Limerick veryloud95fm !!!

johnnyvee

Being a keen radio buff, I usually scan the airwaves anytime I travel around the country. Last weekend I was in Limerick so found Limerick's live95fm owned I think by UTV. This is the loudest station I have ever heard !! with audio compression on the high side of extreme and even worse, no apparent adjustment for any program including classical and opera !! Maybe their sound engineer is deaf ! what ya say ? And yes I know their jnlr figures are better than ever (good on 'em !) but do Limerick people have a hearing problem ? ( no insult intended !) but my ears are still ringing

billy the squid

Its not hard to be number one when you are the only one.

As for their audio levels, they are probably adjusted by someone who shags off back to belfast and cannot hear the station.

radioman

It's done on purpose, the casual listener will subconsciously stick with the louder station. It's a common ploy by broadcasters.

In the past both 98fm and fm104 in Dublin had a bit of a compression 'battle', so much so that they eventually maxed out and had to cut back on their levels because it just wasn't pleasent to listen to them anymore.

johnnyvee

Ya - there's loud and then there's LOUD !! I lived in Dublin and Cork for quite a few years and have heard most stations in Ireland. 2fm can be quite loud at times (it changes throughout the day to suit) but still sounds ok, 98fm in Dublin is a beautiful sound, top marks - fm104 and Cork's redfm sound quite similar probably because they are owned by the same people, 96fm in Cork a great sound too but live95fm is the loudest station I have ever !!! How can you use the same compression for classical music and dance !! It's just laziness ....

limerick_man

I never noticed it was any louder,,, i dont really listen to it much any more, ever since i found The Blast ... i dont leave the dial just parked at live 95fm.

Live 95fm has a good bit of competition!!!
RHR 107.2fm
Wired FM 96.8 (and something else)
Radio Limerick One (being there main competition)
West Limerick FM (thats for the county, not the city)
and also all the national stations!!

1huge1

limerick_man wrote:

I never noticed it was any louder,,, i dont really listen to it much any more, ever since i found The Blast ... i dont leave the dial just parked at live 95fm.

Live 95fm has a good bit of competition!!!
RHR 107.2fm
Wired FM 96.8 (and something else)
Radio Limerick One (being there main competition)
West Limerick FM (thats for the county, not the city)
and also all the national stations!!

theres even a lot more than that
can't remember them all but heres some of them
clare fm, beat, tipp mwr
argh ive gone blank ill have to get back to you

billy the squid

they can be picked up in Live95fm's service area but not all of them are directed at Limerick people, namely

Clare FM
Radio Kerry
Cork's 96 and 103 FM
Red Fm
Tipp FM
TMWRFM
Beat 102-103 in certain parts of the county.

In Limerick you have

Wired FM (off in Summer)
RHR
West Limerick 102
The new south west regional station (from 2007)
RLO (pirate)
Galtee (Pirate)
Then the nationals

RTE 1 and 2
Today FM
Newstalk (from October)

Big Tone

Some of the "engineers" on these stations think that loud audio equals strong signal and the public generally percieves this to be the case even if its not true. Take WLR in Waterford who have lowish modulation but keep the dynamic range within the signal, I've heard Live 95 with their loud mod but they're cutting off freqs, the casual listener wouldnt really notice anyway, audiophiles will. Check out the BBC audio on FM, low mod but leaving plenty of headspace for their top notch audio quality.