PocketRadio said:
"Sangean HDR-1's Vintage Look—and Sound"
"I've given up anticipating the 'near-CD' sound quality that iBiquity says HD Radio delivers. But at this point, I'll take any step up from traditional radio, however incremental. Still, the sound coming from the HDR-1 disappoints me. It has spots of fuzz and hissing while playing most HD stations, and when it's struggling for reception, one of the speakers actually goes silent."
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2007/tc20070425_225290.htm
Just another pretty face !
Although the Sangean HDT-1 looks like any other quality receiver you'd have sitting on your fine audio chain at your house... it falls far short of quality and expectations.... I cannot comment on the other HD radios... I think the customers have alot to say by not buying them in mass quantities...
Here is the known problems with the unit:
Design Bugs
1. The BER display doesn't work right.
2. SSI drops when there is audio near 15 kHz on FM and varies wildly with any
modulation on AM. The display is ambiguous at best on FM and of no value on
AM.
3. Using the supplied loop, the AM RF amplifier overloads if stations are
nearby.
4. Occasional pops occur on AM. They are very infrequent and not loud, but
annoying when they happen. They sound like step changes in DC level.
5. The AM varactor drive backsteps at 840, 930, and 1340 kHz. This may be a
piecewise linear approximation whose endpoints do not coincide.
Important Problems
1. There is no way to force analog reception of HD Radio signals.
2. There is no way to dim the LCD or turn it completely off in standby.
3. The clock resets if power is removed. In itself, this is just inconvenient.
But in a bedroom, power must be removed to kill the display in order to sleep!
Since no one is going to reset the clock each time he turns on the tuner, the
clock always displays the wrong time in a bedroom.
4. There is no way to disable automatic channel blend, the high-frequency
noise filter, or soft muting, each of which starts very early on FM.
5. FM deemphasis is in error by up to 2 dB. The nonflat frequency response is
audible when comparing the HDT-1 to a tuner with accurate deemphasis.
6. The AM low-end rolls off around 200 Hz. This profoundly degrades the
quality of music reproduction.
7. FM stereo distortion is excessively high. Single-channel THD is at least
ten times that of a high-quality analog tuner.
8. In actual use with on-the-air signals, FM intermod is reported to be much
worse than for other tuners.
Lesser Issues
1. AM deemphasis deviates from the standard NRSC curve greatly at high
frequencies. Unlike FM, not all AM stations follow this curve exactly. But
adhering to it should maximize AM sound quality on average.
2. The AM synchronous detector is not always in lock when the tuner unmutes,
occasionally loses lock during a selective fade, and will not lock to a weak
signal when the signal on the adjacent channel is strong.
3. The extended-info selection is lost when tuning to a new frequency. The
display reverts to regular info.
4. The first extended-info parameter is one almost never used (reset). The
parameter most likely to be called up should be first (I vote for CNR). The
remaining parameters should appear in the estimated order of importance.
5. It should not be necessary to press PRESET to recall a frequency. Any press
of a digit short of 2 seconds should call up the station.
6. The distinction between a memory being empty (press 2 seconds to store) or
full (5 seconds to overwrite) is unnecessary. The memories will eventually all
fill. Just store the memory after 2 seconds, overwriting whatever's there, and
be done with it.
7. Pressing the final 0 when entering AM frequencies isn't necessary since all
U.S. frequencies end in 0. (But switching frequencies before the 0 is entered
on AM might be confusing since this can't be done on FM.)
8. Tuning should occur in 0.2-MHz steps on FM. No channels are allocated on
even tenths of a MHz in the U.S. This will ease manual tuning and increase the
speed of the automatic tuning modes.
9. When tuning manually, the tuner steps through multicast channels even when
not attempting to lock to HD. This slows tuning and upsets the two-push
cadence necessitated by 0.1-MHz tuning steps.
10. The tuner gives no indication when receiving AM stereo. A flashing symbol
while locking and a solid symbol when locked, as for HD, would be very useful.
An entry such as "C-QUAM" under transmission mode would make sense.
11. SSI has little dynamic range, remaining at maximum until the signal drops
to 32 dBf. Channel blending and the noise filter begin to operate well before
this point, which is just 13 dB above where muting begins.
12. The tuner retains the station presets when power is removed but not the
last station tuned.
13. The audio output level is excessively high. At 1.5 V, it is 8 dB above the
component tuner standard of 600 mV. This makes it difficult to compare the
HDT-1 with other tuners and awkward to integrate with existing stereo systems.
14. The clock is not synchronized with the line frequency. Eventually the time
becomes inaccurate.
15. AM tracking is off up to 30 kHz at midband.
16. The LCD font is rather primitive (e.g., raised descenders).
http://users.tns.net/~bb/hdt.txt
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