Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
[quote author=”JesseG”][quote author=”yorkie98″]Hi JesseG, loving this, its nice and open but also crisp and punchy. I would love to hear how it copes with sudden dynamic changes such as those in Bjork’s "It’s Oh So Quiet" or Michael Buble’s "All of Me".
Yorkie.[/quote]
Maybe this answers your question better than I can 🙂
so quiet – Passive Aggressor.mp3[/quote]WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW!!! that’s the best dynamic handling of that song I’ve ever heard, this one normally plays havoc with the AGC and you can usually hear very sudden downward gain riding when the loud passages kick in but this one seems to bring the quiet passages up without squashing the loud ones.
The transistion from loud passage to quiet is seamless, you literally can’t hear the gain riding. Bad effects stand out a mile on this track as it’s inherently noisy, there is a background humming and analog tape hiss (always has been). These are not drasticly exaggerated by this preset either which has been a big problem in the past.This one gets a big thumbs up from me, I hope it’s included in time for the next stable retail version.
Yorkie.
[quote author=”Dennisk”]Leif,
Which soundcard do you prefer? The Esi Juli@ or the Marian trace alpha, and why? Since the Esi Juli@ is quite easier to get. I’d like to hear from you.
Regards,
Dennis[/quote]
Hi Dennis, Marian Trace Alpha is THE ultimate card for BBP as it requires no tilt calibration, it is however a bit pricier than a Juli@ and harder to source (but not impossible). Juli@ would be the second choice but a long way short of the Marian as this does require calibration. It is however about 30-40% cheaper than Marian and easy to get. If you don’t have the know-how, the equipment (an oscilloscope) and an understanding of what tilt is and why it’s important, then buy the Marian for a guaranteed trouble free output.
Hope this helps,
Yorkie.
Loving the pics, especially the one with a TX with only an electricity connector and a Tos-link fiber going in, this is awesome!
I have a 12KW ERP station to try my prototype on, not quite up to the standards of your whopping 20KW transmitter but still a very good test.
What soundcard are you using there Stelios for the optical output? I see plenty with 192khz on the electrical output but very few with 192 on the optical.Keep up the great work,
Yorkie.
Hi JesseG, loving this, its nice and open but also crisp and punchy. I would love to hear how it copes with sudden dynamic changes such as those in Bjork’s "It’s Oh So Quiet" or Michael Buble’s "All of Me".
Yorkie.
Camclone, the single frequency network thing will not work immediately, other work will need to be done, most importantly the transmitters will need to locked in time and in phase. The difficulty comes in getting these in sync at different locations, there would need to be some kind of reference to keep them locked. This is likely to be complex and costly to acheive, BUT in THEORY, 2 DDS exciters in sync, phase locked and with a 100% identical signal (input and output), you could have them covering overlapping areas without signal fade, much like what is already done with Digital Radio and TV transmissions.
Best soundcard, Period, Marian Trace Alpha for AM and FM, a very reasonable price for what it does and no other card is 100% tilt free for Breakaway. They can however be tricky to source but this has been discussed and partially resolved in other threads on this board.
Airomate is by far the best RDS coder for this application and the RDS input of BBP is tailored for use with this product. As you rightly say, the RDS standard is static and the software is basically perfect so no updates in a long time, working well on setups all over the world.
AFAIK, the RDS standard is that it can be run on mono transmissions without the need for a 19Khz pilot to sync to, the need for sync between 19/38/57khz is just to keep everything in phase but if no 19/38khz, no issue. Some radios may not follow the spec properly but there are stations around which transmit mono with RDS.
Running a 19khz tone but with mono audio would still put a radio into wideband mode (with the decoder inline) and more susceptable to noise as any noise in the stereo subcarrier spectrum would be interpreted as a difference signal and noise would be added to the sum information. In my own opinion, to maximise the listenable range (whilst maybe sacrificing a small minority with out of spec car radios) it would be far better to run in full mono.Hope this helps,
Yorkie.
Hi Leif,
They are both there, In the first round, the Xylophone (the wooden instrument) can be heard at 0:17-0:20 and again from 0:24-0:27 (predominantly in the Right channel) The Glockenspiel (the metal instrument) is from 0:34-0:36, 0:38-0:40 and 0:42-0:45 (center of mix).
In the second round, Xylophone from 1:32-1:35 and 1:39-1:42 and Glockenspiel from 1:49-1:51, 1:53-1:55 and finally from 1:57-2:00.
There are other short bursts of the xylophone too (again mostly in the RH channel) at 0:01.177-0:01.740, 0:04.750-0:05.300, 0:10.039-0:10.600 and 0:11.775-0:12.292.I understand what you mean about other stuff being in the mix, but to my ear, these do pierce thru the mix quite loudly but like you say, maybe not enough to trouble the processor, on the other hand, it may well trouble other processors and this is what it’s all about here, comparisons…
What we really need is someone with a studio and some percussion instruments to record a dedicated torture test with these instruments only.Yorkie.
If it’s loud Glockenspeil and Xylophone you want, try this tune.. this will test the processor.
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~yorkie98/Keith%20Mansfield%20Orchestra%20-%20Grandstand%20Theme.mp3Yorkie.
I don’t think there will be any need to add a deviation limiter, it kinda goes against the whole ethos of BBP but it may be useful for those NOT using BBP as these people will be far more likely to have overshoots. I would concur with Leif, that if you do add such a limiter, make it optional and off by default.
I now understand your approach, I didn’t before but it seems a very good idea and I fully support it.
I also agree with JesseG as the default level in BBP is -3dBfs so our digital outputs are going to be running at this level too so it seems a sensible level to have as the default in the exciter. It will also give a bit more dynamic range to the output.PS, Leif, single frequency networks is a very exciting proposition also, finally with this technology, our ageing FM band can be run efficiently and would alleviate much of the overcrowding problems there are across the world.
Yorkie.
Hi Stelios, I like the idea of the modulation approach as opposed to the audio level approach but the thing I don’t quite get (and I guess many don’t quite understand either) is how the modulation level can be known without the digital input level being pre-determined also.
So wether we have a digital input of -12dBfs or -3dBfs the modultion would be correct at +/-75khz? My question would be how does the difference in the digital input levels get made up for within the exciter and set accurately to a level which is the known to produce the exact required deviation?
I hope this makes sense..??
Also, I assume that those opting to use the L/R inputs and the DSP stereo coder (or the analog MPX input) still have to use an old-fashioned audio gain approach? or is the difference taken care of in the same way as if using the digital MPX inputs?I hope my questions are understandable..
Yorkie.
Hi Sigmacom, great to hear from you again, looks like things are moving along with the transmitter.
So, what I really want to know is when do you expect that the prototypes will be ready for those of us who are patiently (but eagerly) awaiting one?
The pictures are looking really good and you have obviously been very busy. You must be very keen to get this machine out to the market. When you do, I’m sure my prototype when coupled with BBP will result in many orders coming through when they realise how superior this setup is 😀Keep up the good work.
Yorkie.The most important piece of harware you wil need is a 192Khz output soundcard. For a laptop a USB one will work but not worth spending the monsy just to evaluate the software. If building PCs for the job you would need to install a pro grade soundcard, preferably a Trace Marian Alpha as this is the ultimate card for BBP.
Bear in mind that BBP is not only an audio processor but also a stereo encoder with band filtering which outperforms hardware boxes by a huge magnitude. You can also plugin the very inexpensive Airomate program which will give full RDS/RDBS capability. This is equivalent to over $15000 US of hardware for much less then $1000 when you include all the hardware required for BBP.I would choose wimamp myself for this task as you will get better quality from the stream as you are bringing it in digitally instead of the analog connection from the Barix Exstreamer.
Set up a small playlist in winamp where you copy the URL of your stream in 3 or 4 times, save this playlist and set winamp to repaeat and random. Then run the playlist, (also drop a shortcut to this into the startup directory if you want this to auto-run from startup) this seems to be the most stable method to keep winamp running if the stream drops.
Sometimes tho, winamp will bork altogether and freeze during buffering.. use a free silence detector (such as pira.cz silence detector) to close winamp and re-start your playlist if winamp does freeze. I use this method on a few sites and gives great unmanned results.
Use logmein as a backup just in case you need to manually shut/restart winamp or the PC.
