• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

PLEASE POST RECORDINGS OF HD, particularly AM

Definition-"Fake Test": any recording of HD which sounds good. MOST DO. There is bad audio from coast to coast (and lots of good!) analog and digital. And it ain't rock or pop, which are squashed to hell at the mastering phase (have you LOOKED at the waveform on the average pop cd lately? It's all clipped square waves...and that's true for MOST modern releases). The only consistently good recordings being released are of acoustic music, minimally miked and ungimmicked...the kind you'll hear on public radio.

Note: I DIDN'T SAY ALL ROCK RECORDINGS SOUND BAD, so don't reapond to what I DIDN'T SAY! But what I AM saying is that the VAST MAJORITY of new recordings are compressed and limited so aggressively that there's much more recording on the cd than will be added by a well engineered raido station, analog or digital. "Dark side of the Moon", anyone? THAT is a recording of rock music I'd trust for this type of test! "Court and Spark"? "Abbey Road"? "Year of the Cat"? Well engineered recordings USED TO BE the norm! And dinosaurs once roamed the Earth!
 
SUPERCASTER said:
Here are some actual off air recordings, not the faked crap we have been subjected to here before:
http://www.neilschubert.com/HDRadio/hdradio1.html
Click to expand...

If you're implying that my recordings weren't real, I think it only goes to show you are a hmm, what's the word I'm thinking of here? Oh yea can't use that kind of language in here. I take personal offense to your implication and that is the kind of talk which in other arenas could get you sued. You can self dillute yourself into oblivion but how dare you question my legitimacy.
 
I have assembled a 3:45 demo showing the capabilities of AM modulation, and the detriment caused
when HD is added.

I have used a GE 1982 Cathedral Radio reproduction AM/FM with a -60 db 10khz notch filter at the output to the speaker.
This is a consumer-grade radio with cheap 2-stage IF and no ceramic filter.
This gives it an audio response over 15 khz in AM.
No changes were made to the tone settings during the recordings.
Some hum is heard as the recording is made tapped AT the speaker, rather than the detector, in order to use the notch.

I encoded to 128.wma and suggest watching the simulated o-scope in windows media.

It is only intended to show "clean" signals compared to the self-interference caused by HD on AM.

The file is here in the computer, but I need help in posting this file.
I am registered with no place to post such a file at 37.7 Mb.
Can anyone suggest a good place to start?
 
Tom Wells said:
I have assembled a 3:45 demo showing the capabilities of AM modulation, and the detriment caused
when HD is added.

I have used a GE 1982 Cathedral Radio reproduction AM/FM with a -60 db 10khz notch filter at the output to the speaker.
This is a consumer-grade radio with cheap 2-stage IF and no ceramic filter.
This gives it an audio response over 15 khz in AM.
No changes were made to the tone settings during the recordings.
Some hum is heard as the recording is made tapped AT the speaker, rather than the detector, in order to use the notch.

I encoded to 128.wma and suggest watching the simulated o-scope in windows media.

It is only intended to show "clean" signals compared to the self-interference caused by HD on AM.

The file is here in the computer, but I need help in posting this file.
I am registered with no place to post such a file at 37.7 Mb.
Can anyone suggest a good place to start?
Click to expand...
Try:
http://www.podomatic.com/
You can post MP3 files there, link to them, and everyone can listen to them. Podcasts are just MP3 files with an RSS notification wrapper. You should have no problem uploading and posting your audio files for all to hear. The directions are fairly simple, and help is available.
 
As it turns out, I am able to post an audio file on my website fishingmeter.com.
I am clueless as to making an active link, but will try.

http://fishingmeter.com

There must be a way to link to the actual file, but I can't figure it out.
Go to the "Contact Us" page and click the link at the bottom.
You may have to unblock pop-ups.

All recordings made from AM, on a 1983 GE repro cathedral AM/FM with -60 db 10 kc notch.
No changes made to tone settings during recordings.
All recordings were made while tuned at the point of best quality, to the side for pure analog, and trying to center for HD.

Part one is WLUP AM 1000 still in full NRSC analog. Sounds crisp as they come today.

Part two is WFMT FM, 98.7 with what sounds like SCA noise in the background, as rebroadcast on my home pt 15 AM at 1550.

Part three is a 45, also transmitted over pt 15 AM, chosen at random to show the clarity of AM when unfettered. You can easily hear "strange original distortion' in the recording about 3-5 seconds, and the transparency of this, while showing some distortion, is far preferable and clearer than..

Part four, which opens with WGN AM 720 followed by WBBM AM 780, and after some tuning, WLS AM 890.
These 3 now use HD am, and this radio has "sticky" tuning, making it hard to stop on dead center.
When finally achieved, the demodulated audio has heavy woolens over its mouth.

I will attempt next to document the condition of first and second adjacent interference.
I will probably need to use a different set-up, perhaps in the car straight to the laptop.
 
Tom if it would be helpful, I'd gladly host audio files for your illustrations at my site. You could e-mail them to me. Just offering for convenience, since you've had some trouble. Just let me know.

Mike
 
Hello,

Yes, I am the Neil that posted some recordings of HD tests on my website. I'm glad to see that I am not the only person that is sees problems with HD radio. The internet seems to be bombarded with advertizing that pushes hd radio like old radio was just horrible. Normal radio is functional and very reliable. The FCC is reverting back to stupidity, pre-1927 era. With HD radio, it is much like radio anarchy, rules and standards are just ignored. Just because television is going digital does not mean that radio needs to. They are alienating their most dedicated listeners by blasting them with this noise, while adding only very few listeners with these special receivers that only work some places.

My whole point is, unlike television, which has been plagued by interference, ghosting, and other anomolies, radio has been pretty functional for the most part. Simply put, the "digital" must be BETTER than its predicessor. HD TV is getting there (they need to broadcast the digital with at least 2/3 the power that the analog is broadcast at) and the picture is always perfect, when it works. HD TV gives you a better picture than the analog one for people that normally get noisy pictures.

HD radio, on the other hand, has coverage that is, most of the time, only 1/3 of what its predicessor analog is. Digital does not work on AM at night. Analog does. Digital does not work at all on AM or FM when there is repeatitive impulse noise. Analog does.
There is no advantage to HD radio, whatsoever. It doesn't fix any of radio's minor annoyances. It creates more. Your posts are just more proof!

As far as I know, AM stations can broadcast beyond 10Khz during the daytime, but must limit their bandwidth to 10 (9) at night. I may be wrong. If you wanna hear how HD interferes, try listening to 1120 KMOX in the morning, or 1130 WISN. The noise of HD fuzzes them out!

I will be adding some AM stereo broadcast clips from WOKY - I recorded some Christmas music in 2002, not knowing that I would soon never be able to hear them in AM Stereo again.

http://www.neilschubert.com/
 
neilschubert said:
Hello,

Yes, I am the Neil that posted some recordings of HD tests on my website. I'm glad to see that I am not the only person that is sees problems with HD radio. The internet seems to be bombarded with advertizing that pushes hd radio like old radio was just horrible. Normal radio is functional and very reliable. The FCC is reverting back to stupidity, pre-1927 era. With HD radio, it is much like radio anarchy, rules and standards are just ignored. Just because television is going digital does not mean that radio needs to. They are alienating their most dedicated listeners by blasting them with this noise, while adding only very few listeners with these special receivers that only work some places.

My whole point is, unlike television, which has been plagued by interference, ghosting, and other anomolies, radio has been pretty functional for the most part. Simply put, the "digital" must be BETTER than its predicessor. HD TV is getting there (they need to broadcast the digital with at least 2/3 the power that the analog is broadcast at) and the picture is always perfect, when it works. HD TV gives you a better picture than the analog one for people that normally get noisy pictures.

HD radio, on the other hand, has coverage that is, most of the time, only 1/3 of what its predicessor analog is. Digital does not work on AM at night. Analog does. Digital does not work at all on AM or FM when there is repeatitive impulse noise. Analog does.
There is no advantage to HD radio, whatsoever. It doesn't fix any of radio's minor annoyances. It creates more. Your posts are just more proof!

As far as I know, AM stations can broadcast beyond 10Khz during the daytime, but must limit their bandwidth to 10 (9) at night. I may be wrong. If you wanna hear how HD interferes, try listening to 1120 KMOX in the morning, or 1130 WISN. The noise of HD fuzzes them out!

I will be adding some AM stereo broadcast clips from WOKY - I recorded some Christmas music in 2002, not knowing that I would soon never be able to hear them in AM Stereo again.

http://www.neilschubert.com/
Click to expand...


First, one of the reasons for the move to digital on AM is to breath new life into the band. Basically no one under the age of 30 listens to AM radio other than a very few stations, such as WFAN in NY. The audience is old and dying off and not saleable to agencies. The noise floor of AM in urban areas makes listening very difficult when you have FM alternatives and again most of the younger audience never grew up listening to AM radio. Now I don't know where you live but KMOX and WISN are in totally different regions of the country. Radio stations are only assured coverage within their protected contour. WISN runs a 6 tower directional array day directional north, north east which is away from KMOX and KMOX is a 1A non directional in St. Louis Mo. WISN has to protect KMOX not the other way around and WISN has no signal within KMOX's protected contour. At night WISN drops power to 10 KW with 9 towers in an extremely tight northeastern pattern sending the bulk of their RF into Canada. So to sum it up, there is no interference within the area which each station is licensed to cover. The fact that you can receive a minimum signal from either station in analog is not significant. Neither station has any protection from the other in that area.
 
And anyone who believes analog radio is any more free of interference than analog tv either lives directly across the street from the transmitter site(s) of the station(s) being listened-to, or is stone-deaf.

Try living in a mountainous area, where multipath is rampant, and tell me there are no interference issues on analog FM! HD is actually far more resistant to multipath...one of it's greatest attractions (aside from improved sound quality when adequate bitrates are used, and additional programming options).
 
Mike Walker said:
And anyone who believes analog radio is any more free of interference than analog tv either lives directly across the street from the transmitter site(s) of the station(s) being listened-to, or is stone-deaf.

Try living in a mountainous area, where multipath is rampant, and tell me there are no interference issues on analog FM! HD is actually far more resistant to multipath...one of it's greatest attractions (aside from improved sound quality when adequate bitrates are used, and additional programming options).
Click to expand...

For most listeners analog radio generally delivers satisfying, listenable, reliable, reception within it's city grade contour, and often beyond, with the line cord, ferrite, or telescoping antennas that are a "built in" part of most radios. Most listeners are satisfied with analog, as long as HD does not buzz it out, or cause analog fidelity to be cut in half. HD radio has such poor building penetration and interference rejection even in it's local area, that local reception is often totally absent, and often needs extra outdoor antennas, usually unnecessary in city grade coverage areas with analog.
If, as has been claimed here, only city grade local coverage counts to radio stations and advertisers, then HD radio has a very tough time ahead.
HD radio is a destructive solution in search of a problem, that almost no one has.
As far as your HD radio DXing, and mythical claims of HD radio's totally unproven multipath immunity, distant analog radio reception has "sweet spots" just as HD radio does. They are just in different spots, due to the slightly varied frequency of each.
 
Posting audio recordings here means little or nothing, as recordings can and have been misrepresented, doctored or faked, and it represents conditions only available to one person, at their location and with their equipment, antennas and setup. Recordings like this have little or no relevance to anyone else except the poster.
 
One recording represents one condition availabile to one person, and means little. That much is true. But if we ALL contribute, at least all of us with HD radios, in different locations (cities, suburbs, rural areas), then a picture begins to form.

It's not exactly easy to "fake" results. I once lied about a codec having been used, to PROVE that people who claim to hear artifacts actually only think they do. But this wasn't a recording of an HD broadcast. It was a file I had encoded (or not) to demonstrate the audibility (or lack thereof) of artifacts. I have never, nor has anyone I know, faked a recording of an HD broadcast. I'll be damned if I even know how it would be possible. Take my recording of HD radio at my house http://www.theproductionroom.net/hd.wma

In order to "fake" it, I would need to have access to the facilities of WDAV Davidson NC, WTQR Greensboro NC, and WLYT Charlotte NC. Does anyone believe it's even possible that one person could have access to these facilities? I mean other than having a direct line from their board, how the hell could I "fake" a recording...presumably to make it sound better than it actually is...of their broadcast(s)? I've scratched my head, and I'll be damned if I can figure out how "faking" such a recording would even be possible. Perhaps someone could clarify...I'd be fascinated to know!

If you believe my recordings are "fake", I invite you to e-mail them to the managers and/or program directors of the stations included, and ask "is this a genuine recording of your station". They should be able to tell you pretty quickly whether the recording is real. (I suppose you may think that the announcers were friends of mine, so I somehow had them do a "fake" show in my studio, and put it together...that these aren't "real" radio recordings? Again, I just can't figure out how it could be "fake". But if speaking with representatives of the stations I recorded can help establish authenticity in your minds, I would WELCOME, in fact ENCOURAGE you to do so!

Meantime, for those of us interested in WHAT HD SOUNDS LIKE across America, and if quality and/or interference is worse/better than expected, recordings posted here and elsewhere are the ONLY reasonable method I can think of. While you may believe that one person (hell, make it me, PLEASE) 'fakes' their recordings in some way, to believe it of EVERYONE here says far more about you than about those of us who actually wish to "compare notes" (and sounds). POST THOSE RECORDINGS, guys!
 
SUPERCASTER said:
Posting audio recordings here means little or nothing, as recordings can and have been misrepresented, doctored or faked, and it represents conditions only available to one person, at their location and with their equipment, antennas and setup. Recordings like this have little or no relevance to anyone else except the poster.
Click to expand...

I would agree. I would suggest the same holds true if you substitute the phrase "Descriptions of performance of HD radios by somone who does not have one" for "Audio recordings" or "recordings". Of course you did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

Man oh Man is the standard for believeability different for the Anti-HD follks.

Clouseau
 
Exactly Clousseau! NOTHING means less than the opinion of an HD hater who hasn't even used one of the radios!

Again, while individual recordings are interesting, it is a collection of many of them from many locations, under many reception conditions that begins to paint a picture. Just because speakers, for instance, sound great in my room doesn't mean they will in yours. The acoustics of the room are every bit as important as what's "in the box". With radios, the antenna, location, atmospheric conditions, and setup ALL contribute to how well reception works. This is true whether the radio is analog or digital. If you live in an urban area, your radio can be FAR LESS SENSITIVE than what I would need here "in the boondocks", and still get good results. These differences MUST be factored in. The best way to do that is to quit griping, and CONTRIBUTE SOMETHING WE CAN LISTEN TO! Don't TELL US how something sounds...SHOW US! Radio is an AUDIO medium. We should as often as possible be making arguments with AUDIO.
 
radiopilot: I couldn't get your mp3 - it says 403 forbidden for the file & directory.

So far Mike's recording of the analog AM station sounds best, if not a little hissy. It sounds a lot like my JVC Kaboom-box, maybe even better. Nice.

Tom, your recordings were good, I especially liked the oddball content that WFMT was playing at the time. But the sound quality seemed to lack high-end. Mike's sample has a lot more headroom, it seems. At least to me. Not with headphones on (I'm lazy today.)

With the HD stations tuned dead on, I couldn't hear the HD-hiss - the first time I've heard a radio like that. Again this is without headphones on, with cheap computer speakers.

So I guess this proves that every single AM radio I have is defective, lol. I remember the threads were people we telling us we weren't hearing the HD sizzle over analog AM - and now I know what their hearing must be like... It's like Tom's recording - dull and lifeless!

Frankly, I don't care that FM stations may have adjacent channel noise. Within their protected contours, we have no expectation of picking up first-adjacent stations because the FCC has them seperated.

And if push came to shove, I could forgive the adjacent channel noise on AM -- if, IF didn't cause interference at night which it probably will, and if it didn't splatter over onto the analog audio on all but Tom's radio (it causes noticeable noise on my Sony SRF-42, RS DX-398, Panasonic RF-2600, VW OEM Monsoon w/ DSP and JVC Kaboom boombox - a decent sampling of real radios people would use.)

Now, how about some more audio samples of HD-AM audio!
 
OK, forgive me for posting twice in a row, but I felt I needed to call 'potential B.S. alert' on something on Neil's website.

He has a massive 79 minute recording of WKTI in Milwaukee, where he's driving up the coast towards Green Bay. In his text, he mentions that an old Pioneer SuperTuner radio his parents had would take the signal "clear" to just south of Manitowoc, then lose the station just north of that town.

Here's a link to the station's coverage map on Radio-Locator. Now I know this is nothing near a real representation of any radio station's actual coverage, but for our purposes it will do nicely. If you look at the image, the town of Manitowoc is that yellow splotch centered on the image's top border, along the water, almost perfectly due north of Sheboygan.

Notice that it is nowhere near the blue 'fringe' coverage line. Now I haven't been up that way personally, but this seems a bit overzealous on Neil's part. I very well could be wrong - I don't know. Just pointing out that oddity.

What I do know is the digital coverage is only really supposed to be good within the station's protected contour, which I imagine is roughly equal to the red 'local' line on said map. He notes that HD held up to Sheboygan, which seems to be well outside the protected contour. So in reality the HD is performing better for him than it is 'expected', right?

Reception of a given station is (theoretically) guaranteed within the protected contour, and anything past that is gravy... Which the HD system (at least on FM) is doing well. I'm sure any multipath or whatever within that red line area is completely gone... So there is still a tangible benefit.

Or am I just shooting blanks here?
 
Zach said:
radiopilot: I couldn't get your mp3 - it says 403 forbidden for the file & directory.

So far Mike's recording of the analog AM station sounds best, if not a little hissy. It sounds a lot like my JVC Kaboom-box, maybe even better. Nice.

Tom, your recordings were good, I especially liked the oddball content that WFMT was playing at the time. But the sound quality seemed to lack high-end. Mike's sample has a lot more headroom, it seems. At least to me. Not with headphones on (I'm lazy today.)

With the HD stations tuned dead on, I couldn't hear the HD-hiss - the first time I've heard a radio like that. Again this is without headphones on, with cheap computer speakers.

So I guess this proves that every single AM radio I have is defective, lol. I remember the threads were people we telling us we weren't hearing the HD sizzle over analog AM - and now I know what their hearing must be like... It's like Tom's recording - dull and lifeless!

Frankly, I don't care that FM stations may have adjacent channel noise. Within their protected contours, we have no expectation of picking up first-adjacent stations because the FCC has them seperated.

And if push came to shove, I could forgive the adjacent channel noise on AM -- if, IF didn't cause interference at night which it probably will, and if it didn't splatter over onto the analog audio on all but Tom's radio (it causes noticeable noise on my Sony SRF-42, RS DX-398, Panasonic RF-2600, VW OEM Monsoon w/ DSP and JVC Kaboom boombox - a decent sampling of real radios people would use.)

Now, how about some more audio samples of HD-AM audio!
Click to expand...

Sorry Zack, I had my server down... try it again.... the sample audio is now there...

Radiopilot
 
Thanks for putting those samples up again, radiopilot.

I thought the Grundig sounded awful flat compared to the Sony. There was a pop at 9 seconds where the audio opened up, but then it went back down. Were you fiddling with the controls? :)

BTW, I actually downloaded and listened to almost the entire 79 minute file that Neil posted, where he drove up to Manitowoc from Milwaukee. Despite having a lot of glitchy points (there seemed to be a bad connection) the audio overall was actually superb. In fact, I didn't notice during casual listening when or if the radio was switching back and forth between analog and digital. Of course, I was trying to find those spots, and if you listen closely they are slightly out of sync. And the analog is noticeably duller.

The HD is more stable on this sample than when some people on here claim. In fact, it seems even more robust than I expected.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom