Robert Orban received the B.S.E.E. degree from Princeton University in 1967 and the M.S.E.E. degree from Stanford University in 1968.

In 1970, he founded Orban Associates., which introduced the original Optimod-FM 8000 in 1975. This was the first of many broadcast audio processors for AM, FM, TV and digital broadcasting.

Orban has been involved in professional recording for many years and has mixed several records released on the Warner Bros. label. As a composer, his music has been heard on the air in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. He has designed studio reverberators, stereo synthesizers, compressors, parametric equalizers, enhancers, and de-essers under both the Orban and dbx brand names.

Orban has been widely published in the trade and refereed press. He co-authored the chapter on “Transmission Audio Processing” in the NAB Engineering Handbook. He holds over 20 U.S. patents.

In 1973 he was elected a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society. In 1993, he shared with Dolby Laboratories a Scientific and Engineering Award from the AMPAS. In 1995, he received the NAB Radio Engineering Achievement Award. In 2002, he received the Innovator award from Radio Magazine.