HD Receptor's ratings:
31 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
Destined to join 80s "AM-Stereo" as another FAILED EXPERIMENT in Broadcasting!, August 20, 2006
Reviewer: HippoRadio "TOO BIG--a 60s-70s fan" (Indianapolis, IN) - See all my reviews
Sad...VERY SAD considering the original monaural non-HD Receptor Radio at HALF the cost is an unchallenged BEST OF CLASS! I purchased the "original" several years ago, and since have given two as gifts plus recommended that product to over a dozen. In EVERY case, the user satisfaction was overwhelmingly positive. Audio quality (for its size) is stunning; FM reception is outstanding; AM reception and sound quality is well above the norm; and the radio is simply gorgeous. Boston Acoustics is a fine company with a tradition of innovative, well built, high performance audio at an excellent price point.
So BA returns with "Son of Receptor"--its new entry into the deeply flawed world of terrestrial digital over-the-air AM/FM broadcasting. Not since STEREO on the "Anciently-Modulated" AM band back in the 80s, has there been a technology accepted by the broad consumer public with so little enthusiasm. One has to wonder WHY a company as well-settled as BA would even bother; since the technical deficiencies of this system were so apparent, and corresponding user dissatisfaction so easy to predict! Basically, you can double the price of the original product (which--thank goodness--is still available), and for it--get an additional channel of audio plus HD radio capability on the AM and FM bands.
Several other reviewers here have noted the sub-standard reception and poor value-added by the costly digital broadcast capability--I fully concur. Note also, that most of the positive reviews of this radio are BY BROADCASTERS driven to promote this technology! Fortunately, the outstanding audio amplification and speaker performance is retained in the Receptor HD unit--with dual-channel (stereo) capacity. The addition of a line-level input provides a perfect interface and solution for playing a portable MP3 player at room-filling volume thru high quality speakers. The Receptor HD retains all the fine features found in its predecessor. Here, my accolades come to a screeching halt!
Uninterested in purchasing this unit myself (and I'm a radio and technology addict), I had the opportunity to divert one destined for return by an unsatisfied buyer and give it a test drive. I first ascertained that the unit was NOT defective--just "lackluster". I noticed NO significant improvement in a station's audio quality in the HD mode on FM--in fact some sounded "shallow" when compared to their analog counterpart. AM quality, on the scant few stations that could be received in digital, was substantially higher in fidelity and lower in noise--but those digital signals were very "fragile" (often dropping back to analog). Overall, AM and FM reception on the more costly Receptor HD Radio is unimpressive at best, and well below that of its half-priced analog papa.
Further consider that the IBOC FM digital transmission coverage is about HALF that of the corresponding analog service area (even less on AM), so there goes that "sterling-silver sound" you paid so dearly for in this product. As for the multi-channel service on digital FM--its listenable area is even smaller still; and many of these "secret signals" are but low-bitrate streams offering sub-analog quality. Most annoying about this unit is it's lack of provision for a "locked" mode selection back to the more reliable analog service when (not if) the digital reception falters. How could the seemingly identical offspring of such an exceptional station-chaser go flat in the more costly upgrade? The simple answer I suspect lies in the IBOC system itself.
Fact is...IBOC causes more reception problems than it mitigates, so how'd this ever get hatched? Politics and corporate gain. Interestingly, some of the partners in iBiquity (which exclusively licenses the IBOC digital technology to both stations and the consumer electronics industry) are the same corporate characters that bring you less variety and more commercials on current terrestrial radio. The IBOC standard is unique to the U.S. alone. Canada, Europe, the Pacific Rim--even Mexico use a superior system for digital radio transmission.
In a morose way, the purchase of this radio contributes to several forms of delinquency. Any large-scale advance in the popularity and propagation of the IBOC digital system is destined to dramatically increase interference on both AM and FM bands which already are deeply degraded by such. Furthermore, it also rewards the corporate broadcast players you already love; who literally "wrote their own rules" setting a digital standard--then profited from them while you pay double for a radio with lower performance than its analog equivalent.
Here is yet another example of the "DIGITAL is NOT necessarily BETTER" reality. I can't attest to the cost IBOC digital adds to this radio--I only know that its performance DOES NOT justify its price. I'll save the $$$.$$ and install satellite radio... Or buy a bigger hard drive for *Tunes and the CDs I purchase here at Amazon!
