Why does, when I turn it on a station, always make it sound like it's off a internet stream?
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HD Radio Sounds Weird
- Thread starter eskipper411
- Start date
K
kenglish
Guest
That may be where they are getting it from.
Also, some stations use those unlicensed-band wireless data links for an STL for their HD streams.
Also, some stations use those unlicensed-band wireless data links for an STL for their HD streams.
And I always have to chime in with 'cascading codecs', ie the use of multiple compression schemes one after the other. If the station's got compressed music on a server (mp3) then lossy compresses it digitially through the STL then re-encodes it for HD, then it's gonna sound really, really bad.
eskipper411 said:
Because HD radio sounds like absolute trash. Plain and simple. There is nothing great about it. Especially if the station you are listening to is multicasting HD 2 and 3. I'd take analog stereo over it any day. Heck most internet streams out of Stream the World sound BETTER. HD Radio failed. Hopefully whoever got payed to call it HD(which doesn't mean anything FYI) to fool the public took the money and ran.
Not to worry, joe - the initial developers cashed out and made for the border long ago, making sure they didn't give their real names all the way! 
In addition to the bad server audio, if the originating station is programming material off a satellite receiver and/or plays commercials from advertising agencies (which is the dominant method these days) the artifacts from the mp3 encoding and the HD digital encoding are additive. The weirdness multiplies, and the human ear is very sensitive to it. The effects often complained about are a "metallic" quality, "swimming" as is heard on internet streams, shrillness or disorienting "chorusing" effects. It's most noticeable on the human voice.
At least analog audio, with its even-order harmonics and rich, random distortions, still sounds more like real sound. (I'll personally take the typical noise of a broadcast band any day over the fakery that happens to offer a low noise floor.)
In addition to the bad server audio, if the originating station is programming material off a satellite receiver and/or plays commercials from advertising agencies (which is the dominant method these days) the artifacts from the mp3 encoding and the HD digital encoding are additive. The weirdness multiplies, and the human ear is very sensitive to it. The effects often complained about are a "metallic" quality, "swimming" as is heard on internet streams, shrillness or disorienting "chorusing" effects. It's most noticeable on the human voice.
At least analog audio, with its even-order harmonics and rich, random distortions, still sounds more like real sound. (I'll personally take the typical noise of a broadcast band any day over the fakery that happens to offer a low noise floor.)
About the only thing HD proponents can point to is a lower noise floor. But how long has it been since most radio listening took place in a quiet living room with a real Hi-Fi system setup?
I can't appreciate that lower noise floor even when driving in my Camry, which is a relatively quiet car.
I'll take analog AM or FM any day of the week! I hate digital artifacts!
I can't appreciate that lower noise floor even when driving in my Camry, which is a relatively quiet car.
I'll take analog AM or FM any day of the week! I hate digital artifacts!
I like analog. It's like digital, with an infinite sampling rate, and infinite quantization.
Reminds me of some of the early arguments of how color messed up traditional TV:
It causes vibrations between adjacent areas of different colors, the chroma causes roughness in smooth areas and intense red and blue change the relative lightness of areas (color bars only look right when you soft focus ta monochrome receiver), the sharpness is only a fraction as great as the luminance signal, some BS about the human eyes not being able to notice these things, and intense colors cause intercarrier buzzing.
It causes vibrations between adjacent areas of different colors, the chroma causes roughness in smooth areas and intense red and blue change the relative lightness of areas (color bars only look right when you soft focus ta monochrome receiver), the sharpness is only a fraction as great as the luminance signal, some BS about the human eyes not being able to notice these things, and intense colors cause intercarrier buzzing.
ai4i said:
Two big differences here:
1. The color television signal remained within the allocated 6 MHz bandwidth. If a station chose to accept those compromises, such as they were, they were hurting only themselves. The HD system generates out-of-band radiation that technically violates 73.317, but Ibiquity convinced the FCC to interpret that rule using a narrow-band measurement scheme that wasn't even possible when 73.317 was first written. The real-world result is significant adjacent-channel interference.
2. The difference between black-and-white TV and color TV was far more dramatic and obvious. Not so much with analog FM vs. HD.
Dave B.
"No, it's the crystal-clear digital audio you're finally hearing after being subjected to distorted analog FM stereo."
ATSC seems work the same way as an internet video stream as HD is to an internet audio stream. Buffering is a pain, but I hate those time delays! That's the way digital works, whether wired or wireless.
ATSC seems work the same way as an internet video stream as HD is to an internet audio stream. Buffering is a pain, but I hate those time delays! That's the way digital works, whether wired or wireless.
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