[BC] Are they all this way? (crunchy Compellor)

[Dana Puopolo]

The SCG 800 when rechipped and recapped is one of the finest sounding AGC's
anywhere! I use them to process audio streams-and nothing can touch them!

Think about it-with no need for peak control, a simple 2 band AGC is all you
need for a digital audio stream! Period.  Remember, we have over 90 db to work
with there...why crush your audio into the top 15 db? It doesn't make any
sense.

Over the weekend, I finished the control preamp I spoke of in my Broadcast
Tools post. I've got it hooked up to a Sonic Impact T amp (six watts per
channel) that I replaced the input caps and power reservoir cap on. I bought
the amp for 22 dollars shipped from Buy.com.  It connects to a pair of Polk RT
600 tower speakers that I paid 75 bucks for at a thrift shop. The woofers were
blown, so I replaced them with a pair of full range 6 inch speakers I bought
on ebay for 10 dollars. I removed the crossovers and run the amp directly into
the full range with the Polk tweeter crossed over at 8 kHz with a single cap
and resistor.

Using this system and my el cheapo CD player, I can hear singers singing all
over the room! Indeed, my wide asked me when I installed the speakers in the
corners of the room, because the singer was over in the right corner singing.
Only thing is, there IS no speaker there (by the way Grady, it was Todd).

My point is this...my stereo cost less then 300 bucks for EVERYTHING, yet it's
good enough to be truly high resolution....this is what digital audio is
capable of doing-providing  high quality audio to the masses! The Masses KNOW
that!  They WANT this quality-and they can get it-even on an el cheapo iPod
(have you ever connected an ipod to a decent stereo? I have and the sound
quality is STUNNING!). How long do you think they will remain satisfied
listening to FM radio with its less than 10 db dynamic range? Fellas...we're
shooting ourselves in the foot here!!! Let's not shoot ourselves in the foot
TWICE by trashing digital audio as well!

-D

------ Original Message ------
Received: Tue, 09 Oct 2007 10:19:55 PM EDT
From: Kevin Tekel <amstereoexp at yahoo.com>
To: broadcast at radiolists.net
Subject: [BC] Are they all this way? (crunchy Compellor)

Despite the flowery claims, I can sure hear my Aphex Compellor working.
It's the original Model 300, and with the process controls in the
suggested vertical position, there's way too much compression going on.  I
really only want some decent levelling to put ahead of a CRL Spectral
Energy Compressor, but with the controls all the way towards the "Level"
position, it rides up the gain too much and crashes into crescendos with a
painfully slow attack time.

With the knob halfway between those two settings, the gain control is
smoothened out and makes a pretty decent AGC, but the sound is still too
processed for my taste, especially to go in front of a multiband
compressor.  Even on dynamically flat recordings, it shows a steady
compression of 2 to 4 dB above the levelling, crunching away at the audio
and throwing transients into its "just in case" limiter for no good
reason.

My question is, are they all this way, or can this lackluster performance
be improved by a recapping and recalibration?  I'd do that anyway, but I
don't have the manual (nor is one available for download from Aphex), and
for now I've put it aside in favor of a CRL SGC-800 which is doing the
same job much more transparently.




     
____________________________________________________________________________________
Don't let your dream ride pass you by. Make it a reality with Yahoo! Autos.
http://autos.yahoo.com/index.html
 


_______________________________________________

The BROADCAST [BC] list is sponsored by SystemsStore On-Line Sales
Cable-Connectors-Blocks-Racks-Test Gear-Tools-Lots More + Now Barix too!
www.SystemsStore.com       Tel: 407-656-3719    Sales at SystemsStore.com