Better Sounding Stream

[beantownradio25]

I've been doing internet radio for over a year, and am not so great when it comes to Engineering and the Technical side of things.

This certain station has been running since December 26, 2008.

I use SAM Broadcaster and use the DSP Audio Pipeline, and the stream sounds ehh i don't know, our main competitors have these squeaky clean sounding streams. I've rasied the pitch in an attempt to sound better and for a while I was constantly toying with the setting and EQ to make it sound better but I gave up.

http://216.155.130.9:8000/listen.pls

You can click there to listen live and the website is www.999thebeat.net for listen live links in windows media, real player etc.

What do you guys reccomend for a squeaky sounding stream? And I would like to know real opinions about the current quality of the stream, I'm not impressed with it at all when compared to our competitors, however the station is still managing great ratings due to a great lineup and a true urban playlist, and major market voiceover talent. Also, is the EQ right for a Hip Hop station? I'm running this thing by myself, besides the deejays it's all me.

[Timmy]

Breakaway Live from www.ceaudio.com will give you killer FM-like processing on your stream. Check out the 30-day demos!

[snailboy]

I am using Sam and stream to Loudcity 96k sounds clean. I did turn off the Equalizer on the decks and I donot use a router. I stream straight from my computer to Loudcity. Hope this helps.

[stuckinthe50s]

I use SAM and stream to Live365.  I've turned off all processing in SAM and use the Winamp plug-in, Tomass Limiter.
http://www.winamp.com/plugins/details/95214
Sounds good and uses much less CPU time than the SAM processing.

[unpwn]

I use SAM and stream to Live365.  I've turned off all processing in SAM and use the Winamp plug-in, Tomass Limiter.
http://www.winamp.com/plugins/details/95214
Sounds good and uses much less CPU time than the SAM processing.

+1
Tomass Limiter is fantastic. Just remember to bypass all other default processing.

[Timmy]

I am using Sam and stream to Loudcity 96k sounds clean. I did turn off the Equalizer on the decks and I donot use a router. I stream straight from my computer to Loudcity. Hope this helps.

With sending your stream to Loudcity: Let's say your final stream (for the end users) is a 96kbps Stereo MP3 stream. Would you (or your listeners) benefit at all if you send Loudcity a greater than 96kbps master stream? Are you just wasting your own bandwidth by sending say a 192kbps stream? I'm talking about the listener's final sound quality.

I ask this as I host my own stream on my system and I use uncompressed wav files as source material. My stream is only a 64kbps AAC+ stream. I understand for processing, the less compression, the better. But in the above situation, I would be sending my processed wav files and compressing them with my stream to Loudcity.

I rambled there a bit, but I hope you got the main question.

[snailboy]

Timmy. I found if you use 192 or 128 kbps (my thoughts only) you are wasting bandwidth. 96kbps Stereo sounds clean and I have had people listen and you can't really tell 128kbps or 96kbps.

[nitnitr]

A 64K aac+ stream sounds just as good as a 128K mp3 stream if you are wishing to save bandwidth. The only drawback is that it won't play with most versions of WMP. iTunes v9 now is able to play aac+ streams if that is a consideration.

I use Station Playlist and also use Stereo Tool. Since Stereo Tool is a Winamp plugin, you should be able to use it with SAM. Stereo Tool is a bit resource intensive, but if you have the right box, you can get great sound with it.

[SUPERCASTER]

Breakaway Live from www.ceaudio.com will give you killer FM-like processing on your stream. Check out the 30-day demos!

Agreed.
I tried the other software audio processsers and Breakaway is the best. Beats the expensive audio processor hardware boxes too.

[gunterm]

Breakaway is the best if you've got the horsepower for it, also look into the hardware solution of an Orban PC1100 if you've got the cash, they have a newer version out there as well now.