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Audio Stores, Where Are the Radios?

What is your fixation with antennas? Don't your radios have antennas? Does your car radio need an antenna? Mine does and you know what? It doesn't bother me. It seems that ever car radio I see uses an external antenna. Oh, you mean the B.A? Well, I had an alarm clock radio which used the power cord (only one side) as an antenna and my super radio needs an antenna too. Yea, believe it or not, it needs this telescoping thing. On AM it uses a ferrite loop. But my old wood box Phico uses a loop of wire mounted inside the exposed wooden cabinet but they provide terminals to connect an external antenna. My component tuner has no FM antenna either and that radio was far more expensive than my little Receptor. All of my TV's require external antennas too. I can use rabbit ears on a few of them but most didn't come with rabbit ears. You need to connect it to either an external antenna or cable or satellite but without those things connected you get nothing here. I guess that means that TV is a failed technology as well. Why buy a 42 inch plasma when in a few years we can see a clear signal on our 2 inch cell phone LCD.
 
What a joke - the Receptor HD needs a dipole antenna mounted high/externally ! I read in a blog, where someone ran into the same situation at another Best Buy, where the Receptor HD wasn't even plugged in, then it dawned on me - he thought it was because the Receptor HD wouldn't be able to get HD/IBOC inside the building, and I bet he was right ! Wait, until folks buy this piece of garbage, then there will be a mass return of them, to the stores ! Gosh, my PLL AM/FM radio easily gets by on its internal ferrite-bar antenna - consumers are not going to buy a radio that requires a dipole antenna, for $200, and probably, not even $50 !

Not to be antagonistic, but when I went into Radio Shack today, to buy a replacement printer, there was a whole setup for Satellite Radio, and for only $70, a beautiful Satellite Radio boom-box, that RS had turned on and it sounded excellent. Boy, it was tempting, almost ! Well, I wonder, what people are going to think of a $200 Receptor HD piece of garbage, after they see this beautiful Satellite Radio - :D :D :D :D :D :D
 
Satellite radio = 5 years old
HD Radio = about 1 (With the REAL marketing about a week old).

Talk to me in another year.
 
IBOCROCKS WROTE: "Satellite radio = 5 years old
HD Radio = about 1 (With the REAL marketing about a week old).

Talk to me in another year."

I recall vividly how iBiquity trumpeted the first sale of a Kenwood HD Radio to a buyer in Iowa. That was in January of 2004 - more than two-and-a-half-years ago. The FCC gave HD Radio it's initial approval in November of 2002, so actually HD Radio is almost four years old already.
 
vsa said:
IBOCROCKS WROTE: "Satellite radio = 5 years old
HD Radio = about 1 (With the REAL marketing about a week old).

Talk to me in another year."

I recall vividly how iBiquity trumpeted the first sale of a Kenwood HD Radio to a buyer in Iowa. That was in January of 2004 - more than two-and-a-half-years ago. The FCC gave HD Radio it's initial approval in November of 2002, so actually HD Radio is almost four years old already.
Click to expand...

The marketing just began last monday. The A codec was dreadful until early last year, and there were practically no stations on until lat 2004... except experimental ones. There was no production line transmission equipment till November, 2004, for stations. And the HD2's started in ernest the beginning of this year.

The XM satellites were operative way before the service launched, too... while they built the terrestrial network needed to be able to hear the "satellite" programming in most big cities.
 
DAVID WROTE: "The marketing just began last monday. The A codec was dreadful until early last year, and there were practically no stations on until lat 2004... except experimental ones. There was no production line transmission equipment till November, 2004, for stations. And the HD2's started in ernest the beginning of this year."

Next year, perhaps August 2007, I fully expect to read how the "REALLY REALLY, FINALLY REAL" HD Radio marketing campaign is getting underway.

The "A codec"? Are you talking about the HDC codec? It's really just a licensed version of the AAC+ codec. The AAC+ codec has not really changed and does not need to change. It's the best general-purpose audio codec out there, head-and-shoulders better than the others. Even a 24k stereo AAC+ bitstream sounds impressive.

For those of you with high hopes for HD Radio, let me bring you back down to earth. Go to the Bridge Ratings website at the link below to see their updated projections for the future of radio delivered via HD Radio, XM, Sirius, cell phones and Internet radio (wired and wireless). Projections out to 2010 should be fairly accurate.

http://www.bridgeratings.com/press_031006-digitalprojectionsupd.htm

Don't miss the tallest cream-colored bars signifying Internet radio. That's where the REAL competition lies for reach and time-spent-listening. For all of the reasons we have discussed on this board, HD Radio will be a bit-player at best!
 
"What a joke - the Receptor HD needs a dipole antenna mounted high/externally "

Where did you read this gem? I know you have no personal experience with the radios. My BA uses the dipole, inside my house and it's hidden, not fully exended about 1 foot above the floor. Even my cat can reach it.
 
vsa said:
IBOCROCKS WROTE: "Satellite radio = 5 years old
HD Radio = about 1 (With the REAL marketing about a week old).

Talk to me in another year."

I recall vividly how iBiquity trumpeted the first sale of a Kenwood HD Radio to a buyer in Iowa. That was in January of 2004 - more than two-and-a-half-years ago. The FCC gave HD Radio it's initial approval in November of 2002, so actually HD Radio is almost four years old already.
Click to expand...

Of course I remember vividly in the late 90's when satellite radio was good to go as well.

Don't confuse the first radio with the launch of anything. There was no marketing, and no official plans of a launch at that point.
 
vsa said:
DAVID WROTE: "The marketing just began last monday. The A codec was dreadful until early last year, and there were practically no stations on until lat 2004... except experimental ones. There was no production line transmission equipment till November, 2004, for stations. And the HD2's started in ernest the beginning of this year."

Next year, perhaps August 2007, I fully expect to read how the "REALLY REALLY, FINALLY REAL" HD Radio marketing campaign is getting underway.

The "A codec"? Are you talking about the HDC codec? It's really just a licensed version of the AAC+ codec. The AAC+ codec has not really changed and does not need to change. It's the best general-purpose audio codec out there, head-and-shoulders better than the others. Even a 24k stereo AAC+ bitstream sounds impressive.

For those of you with high hopes for HD Radio, let me bring you back down to earth. Go to the Bridge Ratings website at the link below to see their updated projections for the future of radio delivered via HD Radio, XM, Sirius, cell phones and Internet radio (wired and wireless). Projections out to 2010 should be fairly accurate.

http://www.bridgeratings.com/press_031006-digitalprojectionsupd.htm

Don't miss the tallest cream-colored bars signifying Internet radio. That's where the REAL competition lies for reach and time-spent-listening. For all of the reasons we have discussed on this board, HD Radio will be a bit-player at best!
Click to expand...

Internet radio, eh? I see they don't separate internet-only stations, and terrestrial stations that stream.

As for HD radio growth...that doesn't look horrible to me. 0 to 10 million listeners in four years? Nice.
 
IBOCROCKS WROTE: "Internet radio, eh?  I see they don't separate internet-only stations, and terrestrial stations that stream. 

As for HD radio growth...that doesn't look horrible to me.  0 to 10 million listeners in four years?  Nice."

---------------

Via the web, figures from a recent study show Internet-only radio stations today reach 40 percent of people age 12-54. Local stations get 25 percent. Out of market stations reach 21 percent. The figures for listening via the Internet get even worse with people under 35.

http://www.hear2.com/2006/06/index.html

Nice? Nice if your goal is to stick your head in the sand.
The estimate is only 8.84 million HD Radio receivers by 2010.
Internet radio is projected to reach 147.5 million listeners by 2010. Game over!

The radio broadcasting industry is wasting its time and money on HD Radio. Business investments and careers are at stake here!
 
"The radio broadcasting industry is wasting its time and money on HD Radio. Business investments and careers are at stake here!"

Where are the Wi-Fi car radios? By the way as long as we're talking opinon I'll give you mine. If and I said If Wi-Fi becomes the method for transmitting programing sometime in the future, today's major syndictaors or netowrks will find them selves in the same position as over the air TV networks. Sure the numbers are down compred with 50 years ago but the over the air TV networks still crush their cable competition. They have the quality programing, like it or not. Same for radio. Stations such as WFAN will continue to be successful because they are live local and enormously popular, especially now that they can be heard on the internet. Many ex-NYers now listen to WFAN all over the country. In NYC which is a concrete jungle and where quite a few of the more popular AM stations have fairly poor signals inside their buildings can now be heard very well for those with a high speed internet connection. On the other hand, the HD 2 & 3 streams are also providing coverage for stations with limited siganals. For instance WINS (Enormously popular and profitable in NY) has a pattern which, even though it's 50KW fails to entirely cover the NY market. WNEW FM is runing WINS audio on its HD2 and now WINS can be heard in areas where the AM signal is marginal. Terrestrial radio is the only form of audio broadcsating which doesn't include a monthly fee. To receive Wi-Fi you still have to pay that monthy 50$ fee and at this time and for the forseeable future you are limited to your home or property if you have a laptop and wireless router. Another point can not be stressed often enough. The internet is not failproof. Network congestion can prevent reception and because local ISP's also are known to suffer outages (We've had many outages of service for periods of time due to telephone poles being hit by cars or weather related lightning hits and the like) and with terestrial radio there are no such outages. When 9-11 occured many local ISP's lost their Internet capability because many digital services ran through lower Manhattan, but local radio and television remained in place, broadcasting important information to area citizens. At this stage the Internet just isn't anywhere near as reliable.
 
The Wi-Fi radios are coming - where are the <$100 HD radios ?
 
They will be here long before Wi-Fi car radios exist. If you had any idea about what it takes to build an infrastucture in a city the size of NY you'd never make such a naive statement.
 
Can you back that up with facts ? HD Radio still has to compete with Satellite Radio and iPods in the car, and they are already established technologies, and give the consumer many more choices in variety/channels. Plus, Motorola will be coming out with the new Rokr E2 cell phone, with iRadio, which Motrola has already delivered one iRadio-enabled device to stores. If you chech the other thread on consumer choices, Wireless Internet and Internet Radio will be 15 times more popular, than HD Radio - good luck !
 
AUTOPAINT-1 WROTE: "Where are the Wi-Fi car radios?"

They will be Mobile Wimax car radios, not Wi-Fi car radios. Clearwire and Sprint have already accumulated enough spectrum to cover most of the nation with a Mobile Wimax (wireless broadband Internet) service cloud.  

Also this week at the FCC: "168 applicants found to be qualified to bid in the upcoming auction of Advanced Wireless Services licenses in the 1710-1755 MHz and 2110-2155 MHz bands (&#147;AWS-1&#148;) (Auction No. 66).   Bidding in Auction No. 66 is scheduled to begin on Wednesday, August 9, 2006."

As for Wi-Fi radios?

Try Walt Mossberg who writes for the Wall Street Journal: http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/solution-20060322.html

Roku Labs makes the SoundBridge music players (3 models) and the SoundBridge Radio: http://www.rokulabs.com/

Slim Devices makes the very sexy SqueezeBox:
http://www.slimdevices.com/welcome1.html?gclid=CNzUspD8l4YCFTlMGAodZzTWvA

There are others on the market that have been mentioned on this board.

Then there are lots of portable devices - mostly Pocket PCs and Palm devices with either Wi-Fi or EV-DO wireless Internet access. I listen to Internet radio often in my car using a PocketPC and Verizon's EV-DO service. I stream stations at 24k or 32k so as not to be a data hog, although I do have an unlimited data plan. If a portable device does not have Wi-Fi built-in, an optional Wi-Fi card can be purchased, such as a Wi-Fi SD card. I don't need an HD radio to get digital radio in my car. And mine's portable.
 
AUTOPAINT-1 WROTE: "...To receive Wi-Fi you still have to pay that monthy 50$ fee and at this time and for the forseeable future..."

C'mon, broadband access can be had for as little as $12.95 a month. Try using your HD BA Radio without paying the power bill.  

AUTOPAINT-1 WROTE: "The internet is not failproof. Network congestion can prevent reception and because local ISP's also are known to suffer outages...At this stage the Internet just isn't anywhere near as reliable."

This gives terrestrial radio delivery a chance to keep competing down the road. We need the best technology possible, not something that's lame, or we're not going to be able to cut it.
 
I'm also not going to be pulled into discussing whether IBOC will become a success with peopole who have obviously made up their minds. The writing style I'm seeing coming from a a few different names is too similar for me to believe they aren't the same person posting under different names. So have a great life and enjoy IBOC when it comes to your town. Remember, it's not too late to get those analogue radios on e-bay.
 
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