Mike Walker said:
First of all, of course WDAV's announcer mic is lower than the music. That's the way they do it in classical radio. Almost no processing.
That's not what I said. I said the levels in the announcer's voice were reduced from around 15.6kHz on up. Now, quite obviously, those frequencies aren't used as much in human speech as they are in music, but the difference was noticeable between WDAV and the other stations. Yes, it very well could be the processing or lack thereof (and yes, I understand that's how classical stations are processed)... but this was a very awkward-sounding result if that was the cause. As I said before, it has an almost-but-not-quite cutoff sound to it.
Mike Walker said:
Nobody...and I mean NOBODY who has heard this file has responded the way you have. You obviously ain't an HD fan.
No, I'm not, however I can listen to clips with an unbiased ear. My problems with HD Radio are purely technical, and they have nothing to do with sound quality. I know how good HD can sound when done properly... these stations just don't sound to me like they're on that level, at least not through this file. Again, as I said before, even with cascading codecs taken into consideration, I haven't heard digitalization like this in other clips. It just sounds bad.
Mike Walker said:
I have never, and I mean NEVER heard analog fm approach what I'm hearing on HD stations like WDAV. I can actually hear the noise threshold of the recording...and I mean DIGITAL RECORDING fall away as a cd ends. Ever heard that on analog radio?
Yes, though I've never really had the desire to. That's not the type of thing the typical listener seeks to hear on the radio. I don't think many News/Talk, CHR or Country listeners are going to say, "Wow, that barely noticeable background noise that I was never even sure was there to begin with and didn't even really notice until now no longer exists!"
Mike Walker said:
Well done HD is many orders of magnitude more transparent than analog, ESPECIALLY for those of us who live in multipath-ridden areas, at a distance from the tower. I am in the fringe of EVERY fm signal (except for WKBC FM here in Wilkes County). Sure, analog approaches this level of quality IN THE CITY. But not here in the boonies. It's a freaking revelation! If you don't hear it, or don't care, don't buy. It's your money. That simple.
I understand it's a great advancement in sound quality, and it suffers multipath much less and a lot better than analogue. But, once again, how many listeners are really going to care about that? Radio is losing it's audience because of
programming (or lack thereof), not because the audio isn't CD-quality. HD is a solution to a problem that doesn't truly exist.
As to everyone's comments about HD processing, I would recommend the following to any engineer. First, process the audio as you would analogue. Then turn off the pre-emphasis and reproduce the pre-emphasized sound as best you can (this reduces the chances of overloading the codec, especially in the high-end frequencies where most of the trouble is found). Then roll off the audio frequencies that result in artifacts at the bitrate the station streams (obviously this will vary from station to station depending on bitrate and processing). Then tweak your high end in the processor in order to bring out the lower high-end frequencies to compensate... not
too much, but just enough to make the listener notice that there
is high-end there. You definitely don't want those frequencies standing out, however, and that's
very easy to make happen, so work that section
carefully. Finally, test all of these settings on a typical radio,
not a studio-quality monitor. The average listener isn't listening through a pair of Mackies, they're most likely listening through their car stereo or a portable radio at home. It should sound good on
those devices, not your professional-grade test tuner.
Additionally, take notes from those who engineer Internet radio stations. They know what they're doing when it comes to digital processing.
