NPR labs releases a list of recommended HD Radio receivers

[ElCheapo]

I found this interesting. NPR labs has released a list of radios that they say "deliver first-rate technical performance."

At the top of the list: Boston Acoustics Receptor HD - NPR Labs calls its FM performance "excellent"

http://www.nprlabs.org/public/research/NPRLabsRecommendedHDRadiosNov2006.pdf

I'm curious now. Since practically all of the HD bashers here accept NPR's somewhat critical study on HD Radio as gospel truth, will you also accept as gospel truth that the Receptor HD is an "excellent" radio?

This has to put the anti-HD crowd here in a tough spot. On one hand, you love to bash the Receptor HD but on the other hand you also love to tout the NPR study.

 

[700WLW]

I found this interesting. NPR labs has released a list of radios that they say "deliver first-rate technical performance."

At the top of the list: Boston Acoustics Receptor HD - NPR Labs calls its FM performance "excellent"

http://www.nprlabs.org/public/research/NPRLabsRecommendedHDRadiosNov2006.pdf

I'm curious now. Since practically all of the HD bashers here accept NPR's somewhat critical study on HD Radio as gospel truth, will you also accept as gospel truth that the Receptor HD is an "excellent" radio?

This has to put the anti-HD crowd here in a tough spot. On one hand, you love to bash the Receptor HD but on the other hand you also love to tout the NPR study.

If you go over to the "sister" site, you will see that all HD radios have lousy reception and require elevated dipole antennas.

 

[ElCheapo]

If you go over to the "sister" site, you will see that all HD radios have lousy reception and require elevated dipole antennas.

That's funny... NPR does recommend the use of a dipole, but they also characterize the FM reception of the Receptor HD as "excellent" not "lousy."

 

[700WLW]

That's funny, almost every experience with HD radio on the "sister" board has been dismal in terms of reception - read the latest snippets in the "HD Radio Receiver Sensitivity" thread.

That's great dude, but what does it have to do with the NPR reports? I'm going to assume the NPR engineers aren't posting at the "sister" board.

You're a funny guy. You chastise people for posting in what you consider to be the wrong threads then you try to hijack other threads with totally irrelevant posts.

It's real-world experience with HD radios, versus a lab environment from NPR's reports, which obvioulsy have an agenda (weren't they allocated millions by Congress for digital radio).

 

[wgliradio]

I'm curious now. Since practically all of the HD bashers here accept NPR's somewhat critical study on HD Radio as gospel truth, will you also accept as gospel truth that the Receptor HD is an "excellent" radio?

This has to put the anti-HD crowd here in a tough spot. On one hand, you love to bash the Receptor HD but on the other hand you also love to tout the NPR study.

I am not an HD supporter, but reception-wise, the Accurian is better all around than the BA I had. I am actually very impressed at what it can get with the supplied "T" antenna and loop. I get all the NYC 50kw AM'ers with ease some 45 miles east. WABC was even noisy and the radio went to HD and stayed.

FM, I can only get a few locals in HD and WALK is the only one I can get every time. But as far as picking up stations in good old analog? I can hear the Hartford FM's on the Accurian. Better than my Super Radio or KLH 21. I couldn't do that on the BA, with the supplied antenna or a T from Radio Shack. It wasn't until the roof antenna came along that the radio finally opened up on FM. The Accurian does all this with an indoor antenna. I may have a good one, but I won't complain. I paid $99 for it and that's what it is worth. The BA is not worth any more than $99 either.

Perhaps one of the GOOD things about HD is that it will finally force these receiver manufacturers to actually build GOOD radios for the first time in 20+ years. When was the last time you could say a tuner with a RADIO SHACK name on it beat a vintage KLH and a good GE portable?

 

[amfmsw]

Keep it all. I'll stick with my Marantz 10B. It keeps out the hash.

 

[Chuck]

I'm guessing that BA gave NPR a good one. I'd certainly make sure they got a great example if it were my radio they were going to review.

The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. It seems these radios have a lot of quality control issues. Some of them seem to be as deaf as a fence post, others seem to be OK. It's still a problem, because first impressions are important.

 

[hipporadio]

I'm guessing that BA gave NPR a good one...

...and I’m guessing that BA gave my friend a bad one—who then gave it to me for ten days to put thru the paces (in an HD-laden area) before he boxed it up for return to Amazon. No... It wasn’t a Ziff-Davis lab evaluation complete with a detailed report on tuner capture ratio. In fact, the HD Receptor captured VERY LITTLE radio period—compared to its exceptional mono cousin, which I have owned for many years.

I have not reviewed the NPR report that is critical of HD radio; but considering the Public Radio culture, I can easily suspect they are merely looking to shift “blame” when their own accountability comes into question—after collecting from the taxpayer coffers and going on another of their infamous unsupervised spending sprees—this time on costly multi-station IBOC the public has little use for.

The so-called NPR “list of recommended HD radios” in reality—is a near-total summary of every IBOC-capable radio currently-available in the marketplace. Four fail to make that list—two units from Sangean that have yet to ship to dealers; a Polk that seems MIA; and an Alpine mobile adapter costing more than the headend it plugs into, proven to perform VERY POORLY, and a “special-order only” accessory at EVERY Alpine retailer. This “recommended list” provides the bare-minimum of qualitative technical review and comment—usually one-word descriptions like “acceptable” and “good”.

 

[700WLW]

Hippo,

You could try these - they may be too old:

http://euonline.org/pub/iboc/
http://www.nrscstandards.org/DRB/FCCrelated.asp
http://kcmgphotos.beradio.com/ar/radio_thoughts_iboc/
http://www.media-alliance.org/article.php?story=20040514121942368

 

[700WLW]

Hey, just found this great site to get current broadcast law:

http://www.broadcastlawblog.com/

 

[wgliradio]

The so-called NPR “list of recommended HD radios” in reality—is a near-total summary of every IBOC-capable radio currently-available in the marketplace. Four fail to make that list—two units from Sangean that have yet to ship to dealers; a Polk that seems MIA; and an Alpine mobile adapter costing more than the headend it plugs into, proven to perform VERY POORLY, and a “special-order only” accessory at EVERY Alpine retailer. This “recommended list” provides the bare-minimum of qualitative technical review and comment—usually one-word descriptions like “acceptable” and “good”.

Eclipse also makes an add on tuner not shown on the list. Panasonic also has HD tuners.

 

[SUPERCASTER]

I found this interesting. NPR labs has released a list of radios that they say "deliver first-rate technical performance."

At the top of the list: Boston Acoustics Receptor HD - NPR Labs calls its FM performance "excellent"

http://www.nprlabs.org/public/research/NPRLabsRecommendedHDRadiosNov2006.pdf

I'm curious now. Since practically all of the HD bashers here accept NPR's somewhat critical study on HD Radio as gospel truth, will you also accept as gospel truth that the Receptor HD is an "excellent" radio?

This has to put the anti-HD crowd here in a tough spot. On one hand, you love to bash the Receptor HD but on the other hand you also love to tout the NPR study.

No problem for us, but BIG problem for HD supporters. If the AE HD Receptor is the best radio HD supporters can come up with, then HD Radio is doomed. The public has rejected the HD Receptor. If it is the closest to "excellent" that HD Radio supporters can muster up, then the game is over. HD Radio has lost.
Not to completely destroy your fantasy world, but not all reports are necessarily of equal quality, even ones from the same organization. Sorry if that pops your balloon.
Here is how HD Radio supporters (now proven DXers) can fiddle with antennas to try to get steady reception of the sputtering, weak HD Radio signals from the few stations very nearby. (Memories of your grandpa's Atwater Kent from the 1930's).
http://shop.npr.org/wcsstore/NPR/upload/RRHD_Antenna.pdf

 

[SUPERCASTER]

Hey, just found this great site to get current broadcast law:

http://www.broadcastlawblog.com/

I've also heard troubling reports of interference to adjacent channel FM stations from HD operations - especially from multicast operations.

These were stations had listenable signals in a market that were no longer listenable in some areas after a station on an adjacent channel began digital operations (and it has not just been on first adjacent channels).

http://www.broadcastlawblog.com/archives/digital-radio-cpb-and-the-hd-radio-transition.html