"RadioShack's Inadequate Accurian" BusinessWeek

[PocketRadio]

"RadioShack's Inadequate Accurian"

"Where I believe HD Radio fares worst is sound quality. Of the 15 HD stations I got, only two could justifiably claim "near-CD quality" sound, living up to the HD Radio marketing hype. The others lightly fuzzed and hissed just like regular radio stations, and some actually experienced frequent one- to two-second outages. This is not really RadioShack's fault—it also happened to various degrees on three other leading HD Radio receivers I'm testing. It shows that broadcasters have yet to achieve the right blend of analog and digital signal output. However, the Accurian did encounter connectivity problems more frequently than the others, possibly because of its small size."

http://www.businessweek.com/technol...htm?chan=technology_product+review+main+index

 

[Mike Walker]

There are some awful sounding internet radio stations, too. There are also awful sounding cds (sadly most of them, these days). Bad engineering (including bitrates that are too damn low for music!) is the fault of the engineers and station management expecting too much from the available bandwidth, NOT the radio. The fact that two of the staitons, according to the story, DID sound "near cd quality" proves that the problem isn't the radio.

The Accurian sure isn't perfect. It has tiny speakers, no bass (through speakers), and is frankly no better on it's own than any number of less expensive table radios. But hook it up to a decent headphone amp, or through your stereo system, and AH-HA! There's "goodness" in that little box. What do you want for 99 dollars? (when on sale...honestly when it's not on sale, I wouldn't choose it. At 200 bucks I'd go for a Sangean with no hesitation.)

 

[IBOCRocks]

There are some awful sounding internet radio stations, too. There are also awful sounding cds (sadly most of them, these days). Bad engineering (including bitrates that are too damn low for music!) is the fault of the engineers and station management expecting too much from the available bandwidth, NOT the radio. The fact that two of the staitons, according to the story, DID sound "near cd quality" proves that the problem isn't the radio.

The Accurian sure isn't perfect. It has tiny speakers, no bass (through speakers), and is frankly no better on it's own than any number of less expensive table radios. But hook it up to a decent headphone amp, or through your stereo system, and AH-HA! There's "goodness" in that little box. What do you want for 99 dollars? (when on sale...honestly when it's not on sale, I wouldn't choose it. At 200 bucks I'd go for a Sangean with no hesitation.)

Wait. The Accurian is $99?? But...bbbbbut...PocketRadio has said that HD Radios cost $300!!! He's not misleading me, is he?

:

 

[PocketRadio]

Did I state that all HD radios cost $300, or the Accurian HD in particular - I think not, but I think you are trying to derail this thread.

 

[IBOCRocks]

I agree with Mike. There are lots of good and bad sounding radios out there. While it may not be a resounding thumbs-up for the Accurian, it isn't a thumbs-down for HD.

 

[PhilJSmith67]

Some of the HD Radio stations I get on FM sound lame, while others truly sound great (I am talking about HD1 streams). There doesn't seem to be much correlation between the HD1 streams' sound quality and if bandwidth is shared with an HD2 stream. For example, 91.5 WBEZ Chicago has only one HD stream, and sounds no better in HD than analog. 95.5 WNUA has two HD streams, but the HD1 stream sounds very clean with excellent dynamic range, with no digital artifacts. Of course a lot of that has to do with processing on the analog audio, but WNUA's analog audio is probably one of the cleanest in Chicago -- right up there with 98.7 WFMT and 93.1 WXRT.

 

[TheRover]

Getting the most beautiful sound to come across the radio is an art.

And we know that most stations don't put the effort into that.

"The Masses can "hear" our hyped up and compressed signal, and the masses don't complain... so we have found our "benchmark"--- "

American masses just accept the crap quality of FM radio as it has de-evolved.

Stations that care about getting the best out of their FM transmissions are rare indeed. Basically, if the $##@ commercials make an impact.... then most stations see that as the end all. Is ther anything else ???????????????

Not for most FM "businesses"....

 

[Mike Walker]

I'm a fan of HD, but honestly SOUND QUALITY was better on FM radio three decades ago before multi-band "blaster boxes" gained rack space at every station in America. Even with the limitations of hissy analog tape, crackly phonograph records, and phase anomolies inherent in cart machines, SOUND QUALITY WAS BETTER. I remember listening to music on FM, and it was like listening to the lp on my home stereo system. And I had a good turntable and audio system, because I cared about sound AND music. My point is that analog transmission DOES have it's limitations...some of which are solved by digital transmission (as with HD). But the ideal combination would be a clean analog AND digital signal without processing pushed to "blast-off" levels. Hard to do, because most cds these days are pre-distorted. Clipping originating at the mastering stage can't be removed down the line...only made worse. A pretty sorry state of affairs.

Here's a controversial, though I believe true statement. If we TODAY returned to the airchains of, say, 1977...Technics turntables, Stanton cartridges, Revox and Ampex reel to reel recorders, ITC cart machines, Optimod (or other) single-band compressor/limiter set to moderate settings, playing recordings from that era (rather than todays distorted crap), the result would be BETTER SOUND. I'm not saying the gear was better then. Quite obviously and demonstrably the opposite is true. But the recordings were mastered with much more care, and the available gear at stations couldn't be abused to "add insult (more distortion) to injury (already distorted recordings)".

I recently heard an aircheck from WAYS in Charlotte, Circa 1972...made on a wideband AM radio to open reel tape. Know what? NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING on the radio today sounds as good as this AM station did 35 years ago. Are we REALLY making progress?

 

[Chuck]

Here's a controversial, though I believe true statement. If we TODAY returned to the airchains of, say, 1977...Technics turntables, Stanton cartridges, Revox and Ampex reel to reel recorders, ITC cart machines, Optimod (or other) single-band compressor/limiter set to moderate settings, playing recordings from that era (rather than todays distorted crap), the result would be BETTER SOUND. I'm not saying the gear was better then. Quite obviously and demonstrably the opposite is true. But the recordings were mastered with much more care, and the available gear at stations couldn't be abused to "add insult (more distortion) to injury (already distorted recordings)".

I suspect that you are right.

I recently heard an aircheck from WAYS in Charlotte, Circa 1972...made on a wideband AM radio to open reel tape. Know what? NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING on the radio today sounds as good as this AM station did 35 years ago. Are we REALLY making progress?

I'm not sure we are making progress. In my career in the live sound business, the goal in the 1970's and 80's was to get live concert sound to approximate, and hopefully surpass what people could expect to hear on their car radio. That goal was higher than you might think. Artists like Steely Dan, Cat Stevens and many others had exceptionally well produced recordings that sounded great. What’s more, you could hear how good they were on most radios of the time. It wasn’t just the quality of the recordings, but the integrity of the entire broadcast signal chain. Sometimes, simple is better.

Perhaps today, it sounds silly, but the pair of 6" X 9" speakers powered by a Pioneer Supertuner radio that we had in our Mack truck became a benchmark of live sound. If the concert sounded better than what we could hear in the cab of the truck, we felt that we'd accomplished something.

For those of you who weren’t there, these concerts did not sound bad. Some were better than others, but the state of the art really hasn’t improved all that much. Despite huge technology improvements, there are still some dreadful sounding shows out there. What has changed is many of the radio stations we listened to sound extremely good back then. This was not just reserved for FM. There were lots of really good sounding AM stations. Now most of them sound like my telephone answering machine.

We have a lot of new and amazing technology that does make life easier. What we seem to choose to do with it is another story.

BTW, I do remember WAYS. It was pretty hot in the 70's....

 

[Mike Walker]

Yeah, WAYS was one of the nation's (many) GREAT stations. Today that glorious old building (I have heard) is just short of being condemned. The roof leaked, and was never fixed, destroying all that gorgeous custom furniture, and ruining one of the south's (the nation's, really) great radio showplaces. Kind of a metaphor for what's happened to radio. It wasn't just the audio quality that was better three or so decades ago. There was wildly creative, original CONTENT on the radio. Where is that now?

 

[Chuck]

Yeah, WAYS was one of the nation's (many) GREAT stations. Today that glorious old building (I have heard) is just . It wasn't just the audio quality that was better three or so decades ago. There was wildly creative, original CONTENT on the radio. Where is that now?

The really great radio was the creation of really talented PEOPLE. It's hard to replace them with a computer chip, yet formats like Jack, abound.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

Yeah, WAYS was one of the nation's (many) GREAT stations. Today that glorious old building (I have heard) is just short of being condemned. The roof leaked, and was never fixed, destroying all that gorgeous custom furniture, and ruining one of the south's (the nation's, really) great radio showplaces. Kind of a metaphor for what's happened to radio. It wasn't just the audio quality that was better three or so decades ago. There was wildly creative, original CONTENT on the radio. Where is that now?

The WAYS/WROQ building was torn down last fall. I heard there was mold and mushrooms growing on the walls and the carpet....yick! 610am/95.1fm went through a series of owners who had problems making money with the two stations. That's probably why the building went unrepaired. CBS built a new transmitter building on the property for 610 and several of the CBS-FM stations have aux transmitters there.

 

[SUPERCASTER]

Finally, some posts that we can all agree.
It's imaginative, entertaining, talented, high quality programming, limited numbers of entertaining commercials, careful engineering, and loving care, that produced the product that listeners loved and valued. Not digital grunge, over compressed distortion, automated voice trackers, overworked staffs, and greedy, penny pinching, over commercialized, payola prone, over researched, formulated, syndicated, pablum the broadcast conglomerates are trying to pass off as "entertainment".

 

[Mike Walker]

Damn I agree with Supercaster. But I would point out that well produced, entertaining commercials and promos actually ADD to the entertainment factor. Or they did back when people cared (some of us still do, but we're dinosaurs!)

 

[SUPERCASTER]

Damn I agree with Supercaster. But I would point out that well produced, entertaining commercials and promos actually ADD to the entertainment factor. Or they did back when people cared (some of us still do, but we're dinosaurs!)

I'm glad we finally agree on something.