the effects of this control is by listening ex-
tensively to different types of program material within your station’s format while
experimenting with different settings of the control. Because the MX peak limiter
uses newly developed algorithms that differ from those used by past Orban proces-
sors, the loudness/distortion/brightness/punch tradeoffs are also different and it is
worthwhile to take the time to get a feel for the MX limiter’s capabilities.
Multiband Clipping This control is included to make it easier to transform existing
8500 user presets into MX presets. Like the
MB C
LIPPING
control in the 8500-style pre-
sets, this control simultaneously and equally changes the thresholds of all the multi-