We are featuring the products that won the Radio World Best of Show Award at the recent NAB Show. Winners were chosen by a panel of radio engineers and RW editorial staff for their innovation, feature set, cost efficiency and performance in serving the industry.
Forza is a software-based approach to multiband audio processing. It’s a stereo processor optimized for HD Radio/DAB and streaming audio. Frank Foti and his team deployed new AGCs and multiband limiters that deliver a polished audio signature that isn’t heavy-handed.
As we noted regarding the Inovonics product on an earlier page, it’s great to see more and better solutions emerging that specifically help support radio’s online sound. Forza does so using Omnia Sensus codec conditioning for low-bitrate streams, and it has a LUFS target-driven ITU-R BS.1770 loudness controller to comply with the demands of streaming platforms. “Launch point” presets and a smart user interface make setup easier.
Forza (the word means force or strength in Italian) is available now as a software container. It will be a processing option in Z/IPStream X/2 and R/2 as part of a planned update to those products. A container-delivered FM version is in development.
Leaning in on good processing are Paul Kriegler and Frank Foti.
