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AM-10HD / Aug 2008
F E A T U R E S A N D P R E S E T S
Achieving Your Special On-Air Sound
First a Few Words About Our Factory Presets
Factory presets are great starting points for many applications, but we’ll be the
first to admit that they may not be appropriate for every situation. Why?
Here’s a simple math problem to illustrate:
A x B x C x D = NPFP (Number of Perfect Factory Presets)
Where:
A = the number of different program formats
B = the number of different sounding markets
C = the number of opinions about the station’s sound
D = the number of adjustments that your competitors will make once you
install your new processor*
* also known as “moving target syndrome”
The product of A*B*C*D represents the number of presets that an audio
processor manufacturer would need to provide in order to perfectly match every
possible programming / market / opinion / competitive requirement. As you must
imagine, this is not a trivial number!
What we do at Wheatstone to help mitigate this is spend a
lot
of time (liter‑
ally thousands of hours) carefully crafting factory presets that will get you closer
to your desired on air sound quicker than if you had to build them from scratch.
We do our best to provide a lot of good starting points in our factory presets,
and we’re always learning, which is why you’ll periodically see new AM‑10HD
presets offered for download on our website.
What Sound Are You Trying to Achieve?
There are four basic goals that most people want to achieve when they install
a new audio processor:
1. They want to be louder than another station;
2. They want to be cleaner than another station;
3. They want to have better bass than another station;
4. They want a cleaner and more open high end than
another station.
The truth is, only if you’re replacing an old audio processor
that’s on its last legs or, stranger yet, still contains 6386 vari‑
able mµ triodes in its signal path, will you be getting all of the
above benefits in large quantities by buying a new processor.
6386 Variable mµ Triode
