Orban Celebrates 50 Years of Optimod FM Processors

The Optimod FM audio processor is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2025. 50 years ago, Orban shipped its first audio processor for FM radio broadcasting, the Optimod 8000, and it revolutionized the broadcasting business. Since that day, the company founded by Bob Orban has been leading in audio processing for broadcast audio and the name "Optimod" basically defines the whole radio processor category.
  "Over the years, many things have changed in the market including a wider range of places to listen to audio, but one thing has remained consistent," says David Day, Orban Labs President. "Between bandwidth issues, transmission methods and other considerations, audio needs extra treatment in order to make it pleasing for listeners. The overall sound of AM, FM, TV, and now Internet broadcasting has been vastly improved over the decades thanks to Bob Orban and the Optimod."

Bob Orban released the first Optimod FM processor in 1975. "While I used my electrical engineering university training to ‘do the math’ in processor development, of equal importance was my experience as a musician, composer, and producer," shares Bob Orban. "I knew how the music industry wanted their creations to be heard over the air, and my designs reflected that."

Originally based in San Francisco, California, in 1967 Bob Orban built and sold his first product, a stereo synthesizer, to WOR-FM in New York City, a year before Orban earned his master's degree from Stanford University. Bob Orban later partnered with John Delantoni to form Orban Associates in 1975. The company was bought by Harman International in 1989, and the firm moved to nearby San Leandro in 1991. In 2000, Orban was bought by Circuit Research Labs (CRL) who moved manufacturing to Tempe, Arizona, in 2005, keeping the design team in the San Francisco Bay Area.
  Orban expanded into Germany in 2006 by purchasing Dialog4 System Engineering in Ludwigsburg, Germany. In 2009, CRL Systems ceases operations and Orban products are marketed by Orban USA, an Arizona Corporation. That company was acquired by Daysequerra (owned by David Day) in 2016, moving manufacturing to New Jersey, while the majority of production continued in Germany. In 2020, Orban Labs consolidated divisions and streamlined operations, with Orban Europe GmbH assuming responsibility for all Orban product sales worldwide.

Orban Labs' offices are in Pennsauken, NJ right across the river from Philadelphia, PA, San Francisco, CA and Ludwigsburg, Germany. Over its years of trading, the Orban company has released many well-known audio-processing products, including the Orban Optimod 8000, which was the first audio processor to include FM processing and a stereo generator under one package, an innovative idea at the time, as no other processor took into account the 75μs pre-emphasis curve employed by FM, which leads to low average modulation and many peaks.

This was followed by the Orban Optimod 8100, which went on to become the company's most successful product, and the Orban Optimod 8200, the first successful digital signal processor. It was entirely digital and featured a two-band AGC, followed by five-band or two-band processing, with phase cancellation of clipping distortion. Processors were also made for AM and digital radio as well, including the Orban Optimod 9200 and the Orban Optimod 6200, the first processor made exclusively for digital television, digital radio and Internet radio.
 
As electronics technology progressed over the years, so did Orban's designs, incorporating DSP technologies and ultimately creating software-based processors to complement the hardware designs that have been used by tens of thousands of customers. During the 2000s, Orban followed up the 8200 by creating the Orban Optimod 8400 in 2000, the Orban Optimod 8500 in 2005, and the Orban Optimod 8600 in 2010.

Processor development is a continuous process that allows improvements – and is never really finished," says Bob Orban. "Perhaps the most important thing that any processor developer can learn is to not project their preference on the listening audience, but instead to supply a variety of presets that best serve different demographics and formats. And, of course, experienced programmers have the ability to fine-tune those presets to achieve a sound unique to them, which also can more closely match the desires of the creators of the material."
 In recent years, the pace of innovation has increased, leading to the Orban New Platform (ONP), a single rack unit processor; next-generation FM with Super HiFi; onboard implementation of Nielsen watermark, Ipsos & Kantar encoders; and the XPN-AM, a software platform that is revolutionizing AM processing. "Bob Orban and his engineering team are achieving remarkable things in the world of audio processing, and we’re excited to bring these ideas to the world," says David Day.

Today, Orban offers solutions for radio and streaming audio processing, loudness measurement and control, multichannel sound audio rendering, and digital audio processing and monitoring. Leading customers include ABC, BBC, CBS, Disney, ESPN, FOX, iHeart, NBC, NHK and SKY.
www.orban.com