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Letter: It’s Not Just Up to the Engineer to Monitor Audio Quality

"Other company clusters marvel at how good we sound. This is no accident," says Ira Wilner

The author is chief engineer for Monadnock Broadcasting Group and Saga Communications. He responds here to Dan Slentz’s recent commentary “An Annoying Drive Through the Middle of Ohio.” Comment on this or any article. Email [email protected].

Oh my! In my neck of the woods the engineers, PD’s and even air talent are tuned into technical quality and will immediately report an issue to me or their station’s management.

Why just last week, a morning show host reported a very slight left channel hum had suddenly appeared on the output of the production computer she uses daily. Yup, very low level which would likely not be audible on air in most listening environments, but with headphone gain cranked this aging engineer could hear it. Massaging a couple of connections between that computer and its audio wiring made it disappear.

I have a very fussy PD with golden ears. So, it took me a while to fine tune audio processing to please him and me at the same time.

FM & HD sound great and folks visiting from other company clusters marvel at how good we sound. This is no accident.

It takes more than good engineering talent. It requires all staff members to show some interest in their/our product. Even our sales folks have chimed in about how we sound and where multipath might have been annoyingly bad. I’ve used their observations to alter audio processing and plan for replacement antennas and new coverage patterns.

[Check Out More Letters at Radio World’s Reader’s Forum Section]

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