I was in a mall yesterday and happened to be walking by a Radio Shack when I noticed they had a display in the window of the Boston Acoustics HD Radio. I stopped in to see how it sounded. Unfortunately, I couldn't get any HD signals at all. The salesman told me it had been set up right earlier in the day, but obviously something had been changed. He wasn't sure what was wrong.
He then did his best "sales" job. He told me the radio itself was very good. He said HD radio sounds pretty good. He said the difference in FM stations was not as big as some might think. He said there's less noise in the signal and you can hear different programming on some of the stations. He'd never been able to pick up an AM station for comparison since the store is inside a mall. He showed me how good the radio sounded by tuning it to the spot on the dail where they had their Sirius satellite radio adapter tuned in. It was quite nice. He of course then showed me the Sirius display which was right next to the HD radio display.
There are, of course, many problems with an experience like this. For one thing, the store couldn't demonstrate to me (or anyone else) what great thing I'll get for plunking down $300 for this radio. If you've got an HD radio on display, you better be able to show off HD radio stations. This is akin to trying to get someone to spend $5,000 on an HDTV when all you can show is a snowy analog pictue of a black and white film.
Furthermore, if the only thing I can hear on the HD radio is how good satellite radio sounds, why on earth wouldn't I just buy a satellite radio?
Finally, if all the sales guy is able to do is tell me how good HD sounds, he needs to do a better sales job with it. You can't just say there's less noise in the background and the difference in FM isn't that great. Tell people you were impressed that there's no noise and it sounds like a CD. Let them judge for themselves whether the difference is a big one or not. Of course, you would have to be able to let them do that on their own by having the radio working right to begin with.
I'm sure there are better sales efforts going on elsewhere with consumers able to listen to the difference and being sold on the benefits.
However, experiences like the one I had are probably more common than they should be and probably permanently turn off many consumers who might otherwise adopt this technology. It's just not a good sign for the HD radio proponents.
He then did his best "sales" job. He told me the radio itself was very good. He said HD radio sounds pretty good. He said the difference in FM stations was not as big as some might think. He said there's less noise in the signal and you can hear different programming on some of the stations. He'd never been able to pick up an AM station for comparison since the store is inside a mall. He showed me how good the radio sounded by tuning it to the spot on the dail where they had their Sirius satellite radio adapter tuned in. It was quite nice. He of course then showed me the Sirius display which was right next to the HD radio display.
There are, of course, many problems with an experience like this. For one thing, the store couldn't demonstrate to me (or anyone else) what great thing I'll get for plunking down $300 for this radio. If you've got an HD radio on display, you better be able to show off HD radio stations. This is akin to trying to get someone to spend $5,000 on an HDTV when all you can show is a snowy analog pictue of a black and white film.
Furthermore, if the only thing I can hear on the HD radio is how good satellite radio sounds, why on earth wouldn't I just buy a satellite radio?
Finally, if all the sales guy is able to do is tell me how good HD sounds, he needs to do a better sales job with it. You can't just say there's less noise in the background and the difference in FM isn't that great. Tell people you were impressed that there's no noise and it sounds like a CD. Let them judge for themselves whether the difference is a big one or not. Of course, you would have to be able to let them do that on their own by having the radio working right to begin with.
I'm sure there are better sales efforts going on elsewhere with consumers able to listen to the difference and being sold on the benefits.
However, experiences like the one I had are probably more common than they should be and probably permanently turn off many consumers who might otherwise adopt this technology. It's just not a good sign for the HD radio proponents.