KTOK audio question

[317C50KW]

My wife and I were traveling though OKC two weeks ago and spent some time listening to KTOK during the day. I was surprised at their lifeless audio quality.
We were listening on our car radio (09 Ford Edge, decent AM section). Compared to other AM's in the market and those we heard in KC, Des Moines and Minneapolis they reminded me of a badly maintained small town AM'er. I know "Oklahoma's Radio 10" (from their old TM jingle of the late 70's) is a CC station and they were on a kick to limit bandwidth/frequency response years ago but it was surprising how inferior they sounded.

Anyone, like OKC Radio Guy have an answer?

 

[philspice1]

I think it has to do with the fact that they have HD Radio running. KFAQ in Tulsa sounds very flat to me as well and they have HD. As I understand it, stations have to cut their higher frequency analog audio for the HD signal to work.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Yup. It's another great "feature" of AM-HD radio. The sooner the industry gets around to understanding how big of a failure AM-HD is the better off we will be. AM-HD belongs on the former channel 5 and 6 TV frequencies below the FM band. Trying to force it into the existing MW (AM) band just proves how idiotic the big players that backed IBOC in the first place are. It works about as well as nationwide contests. LOL!