[BC] Could our concept of audio be all wrong?

[Robert Orban]

At 04:04 PM 3/12/2009, Tom wrote:
>Well, we all know that whatever it was, if it wasn't a barefoot 
>Optimod 8000A, it wasn't "perfect".
>
>Or at least a barefoot 8100A.
>
>I still chuckle whenever I think about Bob's reason for coming up 
>with the 8100 - "Disco killed the 8000".

It wasn't just generic disco, but the infamous "YMCA." Try and I 
might, I could not find a way to prevent that song's bass from 
pumping midrange in a wideband compressor, so I decided that it was 
necessary to go to two bands. Because I still had a purist streak, 
the result (the 8100) had a coupling control that allowed it to be as 
wideband as possible while adapting automatically to the program material.

Even YMCA's bass was tame by the standards of bass found on many CDs 
because it had to be cuttable onto vinyl and trackable by 
run-of-the-mill phono cartridges. CDs have no such constraints, so a 
multiband Optimod would have been inevitable sooner or later.

That being said, if I were the king of all media, the first thing I 
would do is command most of FMs to back off their clipper drives by 
about 3 dB. That is all it would take to make an extraordinary 
audible difference on the band, assuming good source material, which 
is another serious problem these days :-(

Bob Orban