• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Cumulus stations on IHeartRadio are a mess!

F

FightingIrish

Pulled up the IHeartRadio app on my Android earlier, and noticed that it now finally features Cumulus-owned stations. So, I tried a few of them. Needless to say, I was disappointed.

Sound quality is better than before (when they were on TuneIn). However, the streams I sampled were very unstable. Very choppy. Broke up to the point of being unlistenable. Clear Channel and other stations sounded fine as always. Evidently, they need to work out some bugs.

Anyone else notice this?
 
All of their stations have crappy, low quality streams to start with. It's almost like they are light years behind in Internet Streaming. LOL
 
The Cumulus stations near me have not been added yet, but Clear Channel said it would take some time before things were completed and running smoothly. I would say give it a month or two.
 
wsimkins said:
All of their stations have crappy, low quality streams to start with. It's almost like they are light years behind in Internet Streaming. LOL
Click to expand...

What I could hear of the Cumulus streams sounded better than they have in the past. I guess they're improving their streaming infrastructure to match Clear Channel's. They just need to make them stable. I assume you're not a fan of the newer low-bitrate streaming formats like AAC+. But in today's world, they're pretty much a necessity.

IHR is pretty much geared toward smartphones that stream on the go over (mostly) 3G networks. In a perfect world, yeah, I'd love to stream in 320kbps mp3, but as the bandwidth becomes even more crowded, that becomes even less feasible. As a result, newer formats that allow decent quality at lower bitrates (like the 56k AAC+ that IHR uses) are becoming more common. As far as sound quality and reliability goes, it's the best of both worlds. It may not please audiophile snobs, but it sounds pretty damn good for what it is, and far better than streams sounded years ago.
 
Cumulus is taking their Windows Media stream for their Pre-Citadel stations offline and switching over the Stream The World mp3 and AAC streams.
 
RadioFanBoy said:
Cumulus is taking their Windows Media stream for their Pre-Citadel stations offline and switching over the Stream The World mp3 and AAC streams.
Click to expand...

Yep, He-AAC (AAC+) specifically for iHeart.. Clear Channel requires stations in iHeart to use Akamai or Triton Digital (Streamtheworld) for the backend for their streams.

[HE-AAC is a big improvement over WMA - at smaller bit rates]
 
FightingIrish said:
wsimkins said:
All of their stations have crappy, low quality streams to start with. It's almost like they are light years behind in Internet Streaming. LOL
Click to expand...

What I could hear of the Cumulus streams sounded better than they have in the past. I guess they're improving their streaming infrastructure to match Clear Channel's. They just need to make them stable. I assume you're not a fan of the newer low-bitrate streaming formats like AAC+. But in today's world, they're pretty much a necessity.

IHR is pretty much geared toward smartphones that stream on the go over (mostly) 3G networks. In a perfect world, yeah, I'd love to stream in 320kbps mp3, but as the bandwidth becomes even more crowded, that becomes even less feasible. As a result, newer formats that allow decent quality at lower bitrates (like the 56k AAC+ that IHR uses) are becoming more common. As far as sound quality and reliability goes, it's the best of both worlds. It may not please audiophile snobs, but it sounds pretty damn good for what it is, and far better than streams sounded years ago.
Click to expand...

Actually I am a huge fan of AAC+. It's just about all I use anymore. 64k AAC+ is fantastic quality. I have noticed major improvement recently.
 
I personally don't think he-aac v1 or v2 ever sound good. Version 2 in particular is designed primarily for uses at 48kbps and less, and honestly good sound quality is never achieved with such a low bitrate. Parametric stereo just sounds so... fake.
 
DToTheJ said:
@RadioFanBoy: One downside of AAC is that I can never get the streaming URL to play in the version of WMP that I have at my place of business... I guess this means this stream for WGNI in Wilmington will be going bye-bye soon...
Click to expand...

WMP prior to 11 does not support AAC native.. Besides these stations "don't" want you to use direct links to listen.. they want you to listen via their web based "flash" players. [They count on your seeing their web ad impressions to make $$$]
 
Casey said:
I personally don't think he-aac v1 or v2 ever sound good. Version 2 in particular is designed primarily for uses at 48kbps and less, and honestly good sound quality is never achieved with such a low bitrate. Parametric stereo just sounds so... fake.
Click to expand...

I disagree. I think he-aac sounds better than a mp3 stream, and certainly at a lower bit rate, even if you think it sounds fake. Even at 48K, aac sounds as good as 128k mp3. My opinion, and your mileage may vary. It might be a little brighter, but overall matches up well. Remember, most people on Internet radio are listening with crummy speakers at their offices too.

Though I am an advocate for the best possible sound, regardless of codecs, I still think aac has a place, though I don't stream with it personally.

The issue with aac is not everybody can use it, on some smart phones and some tablets too.

Obviously, Winamp will work with most aac streams, but even some of the older phones and tablets, and I'm talking only a year ago, won't work with aac, Winamp or otherwise. This will change in time.
 
I don't mean to say HE-AAC sounds bad, it just doesn't sound good. It definitely sounds better than MP3 at equivalent bitrates. But services like AccuRadio still don't sound good. 128k MP3 can sound both decent and poor. I think too many people stream at it thinking it will sound "near CD" but never notice that it doesn't. I think one of the biggest problems is low quality source files. 181.fm had some of the greatest sounding 128k mp3 streams I have heard. I am assuming they still do, but I no longer listen to them much.

It does all come down to personal preference. I do most of my listening using headphones and honestly anything below 192k mp3 annoys me. Even my Rhapsody subscription tracks at 160k wma are too low without using something like BBE MP. But then again I know people who can listen to 32k mp3 over their computer speakers and not notice the lack of sound quality. I still listen to lower bitrates. I listen to plenty of streams at 64k mp3 or equivalent.

I wish more media players would use BBE MP or similar technology. It really can help improve sound quality or at least give the impression of helping. One of the few technologies I have actually like, but I have not found a media player capable of using it for internet streams.
 
Casey said:
I think one of the biggest problems is low quality source files.
Click to expand...

This is a more likely crux of the issue. If the source file is crummy, say a 128k mp3 file, then yes, the sound on aac, mp3 or WMA will sound crummy on decent speakers, though may still sound fine on the standard computer speakers.

I'll be honest, I have some mp3 files (though at 192K or better) that don't sound anywhere as good as the more recent WAV files (last year or two for me-as I upgraded my drives for the capacity). M4A files sound better than mp3 at any bit rate, or even WMA. My opinion, and your mileage may vary. I even encode with some music to an FLAC file, which sounds almost as good as a WAV file. Source does matter is what I am saying.

When I first started my station, I ran only a 24K aac+ stream. It sounded good, but as mentioned, some people look at 128k mp3 to be the standard (or above). A 64K aac+ stream sounds good, and at 96K, is every bit as good as a 128K mp3 stream. I still think that aac+ sounds a bit bright overall, and I know the codecs, so realize the issue.

If you use decent headphones, you will hear the difference. Most Internet radio users just use crummy speakers at the office to listen, so at this time, may not be an issue for anyone but the audiophiles like you and me (and any others). This will change over time, and Internet radio operators will need to make the necessary adjustments.

I like aac+, but will not encode to it, until/unless it becomes universal, which it isn't now.
 
The ex-Citadel stations were the first to go on iHeartRadio because they were already on StreamTheWorld.com/Triton. Cumulus did the rest of its streaming in house, and it needs to convert them to a format iHeartRadio can use. My understanding is that the Cumulus stations are in the process of being migrated to Triton. I don't know when they'll get all of them there. Also, if they don't go to Triton all-at-once, they could either move to iHeartRadio gradually or at the same.

As for the stations sounding like a mess, I haven't heard what I'd call a "mess," but they don't sound as good as the Clear Channel and Greater Media stations, at least not to my ears.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom