OPTIMOD-AM 9300

Orban's all-digital 9300 OPTIMOD-AM Audio Processor can help you achieve the highest possible audio quality in monophonic AM shortwave, medium wave and long wave broadcasts. OPTIMOD-AM delivers louder, cleaner, brighter, FM-like audio with an open, fatigue-free quality that attracts listeners and holds them. Because all processing is performed by high-speed mathematical calculations within Motorola DSP56367 digital signal processing chips, the processing has cleanliness, quality, and stability over time and temperature that is unmatched by analog processors.

OPTIMOD-AM 9300 is descended from the industry-standard 9100 and 9200 OPTIMOD-AM audio processors. Thousands of these processors are on the air all over the world. They have proven that the “OPTIMOD sound” attracts and keeps an audience even in the most competitive commercial environment.

The 9300 was designed to deliver a high-quality FM-like sound to the listener's ear by pre-processing for the limitations of the average car or table radio (while avoiding audible side effects and compromises in loudness or coverage). Except for newly designed parametric lowpass filters, the 9300’s five-band compressor and clipper are identical to those in the 9200. Additionally, we have improved on the 9200 by adding a more powerful equalizer and providing a two-band AGC with window gating.

Like its predecessors going back to the original Optimod-AM 9000, the 9300’s design was based on a rigorous study of real-world AM radios so that the processed audio sounds loud, crisp, and highly intelligible through such radios. Twelve factory presets offer processing appropriate for any format, from fine arts to shortwave speech-only programming. These presets can be easily customized with a one-knob LESS-MORE control. For power users and audio processing experts, all factory programming parameters have been exposed for adjustment via the 9300’s PC Remote application, which runs on Windows®.

The 9300s AGC uses the same dual-band, window-gated technology as the AGCs in many other current Optimods. This technology allows the AGC to correct large level disparities quickly while not adding density to program material levels are already well controlled.

The 9300 is a monophonic processor. If you need stereo processing and/or digital radio/netcast processing, Orban’s state-of-the-art OPTIMOD-AM 9400 is the ideal processor for you. However, not every station needs the power and versatility of our flagship 9400. The 9300 is aimed toward medium and small-market broadcasters who do not intend to broadcast digitally and who are not running AM stereo. The 9300 offers more features and even better sound than previous Orban AM processors, while being easy to install and  operate.

Because Orban expects that its 9300 customers will include smaller stations with limited engineering resources, the 9300 has been designed with less than 5 milliseconds of delay, making it comfortable for talent to monitor off-air using headphones—no separate headphone feed is required. To achieve this low delay, the 9300 uses 9200-style multiband distortion-canceled clipping instead of the look-ahead “intelligent” distortion control used in the 9400.