Orban Announces OPTIMOD-FM 2300
Las Vegas, Nev. — 2004, April 19 — Orban®/CRL (NASDAQ: CRLI.OB), the worldwide leader in audio processing for broadcasting and the Internet, today (Monday) announced the immediate availability of the exciting, all-new OPTIMOD-FM 2300 for shipment to customers. With development driven by customer requests, today’s budgets, and limited space, the powerful, value-priced 2300 builds on the legacy of Orban’s popular OPTIMOD-FM 2200 while adding important features that today’s progressive FM broadcasters expect and demand.
Key new features include stereo enhancement, built-in Ethernet and RS232 serial connectivity, full-featured remote control through any Windows® 2000 or XP PC, standard AES/EBU digital input/output, Orban’s patented “Half-Cosine Interpolation” composite limiter, and a multiplex power controller for countries required to meet the ITU-R BS412 standard. The 2300 is targeted to small and medium market broadcasters as well as non-commercial and educational broadcasters. It is also useful in radio networks where a higher end processor like Orban’s 8400 conditions the audio feed at the network origination point, while each transmitter uses a 2300 to eliminate STL-induced overshoots, ensure legal modulation, and process locally inserted material. In this application, one OPTIMOD 2300 PC Remote application can remote control hundreds of 2300’s via a LAN, WAN, or the Internet.
Supplied in a compact, one rack-unit chassis, the 2300 offers a processing chain that includes a stereo enhancer, AGC, equalizer, program-adaptive high frequency enhancer, two-band compressor/limiter, distortion-canceling clipper, overshoot compensator, and stereo encoder with composite limiting. The main clippers and overshoot compensator operate at 256 kHz sample rate and are anti-aliased. The two-band compressor can operate with phase rotation or in constant-delay mode, giving the user a choice of processing for loudness or quieter, “purist” processing. Unlike the 2200, switching between these two styles occurs with no audio mutes, making the 2300 ideal for the mixed formats used by many non-commercial and educational broadcasters.
The stereo enhancer is based on Orban’s popular 222 stand-alone stereo enhancer. It detects attack transients in the L+R signal and uses these to trigger expansion of the L–R signal, increasing the apparent width and detail of the signal without exacerbating multipath distortion.
The 2300 uses Orban’s latest-generation dual-band technology with window gating. This technology allows the AGC to correct gain riding errors quickly without increasing the density of material that is already well controlled in level — a feature particularly important when processing today’s highly compressed CDs.
The equalizer includes a parametric shelving bass section (with 6, 12, and 18 dB/octave slopes), three bell-shaped parametric sections, and a program-adaptive high frequency enhancer that attempts to maintain a constant spectral balance between the program’s low and high frequencies. Because this algorithm operates on the ratio between the lows and highs, it is superior to the solution of adding a third, high frequency band to the processing, as the third band’s control of spectral consistency would vary according to the amount of gain reduction used in the multiband compressor, while the high frequency enhancer’s control is essentially level independent.
The 2300’s “Half-Cosine Interpolation” composite limiter betters composite clippers by protecting stereo imaging and preventing interference to the stereo pilot tone and subcarriers. Unlike composite look-ahead limiting that uses gain reduction, Orban’s patented process does not cause pumping and audible gain modulation.
Orban/CRL’s President and CEO, Jay Brentlinger, commented: “The Orban 2200 has been one of our best-selling processors. When we developed its successor, we knew that we had to retain and augment the audio quality that made the 2200 so popular while adding features that broadcasters expect in this network-centric age. We spent a lot of time and care to get the 2300 right and we expect that broadcasters will perceive that it offers state-of-the-art Optimod quality, plus even more ‘bang for the buck’ than the 2200.”
About Orban
Founded in 1970 by Bob Orban, the world's foremost expert in transmission audio processing for broadcast, Orban leads the industry in the design and manufacture of audio processors for radio, television and Internet broadcasting. Recognized for its standard-setting Optimod ® digital audio processors and the Audicy digital audio workstation, the Orban name has become synonymous with reliable, high performance products. Today, its versatile audio processing equipment, editing tools and codecs are the products of choice in fast-paced production environments worldwide. In 2000, Orban ® was acquired by Circuit Research Labs — a manufacturer of high-quality digital and analog audio processing, transmission encoding, and noise reduction equipment. Orban/CRL Systems now accounts for the majority of the global market for radio, TV and Internet audio processing. As technology evolves, Orban/CRL continues to innovate with state-of-the-art audio processing products for DAB, DTV and streaming media.
Orban/CRL Forward-Looking Statements
This news release may contain "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Management's anticipation of future events is based upon assumptions regarding levels of competition, research and development results, raw material markets, the markets in which the company operates, and stability of the regulatory environment. Any of these assumptions could prove inaccurate, and therefore there can be no assurance that the forward-looking information will prove to be accurate. Orban/Circuit Research Labs, Inc. develops, manufactures and markets electronic audio processing, transmission encoding and noise reduction equipment for the worldwide radio, television, cable, Internet and professional audio markets. The Orban division manufactures and markets audio processing equipment, primarily using digital technology. Orban Europe is a worldwide leader in ISO/MPEG, audio, ISDN, satellite transmission, networking, and storage. More information is available at www.orban.com and www.orban-europe.com.