Don't forget FM had an uphill battle as well.

[radioworld]

Here is an ad from 1965 for GE FM Radios. The prices in 1965 dollars are a lot more expensive than HD receivers are today. The problem is not that people will not spend the money for the receiver, there just isn't enough compelling programming to justify the effort.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffcarter629/5919415888/sizes/l/in/photostream/

 

[Darth_vader]

"[T]here just isn't enough compelling programming yet to justify the effort."

Fixed.

 

[spunker88]

FM did catch on eventually though. People today spend a lot more on electronics than they did in the 1960s and if they like something they will buy it. Look at how many computers, laptops, smartphones, MP3 players, etc that people have bought in the last decade.

For most people analog FM sounds fine. There is a huge quality difference between 10khz mono AM and FM that anybody can tell. The difference between analog FM and HD is harder to tell, and if the station runs too many HD channels the quality can be worse, so its a step backwards.

 

[KeyTimes950]

The difference between analog FM and HD is harder to tell, and if the station runs too many HD channels the quality can be worse, so its a step backwards.

So far, when I can pick up an HD subchannel, it usually is as clean and clear as the HD1 station. Two Pittsburgh stations carry three HD subchannels apiece, all with different types of music, and all seem to sound fairly good. It's two subchannels apiece for the CBS and Clear Channel FMs.

The main issue for Pittsburgh right now is the question of how many will invest in HD to pick up the FM 90.5 jazz subchannel (WDUQ formerly had mixes of news and jazz on each, but that has changed with "Essential Public Radio" and its all-NPR/APR/BBC/but not every NPR talk show schedule).
Adding to the uncertainty of that is the likelihood that one or two online stations soon will pick up the slack for jazz fans, the same way some entrepreneurs went online after the old WAMO expired.

 

[cough]

didn't fm get some help from the fcc?

 

[RadeoEngineer]

The difference between analog FM and HD is harder to tell, and if the station runs too many HD channels the quality can be worse, so its a step backwards.

So far, when I can pick up an HD subchannel, it usually is as clean and clear as the HD1 station. Two Pittsburgh stations carry three HD subchannels apiece, all with different types of music, and all seem to sound fairly good. It's two subchannels apiece for the CBS and Clear Channel FMs.

The main issue for Pittsburgh right now is the question of how many will invest in HD to pick up the FM 90.5 jazz subchannel (WDUQ formerly had mixes of news and jazz on each, but that has changed with "Essential Public Radio" and its all-NPR/APR/BBC/but not every NPR talk show schedule).
Adding to the uncertainty of that is the likelihood that one or two online stations soon will pick up the slack for jazz fans, the same way some entrepreneurs went online after the old WAMO expired.

I'm not trying to be in any way insulting, but I have to wonder how old you are and what type of listening environment you grew up in. Most of us old geezers are used to full fidelity records and non-compressed CD's on high end audio equipment. Many younger folk have grown up listening to MP3's on lower quality players and earbuds. I can hear the artifacts in a full bandwith (meaning no HD 2 or 3) HD broadcast. For me, listening to an HD 2 and especially 3 is literally painful.

 

[TheBigA]

The problem is not that people will not spend the money for the receiver, there just isn't enough compelling programming to justify the effort.

What was true in 1965 doesn't apply in 2011. There IS compelling programming on HD, but people don't know it exists. They also don't care, because they can get it for free from other places without replacing their receiver. That option didn't exist in 1965.

Take for example the situation with satellite radio. No question that there IS compelling programming there. Still, consumers won't pay for it. They won't buy new radios and they won't pay a monthly subscription. Why? Because free radio is sufficient, and if it isn't, they can get the same content on the net.

Radio companies know they can spend lots of money to put compelling programming on HD, and wait another ten years or more for them to buy the radios. Or they can put the same programming on internet channels like iheartradio and people can enjoy it now for free. Most companies seem to be doing the latter.

 

[KeyTimes950]

I'm not trying to be in any way insulting, but I have to wonder how old you are and what type of listening environment you grew up in. Most of us old geezers are used to full fidelity records and non-compressed CD's on high end audio equipment. Many younger folk have grown up listening to MP3's on lower quality players and earbuds. I can hear the artifacts in a full bandwith (meaning no HD 2 or 3) HD broadcast. For me, listening to an HD 2 and especially 3 is literally painful.

I take no insult. I use an earbud to listen to my HD -- it had been two but one already is broken so I'm listening to both channels of stereo through one earbud. I worked in radio in one form or another from 1974 until 1982 and again from 1987 until 2000. One possible factor is that much of my work was with AM radio, though I have also done some TV production and am well aware of the quality FM can offer from a number of opportunities in west-central and central Pennsylvania.

Also, I still feel more comfortable scanning AM, growing up in a market (Pittsburgh) where AM was dominant (with some exceptions, such as WDVE-102.5) until well into the 1980s and only now has problems getting enough listeners to make a difference. Equally, my comfort about AM is changing with the growing number of FM options I can enjoy and the declining quality of my favorite AMs.

It would appear that we have different levels of tolerance for what is playing on our respective sources of music, news and noise. I admit I may not be as fine-tuned to the quality of each HD band as you appear to be. Thanks for the observation.

 

[KeithE4]

I'm not trying to be in any way insulting, but I have to wonder how old you are and what type of listening environment you grew up in. Most of us old geezers are used to full fidelity records and non-compressed CD's on high end audio equipment. Many younger folk have grown up listening to MP3's on lower quality players and earbuds....

Most of us old geezers grew up listening to The Beatles and their compatriots on cheap transistor AM radios with a 5-10 kHz audio response. We couldn't afford decent stereos until we started working for a living, and by that time (late '60s to mid '70s), FM was already beginning to take over the rock market from AM.

AM never sounded good to the average listener, but until FM radios became commonplace, it sounded good enough - like the MP3 players of today. Even if an AM station had good equipment, top-quality engineers and a fantastic sound, it was probably being listened to on a cheap-to-medium-priced radio, tube or solid-state. Most consumer-grade table radios and stereos even in the tube days weren't all that great on AM, as far as audio quality is concerned. The All-American Five was not designed for top-notch performance. Neither was the average 8- to 10-transistor table radio.

And, even today's cheapest earbuds sound better than those garbage earphones that were packed with those transistor radios - assuming the tiny #30 wires weren't broken at the earpiece or the 2.5 mm plug wasn't bent. ;D

 

[davideduardo]

didn't fm get some help from the fcc?

FM started before WW II, and it was not until 1967 that the FCC sort of slip-clutched it into gear. Effective at the start of that year, simulcasts that were not with daytime AMs or that did not have a waiver had to split and do separate FM programming. That, in a way, forced owners who had been in some cases simulcasting for more than two decades, to do something different. Since the big AMs did not want to hurt their own successful operations, "unique" formats tended to be the rule... rock on one side and Beautiful Music on the other.

The FCC's idea of help seems to be things like Docket 80-90.

 

[Tom Wells]

I'm not trying to be in any way insulting, but I have to wonder how old you are and what type of listening environment you grew up in. Most of us old geezers are used to full fidelity records and non-compressed CD's on high end audio equipment. Many younger folk have grown up listening to MP3's on lower quality players and earbuds....

Most of us old geezers grew up listening to The Beatles and their compatriots on cheap transistor AM radios with a 5-10 kHz audio response. We couldn't afford decent stereos until we started working for a living, and by that time (late '60s to mid '70s), FM was already beginning to take over the rock market from AM.

AM never sounded good to the average listener, but until FM radios became commonplace, it sounded good enough - like the MP3 players of today. Even if an AM station had good equipment, top-quality engineers and a fantastic sound, it was probably being listened to on a cheap-to-medium-priced radio, tube or solid-state. Most consumer-grade table radios and stereos even in the tube days weren't all that great on AM, as far as audio quality is concerned. The All-American Five was not designed for top-notch performance. Neither was the average 8- to 10-transistor table radio.

And, even today's cheapest earbuds sound better than those garbage earphones that were packed with those transistor radios - assuming the tiny #30 wires weren't broken at the earpiece or the 2.5 mm plug wasn't bent. ;D

Those "earplugs" of 1967 did sound horrible, but then there was no such thing then as a 2.5mm anything in this country.
There WERE 1/4 inch jacks, 1/8 inch jacks, and some tiiny 1/16 inch jacks.
I had/have lots of AM radios with more than 10 khz upper end...the squeal of 10 khz was audible on almost any every AM radio back then.
WLS and WCFL, heard within 50 or miles easily had response up to 13-14 khz or so, definitely higher than 10 khz.
Not all stations by any means. WIND and WGN were very muddy sounding compared to 'CFL and 'LS.


Amazingly, the high impedqance piezo-crystal earplugs that came with "crystal" radios had very good high end response.
They just weren't very loud and wouldn't work at all in a low impedance transistor radio output circuit.
They still make great cheap signal tracers when combined with a diode.

 

[davideduardo]

I'm not trying to be in any way insulting, but I have to wonder how old you are and what type of listening environment you grew up in. Most of us old geezers are used to full fidelity records and non-compressed CD's on high end audio equipment. Many younger folk have grown up listening to MP3's on lower quality players and earbuds. I can hear the artifacts in a full bandwith (meaning no HD 2 or 3) HD broadcast. For me, listening to an HD 2 and especially 3 is literally painful.

My first radio was a Zenith 8-transistor portable (like the first cellular phone bricks were portable). I found a working and identical one recently, complete with the kind of earphone Keith describes. It has audio that is somewhere between excrement and piss in likability, and the earphone is an order of magnitude worse, even listening to several of the ethnic stations in LA that play music and are "good" sounding by AM standards.

The difference is that my crappy sounding Zenith, in 1958, sounded no worse than any other comparable radio. I could tell the difference, as in 1960 I got an FM portable and although all the programming was for what I saw as "old farts" I did like classical music and forced myself to like Mantovanni. Of course, the radio had no AFC and had to be re-tuned constantly, and the quality of many recordings was not great, particularly since plenty of them were mixed for AM sound.

I built my first FM about 6 years later, and realized that AM would eventually surrender music to the new band. But by then, the standard of comparison was the good 33 rpm stereo LP, and that made listening to AM a growingly horrible experience. It was also the era of the component stereo and "oh, like wow, you can almost smell the Jack on Janis' breath on that song..."

I have not had a component stereo since the early to mid 80's, because that's when the portability of the CD and miniaturization came in. The cassette had made low-fi tolerable again, and miniature CD portables did a little more. And then we got to the MP3 player, and I'd rather listen to 128 kbs MP3s than deal with the storage and cumbersome nature of using anything else. And they are better than AM music, which is where my original frame of reference was formed.

It's all about perceived value. I have 4000 songs on my phone. I listen on earbuds. They sound just fine for my purpose. And since radio and the music industry both depend on people younger, much younger, than you and I, that is really the frame of reference to use.

 

[KeithE4]

Those "earplugs" of 1967 did sound horrible, but then there was no such thing then as a 2.5mm anything in this country.
There WERE 1/4 inch jacks, 1/8 inch jacks, and some tiiny 1/16 inch jacks.

Yes, you are correct. But they still bent way too easily and the wires were too thin (of course, the earbuds of today are just as bad).

I had/have lots of AM radios with more than 10 khz upper end...the squeal of 10 khz was audible on almost any every AM radio back then.

WLS and WCFL, heard within 50 or miles easily had response up to 13-14 khz or so, definitely higher than 10 khz.
Not all stations by any means. WIND and WGN were very muddy sounding compared to 'CFL and 'LS.

They may have had a 13 kHz response at the transmitter, but most of the radios that were tuned to them certainly didn't. There may have been higher-end table radios with that kind of audio quality (assuming the IF amplifier of the AM tuner was wide enough to pass it), but the average kid in the '60s (like me) certainly didn't own that kind of radio. None of the cheap-o AM radios I owned had any kind of decent audio. Even if the circuits could handle it, the cheap 2.5- to 4-inch speaker with a small magnet certainly couldn't.

 

[davideduardo]

I had/have lots of AM radios with more than 10 khz upper end...the squeal of 10 khz was audible on almost any every AM radio back then. WLS and WCFL, heard within 50 or miles easily had response up to 13-14 khz or so, definitely higher than 10 khz.

And we pushed the monaural audio from records processed for AM through StaLevels, Level Devils and Audimax-Volumax duos with the zero-ohm resistor option applied. When the needle on the mod monitor had to be viewed up close to see any movement, we knew the station sounded "good." Yeah, that was quality, fer sure.

 

[L. DeForest]

My God, if I hear the FM/digital radio comparison again I'm going to puke.

When FM came on the scene it didn't didn't displace anything. No service was lost. No channels were squeezed out. There was no interference to existing services and, once again, the list goes on and on. I was there and that's how it was. It was another new service you could select or not.

The FM to digital radio comparison is so bogus in so many ways it's hard to fathom how any thoughtful person would even go there. The only people that tout it are pro digital radio in a feeble and misguided attempt to push it.

 

[tomservo]

I have not had a component stereo since the early to mid 80's, because that's when the portability of the CD and miniaturization came in. The cassette had made low-fi tolerable again, and miniature CD portables did a little more. And then we got to the MP3 player, and I'd rather listen to 128 kbs MP3s than deal with the storage and cumbersome nature of using anything else. And they are better than AM music, which is where my original frame of reference was formed.

Dunno what it is about my hearing, but I'm the opposite. If the choice is between a 128 kbps mp3 file and a decent music station on my AMAX Walkman, well I'll pick the Walkman every time. The warbly, twinkly, swishy computer-addled high frequencies of the humble mp3 file drive me up a wall. Always have, probably always will. Sadly, the only music on AM worth listening to here (a new classic country outlet) uses some really crappy compression and it's noticeable even on the AM broadcast. (The FM, in another county, is unlistenable.)

Luckily I skipped over the early days of the mp3, back when many folks used this horrible encoder… I forget its name. Xing? Something like that. It shat out turds from perfectly good music, and most people couldn't tell the difference. Through those years I was a album/CD straight to chrome tape kind of guy, then later straight to minidisc after ATRAC got sorted out a bit. ATRAC was a lossy compression like mp3 but for whatever reason, Sony's boffins worked some magic and it was very pleasurable to listen to. Not perfect uncompressed, but pleasurable. Minidiscs are being discontinued later this year.

But I digress. FM offered something new, apparently, along with higher fidelity (although personally I cannot listen to most FM stations for any length due to ear fatigue). Also, weren't there a ton of FM radios available in the 60's? The same cannot be said of HD. HD's rocky start was a disaster. It should have gone straight into car radios, portables and home receivers instead of this "HD Ready" nonsense that required a separate tuner purchase. And there certainly should have been more than 2 or 3 mainstream stereo manufacturers making equipment. The push should have been massive and enticing. HD everywhere, in all kinds of radios. No one is going to buy a HD-special radio these days, it has to come already in the device they're buying and not cost anything extra. That's what those myrmidons at the iBiquity World Headquarters and Sno Ball Shoppe never got through their thick skulls.

 

[Groove1670]

HD is dead for now. Most small stations won't pay for the rights to use it, and the signal in most cases is weak. Unless the FCC mandates HD (that is for another discussion), and increases power levels. It will take a long time for acceptance.

 

[nd2023]

Even if the FCC mandated that every radio sold after tomorrow was required to decode HD, it would take years before it's widely adopted. I have a '92 Honda Accord that runs great and I plan to keep it until it's not worth repairing. It's not going to have an HD radio in it unless a local HD2 flips to dance because I don't want to spend more than the car is worth to install an HD radio just for the sake of upgrading. The average person would be even less compelled to replace their perfectly fine car radio. I met someone last month who had an HD radio in her car, and she intentionally disabled the HD feature because it was annoying to listen to the HD1 and analog swap. She got the aftermarket HD radio as a gift, and had to go to the place that installed it to disable HD.

There was a car manufacturer that made HD radio a feature in luxury cars, and people complained about the HD reception. The car manufacturer gave them floor mats as compensation. Floor mats > HD radio

 

[davideduardo]

There was a car manufacturer that made HD radio a feature in luxury cars, and people complained about the HD reception. The car manufacturer gave them floor mats as compensation. Floor mats > HD radio

BMW put HD in every model, I believe, starting in 2008 (It was an option in 2007) and they still do. They apparently had a few complaints, mostly due to consumers not understanding that HD was not on every station and opted to please them with a small gift. That's BMW's SOP; I had a difficulty with one BMW and was given an engine upgrade when I bought a newer one. It's just good customer service.

 

[rtc]

Zach,the Minidisc will be gone by September:

http://www.reghardware.com/2011/07/08/sony_to_can_minidisc_walkman/