You tried it AT THE STORE. In a noisy environment. With no quality check...nothing familiar to you in the chain. REAL audio reviewers, in order to determine audio quality, will use something with which they are familiar to listen. Say plugging the audio output into an aux input on their stereo systems. Or hell, simply taking your favorite pair of headphones with you to the store would be a start. THEN you're comparing HD RADIO WITH ANALOG RADIO, not speakers with which you are not familiar, in a room whose acoustics are unknown to you (the biggest variable in sound systems is the ROOM IN WHICH THEY ARE AUDITIONED!), etc.
HD is vastly superior to analog in a few ways that could be completely obscured in a showroom...noise level (I guarantee the noise level in the room was so high you couldn't hear the noise threshold of analog FM...at probably -50 to -60db, much less digital, which is as much as 40db quieter), distortion (obscured by other sounds around you, and the fact that you're not familiar with the speakers!), and frequency response (HD has FAR greater clarity at high frequencies...because there's no 75us pre-emphasis...and to a lesser degree, because frequency response is more extended. Here's a question 700...DO YOU KNOW THAT THE SPEAKER IN THE BOSTON ACOUSTICS DOESN'T ROLL OFF AT FREQUENCIES ABOVE 10khz, swamping your ability to hear the last two types of differences? Of course you don't know. Neither do I. But I sure know the response characteristics of my speakers at home! Hence the suggestion that you should use either a system you're familiar with...YOURS AT HOME, or at least your favorite headphones. Hell, it's not just radio. NO audio gear can be fairily auditioned in most stores, which is why reputable dealers have always allowed home demos.
Even then you're not getting scientifically valid results, because YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE LISTENING TO. You carry your biases with you. Valid tests should be done double-blind, with you having no freaking idea whether you're comparing HD to analog, cd to cassette, or PVC siding to brick!
Think that's too much trouble? Getting fair test results IS a lot of trouble. Which is why I'd never give a crap about what someone I have never met says on a blog. P-L-E-A-S-E! I grew up in an era with REAL audio JOURNALISTS, as serious about their profession as journalists covering any other field...people like Len Feldman, Bert Whyte, and yes Julian Hirsch, who dared to believe that most things in audio were MEASURABLE.
Let me get this straight...you had ONE experience with ONE radio in ONE store, and concluded that since you couldn't get more than two stations in HD on the Boston Acoustics, IN THE STORE, HD is "defective". From that "experience" you conclude that others who own the radios and are using them in real homes made of wood and brick, and getting great results, are either delusional or lying. People like me who went to the trouble of posting recordings of what HD actually sounds like are the "enemy". People like you, who have listen to one raido in one store on one occasion are the "authority". That's reality in your bizarro world!
Look, MOST people who have compared the Boston to other radios have found it to be "sensitivity challenged". My first exposure to HD was last summer, at Tweeter in Winston Salem NC. Surrounded by multiple 100kw flame-throwers, I literally couldnt' get ANYTHING in HD. The RF level must have been high enough to light a light bulb in that location, but NUTTIN' on the Boston. Did I conclude that HD was "defective"? No, but I sure left with some doubts. I wrestled for months with whether to buy a radio as a test, and asked numerous engineers if they thought I'd get anything. "Your guess is as good as mine" was the almost unanimous response followed by "but I'm really curious, so let me know!"
300 dollars is a lot for me to pay for an experiment, so I never ordered a Receptor HD, despite a burning desire to learn the "truth" about HD. Would it actually reach me 60 to 80 miles from the nearest stations? Well the Black Friday special at Radio Shack was just the nudge I needed. A HUNDRED FREAKIN' BUCKS, and I could get my money back if it didn't pick up anything. HOW COULD I NOT HAVE TRIED IT? Well it exceeded ANYTHING I had read that HD was capable of (in terms of distance, and stability with a simple indoor antenna). MOST PEOPLE getting 80+ mile HD reception are using outdoor antennas and rotors. Hell, I'd venture that most people getting clean FM STEREO reception are using ourdoor antennas and rotors.
It was at this point that I realized that HD went just as far as CLEAN, noise-free FM Stereo. In my experience, if a station is HD, and you can get a clean, noise-free, non-blended analog signal, YOU CAN GET HD. Furthermore, there are MANY circumstances where the analog is afflicted with multipath distortion, and/or blending from weak signal conditions, but the HD is rock solid. So in these circumstances, HD PROVIDES A CLEAN SIGNAL AT A GREATER DISTANCE THAN HD! This is what I found by doing a real test.
At the most you determined that the Receptor HD didn't perform well at the store. HOW DARE YOU not only apply that as a blanket condemnation of all other radios (which by your own admission you haven't tried), but actually post "reviews" on multiple sites of products you've never used?
If I went into a store in the middle of the day, picked up a multiband portable, got no AM stations, and concluded that AM itself was "defective", what would that say about analog AM technology? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! At best it would say I was misinformed. At worst, that I wasn't anyone that any serious person should ever turn to for "advice".
I hope, this makes you feel better ?