Stereophile's Sam Tellig RAVES about Sony XDR-F1HD

[Mike Walker]

In the latest Stereophile, Sam Tellig RAVES about the Sony XDR-F1HD HD Radio Tuner. He notes, as have I and others, the REAL trick this little beauty has up it's sleeve isn't HD...lots of tuners, receivers, and radios have that. Nope...it's WORLD BEATING analog FM stereo in a tuner that's (nearly) cheap as dirt. The "stereo penalty" is gone...thanks to the dsp that's onboard for HD, the 20db noise penalty for stereo FM at the fringes of a station's coverage IS GONE! HELLO 100 mile reception IN FULLY QUIETED STEREO with a decent antenna. Even with "wabbit ears", all those stations from 40 miles out that used to arrived in noisy stereo, or blended mono, are now crystal clear and quiet in stereo. Oh, and it does HD too...perhaps better than anything out there. If you're an FM dxer, and never plan on listening to an HD broadcast, you should still buy this damn thing. There's a mod on the 'net that can force analog reception, even in te presence of HD, if you like...but you'll have to be a little "handy" to pull this off. Hey, sometiems analog sounds better (especially when the station is using really low bitrates for the HD1. Are you listening WFAE Charlotte??? Your digital signal SUCKS! Analog, nice and clean).

 

[Play Freebird]

In the latest Stereophile, Sam Tellig RAVES about the Sony XDR-F1HD HD Radio Tuner. He notes, as have I and others, the REAL trick this little beauty has up it's sleeve isn't HD...lots of tuners, receivers, and radios have that. Nope...it's WORLD BEATING analog FM stereo in a tuner that's (nearly) cheap as dirt. The "stereo penalty" is gone...thanks to the dsp that's onboard for HD, the 20db noise penalty for stereo FM at the fringes of a station's coverage IS GONE! HELLO 100 mile reception IN FULLY QUIETED STEREO with a decent antenna. Even with "wabbit ears", all those stations from 40 miles out that used to arrived in noisy stereo, or blended mono, are now crystal clear and quiet in stereo.

I agree completely. We have an XDR-F1HD here at the station, which we use to monitor our three translators (one of which is in the back yard with 250 watts ERP) Our receive antenna is nothing more than a homebrew unity-gain vertical folded dipole mounted on the RPU tower 20 feet above ground. I did a little "DX-ing" last night and could copy over 50 stations with 3 signal bars and full quieting, including several across the lake in Toronto; for example, CHUM-FM which sounds great. I received about 20 stations more at 2 bars, and probably would have logged another 20 if not for interference from local first-adjacent IBOC sidebands. Just amazing!

 

[ddsparxx]

The tuner does a pretty good on picking up weak signals on AM as well with the supplied AM loop.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Gee - I wish I could actually find one. Still waiting two weeks later for Frys --- a microcosm of a fundamental problem with HD radio. They have a decent tuner, at a decent price. But absolutely no stock of them. If consumers can't find an HD radio when they want it, they can't buy it.

 

[Seattleradiodude]

I got mine on amazon about a year ago when it was $10 more (Its dropped to around $85 NEW)
I LOVE it!

 

[Chuck]

The analog performance of this radio is so amazing that it makes you wonder, "Why bother with HD?" Other than the possibility of multicasting, which dilutes your stations "exclusivity" on the radio dial, I don't see much to persuade me that spending $100K for HD makes much sense. Analog on this radio sounds excellent.

If Sony can sell these things with a retail price of $99.00, that means that dealer cost is about $60.00. Typically in consumer electronics the cost of materials and labor are less than 10-20% of the price the manufacturer is getting. In this case, that would be about $6.00 to $12.00. The rest is eaten up with distribution, research and development, transportation, advertising, and usually, some profit. Maybe this is a loss leader. Maybe not. That doesn't make this any the less an amazing radio.

Most developments in consumer electronics products tend to trickle down, The VCR that cost $1500 15 years ago has been replaced with a version that retails for $49.95. Same with CD's DVD’s MP3 players, etc. It is not a big stretch of the imagination to think this technology will show up in very inexpensive radios.

 

[Play Freebird]

The analog performance of this radio is so amazing that it makes you wonder, "Why bother with HD?"

Most developments in consumer electronics products tend to trickle down, The VCR that cost $1500 15 years ago has been replaced with a version that retails for $49.95. Same with CD's DVD’s MP3 players, etc. It is not a big stretch of the imagination to think this technology will show up in very inexpensive radios.

I'm also optimistic that we will soon see this technology in car radios and less expensive products. The front end and IF chips in the XDR tuner are readily available from NXP (an offshoot of Philips) and the stereo noise reduction algorithm was patented by Sony. As most of you know, Philips and Sony also developed the compact disc and have a long history of licensing their technology to other manufacturers under reasonable terms. The CD has been extremely successful because it was based on (please excuse the pun) sound engineering:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080129....com/newscenter/dossier/optrec/beethoven.html

Let's also demand that RDS/RBDS makes its way into more products marketed in North America. Because RDS in an open standard, encoders and decoders cost far less than HD Radio's ancillary data feature, the system really works, and it provides valuable benefits to the listener. A basic RDS encoder can be purchased for under 50 dollars. Annual production of RDS chips now exceeds 200 million/year.

http://www.rds.org.uk/rds98/pdf/RDS_25_090327_4.pdf

With the increasing number of regional FM networks (particularly non-commercial) and increased use of fill-in translators in the US and Canada, the time has come to include alternate frequency switching as a standard feature in our car radios, as it has been for many years in Europe.

 

[wgliradio]

It's a shame it can't be forced mono... it is a spectacular tuner.

 

[Carmine5]

I got mine on amazon about a year ago when it was $10 more (Its dropped to around $85 NEW)
I LOVE it!

I prefer going into a store and trying it as opposed to buying a pig-in-a-poke by mail order. After all, had I not gone into a Radio Shack store to try out their one, lone HD Radio, I would have never known how bad the technology works.

C5

 

[KB1OKL]

I got mine on amazon about a year ago when it was $10 more (Its dropped to around $85 NEW)
I LOVE it!

I prefer going into a store and trying it as opposed to buying a pig-in-a-poke by mail order. After all, had I not gone into a Radio Shack store to try out their one, lone HD Radio, I would have never known how bad the technology works.

C5

I bought mine sight unseen and unlike almost everyone here I am not impressed with it probably because I'm mainly an AM listener, it's FM performance is good but it's AM sounds lousy like most AM sections do nowadays, must have a very narrow filter for IBOC. I have many 50-60 year old tube receivers that far surpass it's AM performance in both sensitivity and selectivity, but of course they cost more too, like as in lots. There is a way to bypass HD but frankly I'm just not that interested in it to do it at this point and I've just spent many hours aligning and fixing a National HRO-60 which has splendid audio BTW, now there's a radio.
I figured how can I go wrong spending 85 bucks to try out this wonderful new thing called Digital!!!! HD? Well, the heat from it knocked another SS AM receiver's alignment out that I have. These things throw more heat than 30 tube communications receivers. I shut off my power a few weeks ago and it has been blinking at me since, time to relegate it to the inactive pile. I am actually saving it just in case I ever get into FM DXing.

 

[hipporadio]

I own the Sony, and I AGREE with KB. It is an exceptional FM receiver – that beats my McIntosh MR-78 that cost $1800 in the early ‘80s. Sadly, the AM section is “pedestrian” at best... It is insensitive and offers ONLY the “typical analog experience” – there are finer AM radios if you search. I listened to 700 WLW in “HD” on it – and I was far from impressed.

 

[dxho]

The Sony is the best on AM I've seen, aside from the Drake R8. Yes, I have an outdoor antenna. Yes, I know no one else does

 

[hipporadio]

The Sony is the best on AM I've seen, aside from the Drake R8. Yes, I have an outdoor antenna. Yes, I know no one else does

Kudoos for your outdoor AM antenna effort... That puts you in the 0.1-percent cat. You can coax “performance” from nearly any tuner with esoteric hardware. Fact is – this is an AM “dog” and I regret invoking “man’s best friend” in my acertation. Backyard construction projects aside, this tuner offers only the typical “Sony style” of AM demod—distorted 3k audio in its predominant analog mode. It is merely a “garden variety”—and unacceptable AM option... Buy a Grundig FR-200 “wind-up” radio and you’ll have a better experience – even better, buy a Meduci for near-zero-distortion 10kHz demod—NO backyard wire required for satisfaction

 

[ddsparxx]

I recently made a home made AM loop without using a variable capacitor after picking up an idea from http://members.cox.net/rwagoner/columns/am_antenna.html, except that I made it 2 feet high and 3 turns of wire, and connected it to my XDR-F1HD and it seemed to pull in distant AM station better than the supplied 4x5 loop and about as well as my GE Superadio II, or even slightly better. The frame of the antenna is the cheap PVC plastic pipes from Lowe's cut in pieces.

With this antenna I once picked up the call letters of WHO 1040 from Des Moines at night here in VA and its HD signal locked in for a few seconds. That is, the tuner displayed the WHO calls.

 

[hipporadio]

I recently walked down the lane to retrieve the mail, then powered-up the Altec Lansing ‘puter speakers fed by a Meduci 2000/Dymek DA-9 and presto – 1040 WHO during daylight hours in east-central Indiana [very faint – but there]. WHO has an awesome nighttime skywave footprint and a simple “catch” is no testament to a tuner’s “ability”.

Your GE “SuperRadio 2” is a much better performer than the “HD Sony”!

 

[ddsparxx]

That is the reason why I am keeping the Superadio II forever.

I have read about how nice the Meduci AM tuner however and I may buy it someday, but not right now.

 

[hipporadio]

If you like *superior* AM audio, the Meduci is a good investment... On the audio quality scale—IT ROCKS! You will need to provide an external antenna – a Terk “AM Advantage” works well.

I’m listening to it as I type ... NON-Distorted 10kHz “better than FM” audio quality from a “state of the art” AM music station... IT DELIVERS! Buy-it and be satisfied!

 

[ddsparxx]

Thank you for the information, hipporadio. After hearing an audio clip and looking at meduci.com, I may go ahead and buy it. I don't have the Dymek DA-9 antenna but I have both the Terk and the Twin Coil antenna. But for now, I just continue to use the Sony tuner as its analog AM sounds OK for me.

 

[dxho]

The Sony is the best on AM I've seen, aside from the Drake R8. Yes, I have an outdoor antenna. Yes, I know no one else does

Kudoos for your outdoor AM antenna effort... That puts you in the 0.1-percent cat. You can coax “performance” from nearly any tuner with esoteric hardware. Fact is – this is an AM “dog” and I regret invoking “man’s best friend” in my acertation. Backyard construction projects aside, this tuner offers only the typical “Sony style” of AM demod—distorted 3k audio in its predominant analog mode. It is merely a “garden variety”—and unacceptable AM option... Buy a Grundig FR-200 “wind-up” radio and you’ll have a better experience – even better, buy a Meduci for near-zero-distortion 10kHz demod—NO backyard wire required for satisfaction

I don't *think* I need the Grundig- yet- as I have an SRII and a few batteries.

The outside antenna is necessary for any radio in my listening room- it's full of computers, CFLs, noisy cell-phone chargers, house breaker box, etc. No real argument about the sound of the Sony, but that's not my primary focus on AM.

 

[Time Traveler]

I will also stick to my Superadio 2 and Superadio 1....Thank you...