Radio Road Which tuner to get and getting the most from it. Thank God, for the radio!

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My Solution to Over-Compression of FM Radio

Posted by dcriner (A) on January 6, 2007 at 13:29:53

I like listening to classical music on FM radio with my vintage, tube-type equipment. However, it's way over-compressed: fff sounds like f and ppp sounds like p.

A few years ago I even contacted the station engineer at WFMT in Chicago, our only classical station left, who basically agreed. He said that they compress to make the music more listenable in automobiles. Plus, they want to broadcast at maximum average volume without over-modulating the RF signal on loud passages. He also claimed that the "host" of each musical program has control over the compression and it's out of the station engineer's control. (Strange!)

I have recently bought a old '70s-vintage, solid-state DBX expander (which show up from time to time on eBay). It's basically an automatic volume control, in reverse. The quiet passages are made quieter and the loud passages are made louder. The basic circuit for an expander has been around since the 1930s.

I'm just getting preliminary experience with the expander, but it definitely works. There's a bypass switch that allows you to quickly compare the music, with and without the expander. There are adjustments for the percent expansion and for the threshold level. Also, a string of LEDs show instanteously how much the the passage is being boosted or attenuated (dB).

I don't listen to much pop or jazz on FM, but my sense is that they don't have the range of dynamics that typically occur in classical music - so there wouldn't need to be as much compression by the broadcast stations.

Classical recordings on CDs and vinyl don't seem to be compressed, at least nowhere near the extent on FM radio. I wouldn't propose to use the expander for those sources.

The DBX expander goes in between my tuner and the preamp.

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