Should I compress audio or not?

[aviator14]

I have been playing around with some FM audio processing software lately (StereoTool) and I notice that when I turn on compression and hard limiting it makes my station sound louder on the air and be at an equal or greater volume than the commercial stations and allows the station to be heard clearer and at a further distance (since the extra loudness seems to improve the SNR). The audio processing also seems to minimize over-deviation of the transmitter; however the compression/limiting also seems to reduce the quality of some songs by eliminating the dynamic range of the music.

My question is if it is better to have the station sound loud on the air with reduced quality, or to have the station sound quieter than other stations on the dial but with better quality?

[RFBurns]

There are some features in Stereo Tool to help with the loss of dynamic range. But just like any other elaborate audio processing, via hardware or software, requires elaborate adjustment and a lot of trial and error.

Some things you can't escape however, like having loudness at the cost of dynamic range, or dynamic range at the cost of loudness. It's a trade off.

If your format sounds better loud, go for the loudness since it also helps with clarity at the outer ranges of coverage.

Just keep working with Stereo Tool and you will come across the right adjustment combinations in all of Stereo Tool's features.

Peace!

[Deleted]

Winning the "Loudness War" is what earned commercial stations the distaste of their listeners who are now streaming, going satellite or turning to public broadcasters and pirates.

So the question is, do you want to sound like the next Clear Channel station who sounded the same as the last one listeners just passed on the dial, or do you want to be a quality-over-quantity broadcaster?

Cheers!

[Kage]

One of the best parts of FM broadcast is to have the ability of audio dynamics without the static as long as the listener is within a decent range. With AM broadcasting it's preferred to have decent compression so that the signal sounds good and loud far away and in the fringe.

I have found with FM stations that I prefer (like most people) under-compressed stations. When public stations go balls to the wall with compression on FM it gets very fatiguing to me.

Keep in mind that FM makes a wonderful broadcast medium for music if processed correctly. AM would also if radios today weren't built like garbage and stereo became popular for that like it did with FM.
Dynamics always win over loudness in my book, at least for a clean local FM station.

If it were me I would use some light compression, or just a tiny bit compression over standard audio limiting settings.
With FM I never have understood the point of having a loud signal when quite passages can be allowed to be completely silent without the static that occurs in long distant AM stations.