Stereo Tool

Congrats to a superb software.

We are finding ways to replace our hardware-based stereo-generator.

Just a quick question:

Where should i get the stereo and rds encoded signal to connect to our exciter? Left channel out of sound card? Right channel channel out of sound card? Mono out of sound card?

Thanks in advance!

CHEERS!!!

Welcome Riv123,

Left channel or right channel (or mono channel if you have one or both channels) doesn't matter - the MPX signal is mono and the receiving radio will decode it into stereo.

You MIGHT get better result by using only one channel instead of both if the timing of the channels is not exactly identical (if that's the case you might have some volume loss at high frequencies). On the other hand, if you have to set the volume slider higher, you might get distortion on some sound cards - and when combining the left and right channel, you can divide the volume slider setting by 2.

To test the signal, broadcast something on one channel only. And listen to the other (silent) channel.
- If you are using one channel (eg. left or right) and you get distortion, try using both channels (left and right).
- On the other hand, if the stereo separation is better when using one channel, use only one channel.

Most likely the difference will not be noticable.


The most important thing is that the output from Stereo Tool is broadcast unchanged. And changes in the signal that are added afterwards will deteriorate the stereo separation and RDS reception. That's why the quality of the sound card is so important. Also, the length of cables between the sound card and transmitter can have a big effect on the quality (I can clearly hear the difference if I add only 5 meters of cable!). So keep it is short as possible and/or use the "FM Transmitter Configuration" to adjust the signal to match your setup.

Thanks for the reply.

So, my connection will be:

source (stereo) ===> input of soundcard (stereo) in computer with StereoTool output of soundcard ----> Left only connect to MPX-In of Exciter

Correct?

I intend to use StereoTool only on a C2D machine to replace our aging CRL DP-100 Millennium Audio Processor.

CHEERS!!!

That should work, assuming that the exciter does not perform any processing or filtering.