1. João Martins writes in Audioxpress about the panel at the AES 137th convention “Loudness for and Steaming and Radio.” The panel members were supposed to discuss whether FM radio is “a lost cause.” The experts in the area of audio processing, Bob Orban (Orban) and Frank Foti (Telos/Omnia), dismissed this idea.

[I think generally it is a lost cause. Orban and Foti are only making the tools: the FM station managers should be on the panel. FM and streaming are catering to the lowest denominator—people casually listening in noisy or distracted environments such as cars and work place— thus they are heavily compressing the dynamic range. A few classical stations like WCRB Boston have a compression profile and compress less in the evenings where presumably people will be listening more intently. The real solution is to have two feeds or some kind of reversible compression scheme, which would satisfy both types of listeners but no one has shown the slightest interest in this. This also could apply to fixed media such as Super Audio CD, DVD and Blu-ray, but again no interest. (Actually it may already be happening with SACD with a master quality SACD layer and a “reduced” CD layer with EQ and less dynamic range for lower quality players)--DBH] Ja15

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