Orban is an international company making

audio processor Audio signal processing is a subfield of signal processing that is concerned with the electronic manipulation of audio signals. Audio signals are electronic representations of sound waves—longitudinal waves which travel through air, consisti ...

s for

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

and

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

broadcasters. It has been operating since founder Bob Orban sold his first product in 1967. The company was originally based in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, California.

History

The Orban company started in 1967 when Bob Orban built and sold his first product, a stereo synthesizer, to

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New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, a year before Orban earned his masters degree from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. He teamed with synthesizer pioneers

Bernie Krause Bernard L. Krause (born December 8, 1938) is an American musician and soundscape ecologist. In 1968, he founded Wild Sanctuary, an organization dedicated to the recording and archiving of natural soundscapes. Krause is an author, a bio-acoustici ...

and

Paul Beaver Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...

to promote his products. In 1970, Orban established manufacturing and design in

. Bob Orban partnered with John Delantoni to form Orban Associates in 1975. The company was bought by

Harman International Harman International Industries, commonly known as Harman (stylized in all-uppercase as HARMAN), is an American audio electronics company. Since 2017, the company has been an independent subsidiary of Samsung Electronics. Headquartered in Stam ...

in 1989, and the firm moved to nearby

San Leandro San Leandro (Spanish for " St. Leander") is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. It is located in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area; between Oakland to the northwest, and Ashland, Castro Valley, and Hayward to the sout ...

in 1991. In 2000, Orban was bought by Circuit Research Labs (CRL) who moved manufacturing to

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, in 2005, keeping the design team in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

. Orban expanded into Germany in 2006 by purchasing Dialog4 System Engineering in

Ludwigsburg Ludwigsburg (; Swabian: ''Ludisburg'') is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, about north of Stuttgart city centre, near the river Neckar. It is the largest and primary city of the Ludwigsburg district with about 88,000 inhabitants. It is ...

. Orban USA acquired the company in 2009, based in Arizona. The Orban company was acquired by Daysequerra in 2016, moving manufacturing to New Jersey. In 2020, Orban Labs consolidated divisions and streamlined operations, with Orban Europe GmbH assuming responsibility for all Orban product sales worldwide. 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 A signal generator is one of a class of electronic devices that generates electrical signals with set properties of amplitude, frequency, and wave shape. These generated signals are used as a stimulus for electronic measurements, typically used i ...

under one package, an innovative idea at the time, as no other processor took into account 75 μs

pre-emphasis Typically, prior to some process, such as transmission over cable, or recording to phonograph record or tape, the input frequency range most susceptible to noise is boosted. This is referred to as "pre-emphasis"before the process the signal will u ...

curve employed by FM, which leads to low average modulation and many peaks. Orban_Optimod,_8100A

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 A digital signal processor (DSP) is a specialized microprocessor chip, with its architecture optimized for the operational needs of digital signal processing. DSPs are fabricated on MOS integrated circuit chips. They are widely used in audio si ...

. 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 television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative advanc ...

digital radio Digital radio is the use of digital technology to transmit or receive across the radio spectrum. Digital transmission by radio waves includes digital broadcasting, and especially digital audio radio services. Types In digital broadcasting syst ...

and

Internet radio Online radio (also web radio, net radio, streaming radio, e-radio, IP radio, Internet radio) is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not transmitted ...

. 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.

Present day

The company's current product line includes its flagship audio processor, the Optimod-FM 8700i. Other processors include the Orban Optimod-FM 5500i/5700i, the Orban Optimod 6300 for digital, internet and mastering applications and the XPN-AM/Orban Optimod 9300, primarily for AM radio.

References

External links

* *{{cite web , url = http://www.261.gr/orbanmus.html , title = Orban history , website = Optimod Fm Museum , access-date = 2021-12-28 , date = 2006-03-02 , df = dmy-all Audio electronics Signal processing