IBOC vs Sirrus

[mgpt6]

I had the chance to listen to Sirrus Sat radio in a rental auto for 9days. I found the audio to be dull in the treble region If music sounds the same on HD as it did with Sirrus, I am in no rush to get an HD receiver. The only improvement was no multipath compared to analog FM stereo. Did most listening to Sirrus Ch 16, The Vault

 

[rbrucecarter5]

I had the chance to listen to Sirrus Sat radio in a rental auto for 9days. I found the audio to be dull in the treble region If music sounds the same on HD as it did with Sirrus, I am in no rush to get an HD receiver. The only improvement was no multipath compared to analog FM stereo. Did most listening to Sirrus Ch 16, The Vault

I will tell you - I've been impressed when I have it in rent cars. Both XM and Sirius have a variety unmatched on the free radio dial. This was really stark when I rented a car in a radio desert like Midland, TX. To have that variety compared to what is on the dial out there was wonderful. I don't see HD matching the number of channels or format options of satellite any time soon. Nor do I see HD reception being as robust as satellite, the only dropout I had was under the awning of the hotel. Too bad their subscription model is by radio, not by user or I would have subscribed long ago.

I've been criticized because I have an HD radio, use it to listen to an HD-2 format, and yet still criticize it. HD radio jams first adjacents on FM, and first and second adjacents on AM. When they solve that problem, I will be a big supporter of the system. As long as they jam intentionally, I will oppose the system.

This is NOT a criticism, it is an observation. Even if every FM station in Midland ran an HD-2 channel, it would still be a handful compared to satellite. Even in a large city with 3 dozen stations, all runing HD-2 and HD-3, there still wouldn't be as many channels as with satellite. And when and if cell phone based streaming hits cars - that is thousands of stations and formats, and both HD and satellite are going down. As nice as satellite was, it would still have been nicer to get the exact stations I really want. With streaming, I am in control. These days, it is all about the listener being in control. If they don't like what they hear, you are done. Of course it was always that way, but in the days before satellite and streaming, you had a captive audience except for DX'ers. Now - you don't have a captive audience any more. The captives are set free, the free market will decide what formats and stations will survive. HD radio is not an idea whose time has come. Its time was passed when streaming through cell phones became possible.

 

[R.F. Burns]

Fair enough but let’s look at this realistically. I will say that the sat signal is probably more solid for you than any terrestrial broadcaster could be. Up here in the NYC area I would get a few dropouts on the XM I had in the car during the trial period due to the large number of overpasses we have and the number of very large buildings shading reception. That is why they try to fill in these areas with land based repeaters. I haven't tried HD in the car but again, in my region, outside of the college segment of the FM band there are no first adjacent's audible. That was true prior to the advent of HD radio. HD radio can triple the number of possible radio stations heard on the FM BCB. Even if we could receive any first adjacent’s here, there is no way the loss of those weaker stations could provide the alternative formats which HD radio can. You're in a small market with I'm sure not a large metro area. Here, multipath is a real issue. HD rids FM reception of multipath and also improves stereo separation as well as allowing frequencies above 15 KHz to pass, so the high end which FM now chops off is restored. The HD codec is far superior to either what XM or Sirius is running. A properly processed HD channel isn't plagued by artifacts which are audible even on the best XM channels offered. Of course the price is right because unlike either satellite service there is no monthly fee. The reason they seek the merger is that they are both bleeding so much money that they are heading towards bankruptcy. The merger will act to limit the number of duplicated channels on either one or both services. They will have to cut costs and I know of many people who have left both satellites because they saw this coming and feared for their jobs after merger takes place. As for the hundred or so channels they offer, let’s be realistic here, how many channels or formats are you interested in? I’ll bet most people find one or two channels they like and the rest are never tuned to. Like my DirecTV, I receiver over 100n channels but really only watch about 10, at best. Most people don’t care about Lutninan lullaby’s with the Shmengie Brothers Of course my radio dial in NYC is nothing like yours in Midland, Tx. Here we can receive well over 30 different FM stations at any time and nearly that many AM stations as well and here in NY there is no AM & FM simulcasting allowed. I wish you well with your radio and wish that HD’s faults could be resolved sooner than they appear to be. I believe the internet will bring to radio what cable did to television. It siphoned off some listeners but the vast majority still wanted to hear their local stations. For a radio station like WFAN which can be heard on the internet, the expanded geography which Wi-Fi will offer will mean that while they may lose a few NY area listeners they will more than make up for that loss buy picking up the thousands of ex NYers who see WFAN as a tie to their real home and to stories about the sports teams they probably still support.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Fair enough but let’s look at this realistically. I will say that the sat signal is probably more solid for you than any terrestrial broadcaster could be. Up here in the NYC area I would get a few dropouts on the

YOu brought up some interesting points. I believe you are under the misconception I live in Midland. I am only FROM Midland - that place made me a DX'er and probably an engineer. 330 mile FM reception is no small feat, and the lack of formats I liked was the driving force behind it. I just recently returned to Midland for a funeral and rented a car. My daughter wanted Radio Disney - and KMKI 620 dutifully came in on the car radio with little static, until we passed under a power line. A poignant reminder of the years I ate static out in that dismal place trying to get radio from the cities in East Texas. I then saw the XM logo on the car radio, and switched over to her Radio Disney music, it sounded much better! Certainly better than it does in Dallas on HD radio - no funny things happening to highs. We had several family members in the rent car, and were soon exploring XM offerings of classical and other formats. WONDERFUL! If I had that satellite option growing up, I'd have never DX'ed at all.

An interesting point - the number of HD-2 channels is directly proportional to the number of stations already on the dial. So a market like Midland that only has a handful of stations, will only get a handful of new ones. HD radio may not be as compelling for those markets as it is for large metro markets like New York. I was very surprised you have few first adjacents. I was in Los Angeles recently, and first adjacents were all over the dial. I bet I could get 75 or 80 stations out there, many of them with little or no crosstalk from their neighboring frequencies. Amazing! Put HD jamming on the dial out there, diversity would probably be a wash, or a net loss. You lose two first adjacents but gain one HD-2. But the station could run an HD-3. That assumes that the format you wanted on a first adjacent appears on an HD-2 or HD-3 somewhere. Most of the new formats have little or no creativity to them, they are minor variations of the station's main format. Here in Dallas, there are less first adjacents - similar to your situation in New York. So the loss of first adjacents isn't as acute - but I do miss some of them at home. There are some real treasures out there in the fringes - I don't personally like country, but a format called "The Ranch" has developed a huge following in the area, with the owners constantly trying to arrange more rim shots on undesirable low power stations nobody else wants. But - do any of the big players in the country music arena pick up on the trend and put "The Ranch" on HD-2? No - even though they could probably make a lucrative financial deal with the owner. he moment "The Ranch" is available streaming in cars, they will take a huge chunk out of the audience of local FMs. If those listeners aren't already listening to something else anyway or putting up with poor reception in their cars. Same with Radio Disney in Lubbock - I know at least three dozen people out there listening on DX setups. Their potential audience might be in the hundreds or thousands - kids who would like to listen but can't due to equipment limitations. Those audience numbers are a big deal in a city with a population of 200,000. Has anybody put it on HD-2 out there? Multiply these scenarios by thousands of similar scenarios around the country, and you can see it is business as usual, the big boys are doing things "their way", ignoring listeners with different ideas. Potential audiences thrown away by local stations who won't listen to the audience or pick up on trends. All of those listeners nationwide are going to be streaming in a few years - abandoning locals.

Your comparison to local TV on cable is an interesting one - but the audience for local TV channels has been declining steadily for years as people tune cable programs instead. Personally, I don't watch a single program on the local stations - maybe the news in the morning. There are no programs that interest me - sickening moral filth - violence so bloody it almost spurts out of the TV screen, reality shows with very rude judges who delight in reducing people to tears. I freely admit I am now a huge Disney Channel and Nickelodeon viewer. Clean family sitcoms - something I thought I would never see again in my lifetime. Nobody is breeding like rabbits, nobody is cussing, nobody is drinking, on drugs, etc. Good acting, good scripts, clean humor - compelling entertainment. When they are in reruns, I'm on the science channels because that, too, is clean. OK - I'm wierd. But then everybody else has their narrow tastes as you pointed out. And you are right - once streaming is available, there might end up being half a dozen stations I tune to all the time that are perfect for my tastes, even though thousands are available. But statistically, finding something to my taste - or to yours - or to anybodys, increases with the number of stations available. A handful in Midland, to two or three dozen on HD radio, to hundreds on satellite, or thousands on streaming. I'll pass all the first options and go straight to streaming. I want WAY-FM Denver? It streams. I want KRBE Houston? It streams (I think). I want KKOB Albuquerque? It streams. I want KISS Los Angeles? It streams. And so forth. If they were on HD-2, I'd listen. But they aren't. Satellite hasn't picked up WAY-FM. Streaming - its the future. Everybody wants what they want, not what stations want to program. Station owners can't force everybody to like their station any more. They are DONE with their monopolies the moment streaming hits cars.

 

[JohnnyElectron]

In regards to audio quality on the birds, it depends on the bitrate used. There are two "HD" stations on XM that will knock you out with their quality, but it also eats up double the digital bandwidth. The music stations that run 48K sound as good or better than analog FM (or HD1) - but there are less and less of those as they have added more channels lowering quality down to 41K or 32K. Strangely enough, the bandwidth that XM was forced by a court order to give to ClearChannel to use and advertise on for 2 years, uses the 48K audio on music channels, and it sounds so decent you don't mind the crappy spots.

The best thing that they could do post-merger is to use the XM codec, as it is much better sounding than the older and less-efficient Sirius bandwidth; then restore the higher audio codec bandwidth to all the music channels and leave the voice where it is, as it sounds okay, with the exception of the traffic channels. The next thing they should do is get rid of Mel, as he wrecked CBS, and is doing his best to repeat at Sirius.