FARGO, N.D. — At KLTA(FM) we have had an Omnia.9 processor for almost three years now and it has been working great to help our sound dominate our market, especially in the top 40 format.
In the past, we had a hard time getting some newer music to sound just right; one band in particular was Imagine Dragons. We had been having a really hard time getting them to sound the way we wanted them to on our station. When we put the Omnia.9 on the air, we were just blown away. We were like “Oh, my God, it isn’t distorted anymore; it sounds really good.”
The Omnia.9 also does a very good job of processing both our HD1 and HD2 channels at the same time.
STREAMING ASPECT
When we were initially shopping for a new processor, the streaming aspect wasn’t one of the features we were looking for in particular. We were using Omnia.9/XE to process our main station streams and looking to expand this to our subchannel streams. When we got the Omnia.9, it was like a light bulb went off, when I realized that it could be our new solution to our problem.
We tried it out, and it has done a great job since the moment we got it set up. It sounds fantastic and the audio is clear. We use Icecast streaming through SecureNet, and the stream is stable, the audio sounds fantastic, and the .9 does a great job of optimizing to our 32 kbps stream.
When we listen to our competitor’s streams and compare them to ours, we think our sound blows theirs out of the water. I feel that a station’s stream is just as important as the over-the-air signal. With so many people listening to the audio stream exclusively these days, it just has to sound good. When we first launched the stream through the .9, our operations manager said there was a “night and day difference” in our streaming sound quality and was blown away by what we did.
I’m also a believer in the strategy of using the same processing for both the terrestrial and streaming signal, to establish a recognizable “sound on the dial” across platforms. Using the same box for all of our streams has allowed me to mirror the sound seamlessly.
The Omnia.9 has been the Swiss-army knife of processors for our station because we are using the FM HD1+2 as well as the streaming capabilities all at the same time; it does everything that we need all in one box.
If you’re looking at upgrading your processor and want to upgrade your stream as well, I highly recommend it as a solution for all of your needs.
For information, contact Cam Eicher at the Telos Alliance in Ohio at 216-241-7225 or visit www.telosalliance.com.