Orban/Parasound 245E Stereo Synthesizer

At $327, a patented box that manufactures stereo space out of thin mono air — and gives the mono back when you add the channels together.

Overview

The 245E is not a reverb, not a delay line, and not a pan pot pretending to be a stereo maker. Orban/Parasound built it around what the company described as a fundamentally different, patented process for creating stereo space, and the firm's own advertising was careful to draw the line: the sound is distinct from pan-potted point sources and from stereo effects synthesized with digital delay lines. The pitch was that the result is dramatic and highly listenable, and — the part that mattered to broadcasters — fully mono-compatible. Sum the two output channels and you get the original mono back.

The applications the manufacturer laid out split cleanly between the studio and the transmitter. In recording, the 245E could save tracks by letting strings, horns, or drums be recorded on a single track and then spread across the mix; it could lend stereo depth to synthesizers, electronic string ensembles, and electric organ; it could turn a mono echo chamber or artificial reverb generator into a stereo echo return; and a single channel could be pushed into phasing effects. In broadcasting, the case was even more practical. Put it on an announce mic and you get stereo depth without an image that lurches every time the announcer turns his head. Synthesize mono material before dubbing to stereo cart and you minimize mono phase cancellation; synthesize the output of mono cart machines and you eliminate that cancellation entirely. Mono agency spots and network feeds could be given an audience-pleasing stereo treatment on the way out. And yes — the ad copy conceded with a wink — if the operator got bored, there were always old mono records to process into pseudo-stereo.

Collectors should note the naming: the unit is branded Orban/Parasound, the San Francisco partnership at 680 Beach Street, and it predates the later Parasound identity most modern buyers associate with power amps. Studio Sound (March 1977, p.27) listed the 245E among the firm's "Price/Performance Leaders" alongside the 516EC Dynamic Sibilance Controller and the 621B Parametric Equaliser, describing it as using a unique and patented process to create realistic and mono-compatible synthesized stereo from a mono source. The same listing ran again in Studio Sound (June 1977, p.57) and (November 1976, p.21), which tells you this was a standing catalog item rather than a one-off.

What the 245E is not, in the surviving documentation, is a full console strip. The manual excerpts that name this model mix the synthesizer's own copy with pages from what appears to be a companion broadcast mixing module — the material describing toggle-switch routing between two program channels, wide-range high/mid/low equalization, a fully balanced floating input, and a 110 dB common-mode rejection ratio belongs to that other product, not to the synthesizer. Treat those specs with care before attributing them to a 245E on the bench. What is documented for the synthesizer itself is the processing concept, the mono-compatibility claim, and the $327 price.