LA Radio: Gross broadcast limiting is out of hand

[turnstile]

Just read a post from iangomes about apparent level of commercials versus program material, and it brought up an issue Ive had for some time.

Several stations here in LA limit so hard that the broadcast is literally distorted. Main case is Star 98.7. I just cannot believe that the stations engineers allow this to go on. I mean the signal is soooo over modulated. It's unlistenable! I know they aren't they only ones, KROQ among others, but please.

I'm wondering if these stations are now broadcasting MP3's directly. If you think of the 'benefits' like playlist building, logging, instant catalog access, etc. I mean what is the bandwidth of FM anyways, 15Khz or so? [devils advocate]

Hmm. Lets add a compressed file format to the mix....

[Greg Curtis]

The only radio stations I listen to in here in L.A. are 88.1 (jazz and Latin), 89.3 (Public Radio), and some AM for traffic and wierdness (Coast to Coast afer 10pm is awesome, sometimes).

Pop FM stations are the toilet bowl of society; doubly so in L.A. No need to listen to that garbage, IMHO. Hello Ipod with lossless files!

But you are probably right. Wouldn't be surprising.

Does it sound worse than satellite radio? I can't stand the sound of XM or Sirius (MP3-only), and HD (Hybrid Digital) is also lossy with their proprietary 96kbs system.

Radio, and "free" music distribution, sound terrible these days....

Greg

/

[marchhare]

I have noticed this, especially Star 98. I could swear they play mp3's.
I can't listen to the radio any more, it sounds terrible.

[turnstile]

I just find it amazing that a station like Star which is worth 100's of millions of dollars (license that is) is fine with this. I mean it doesnt take an engineer to notice how bad it sounds. I think you can have a loud signal and have a good sounding station at the same time. One of the 'Smooth Jazz' stations here, KTWV, sounds leaps and bounds better then most everything else. I know the format is completely different but it goes to show that you can have some depth to your program.

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by Greg Curtis

The only radio stations I listen to in here in L.A. are 88.1 (jazz and Latin), 89.3 (Public Radio), and some AM for traffic and wierdness (Coast to Coast afer 10pm is awesome, sometimes).

Pop FM stations are the toilet bowl of society; doubly so in L.A. No need to listen to that garbage, IMHO. Hello Ipod with lossless files!

But you are probably right. Wouldn't be surprising.

Does it sound worse than satellite radio? I can't stand the sound of XM or Sirius (MP3-only), and HD (Hybrid Digital) is also lossy with their proprietary 96kbs system.

Radio, and "free" music distribution, sound terrible these days....

Greg

/

Ditto that except not the AM...

I've been driven onto the 'net for most of my music aside from KKJZ (88.1 in LA/LB or KJAZZ 88.1 FM | America's Jazz and Blues Station )...

I've been listening a lot to The 1920s Radio Network when I don't feel like putting together my own picks in my soon to be closed down subsciption service (Yahoo)... it's not restricted to the 20s -- but they, uh, don't break too much new music. They're a lot less lightweight than the swing channel on my local cable system, though, playing a grittier mix, all in all.

[turnstile]

Perhaps a group called the GLAA (Gross Limiting Aural Authority), who monitors the airwaves and hands out citations to those who abuse the music being transmitted through their towers. [laughs]

"...big brother IS listening."

[passenger]

coast to coast is great. though I usually listen in at 1:30 am my time.... My drive home.

[dick swifter]

Same thing in Philly! It makes me cringe listening to a classic rock track these days...Sad.

[biggator6]

if I recall.. yes, most radio stations ARE playing MP3s now.. and most of them are programmed from somewhere else (clear channel, infinity, cumulus) and the DJs just talk between the playlist (if they're even local.. not always the case)

[Jim Williams]

Studies were done in the 1960's to determine the "proper" amount of transmitter compression. It was alway a battle between coverage (100% modulation) and tolerence of the sound. A happy medium was found and used for 40 years. This is now out the window as the managers have found out that massive compression already processed on the CD's will not degrade further enough to loose audience, which is exactly what happend in the 60's. The masses have been "re-trained" to accept music with mass compression.

Still, I find the spanish stations compress their commercials more than anyone, apparently the culture accepts this as "exciting". The announcers always have a deep round big voice, that's part of the equation.

Then you have XM with mp-3 broadcasting, absolutly horrible sounding, especially talking as they sound like Cylons.

Jim Williams
Audio Upgrades

[Kris]

There's a sixties station here that puts some sort of ambience patch on their broadcasts. It's pretty horrible...

[Stitch333]

WAY too much really, REALLY bad reverb seems to be cropping up more and more as well...

[cubivore]

i've heard from people in my town that almost everyone except classical and public radio are broadcasting using mp3 servers, usually stocked by clearchannel and friends. if things are slammed and squashed it's probably the board ops fault for playing the damn thing too far in the red, or beyond. some people i've worked with don't understand the gain structure and instead of turning up the monitors, they blast the program fader to get it loud and jammin and destroy the broadcast signal in the process.

[PoorGlory]

I second that Philly is bad. 102.9 MGK, the classic rock station, is ridiculous. It's not distorted so much as it is jut far too f*cking loud. They play "Stairway to Heaven" and the acoustic intro is louder than the rock part at the end! The two big modern rock stations (WYSP and WMMR) are into distortion land. Absurd. I only listen to the radio when I'm driving a work vehicle with no CD player/aux input, so the sound systems in those are pretty bad to begin with....... but often I scan the stations and the program material is soo compressed and distorted, it takes me a minute to latch onto the riffs or the groove and figure out what song it is. Inexcusable.

And really.... what the F*CK is up with reverb on talk radio???!!!??? How can people listen to that shit?