When Radio Iglesias on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia off the coast of Italy planed its ambitious new Visual Radio DTV music channel, it looked to Funky Junk Italy (part of the Funky Junk group) for its audio requirements. Among them was a Linear Acoustic Aero.10 for dynamic range and loudness control.

Granted one of the first private FM licenses in the Italian market in 1975, Radio Iglesias has now operates four FM stations via streaming and satellite delivery, and is now adding the Visual Radio music television channel.

Asked about audio processing for the new DTV service, director and co-founder of Radio Iglesias, Gianfranco Secci said that the service had initially used the digital output of a Linear Acoustic Omnia 6, but wanted to improve the sound further with a processor designed specifically for DTV. ‘We love Omnia processors and the Omnia sound,’ he says. ‘Many years ago, we bought one of the very first Unity 2000 units for our FM signal, then upgraded over time to Omnia 6, Omnia.9 and Omnia.11 processors.’

Installation of the Aero.10 was straightforward – it was inserted directly in the SDI signal path between the playout server and the DVB encoder. The user interface was already familiar to Secci, since Aero.10 shares the same NfRemote software used by Omnia.9 for remote control. He was able to fine-tune the processing to achieve the sound he was looking for in a very short period of time.

Linear Acoustic AeroMax processing gives Radio Iglesias a consistent and competitive sound for its Visual Radio service, while onboard loudness metering ensures full compliance with ITU rules. UPMax II automatic upmixing and downmixing provides a compelling listening experience with both stereo and 5.1 source material. ‘We can reproduce a great stereo image like never before when upmixing, with excellent management of the LFE channel,’ Secci says. ‘We chose the Aero.10 because of the great sound, the feature set, and the excellent balance between price and quality.’

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