Sunday's HD2 Update

[mario]

I was reading Jeremy's HD2 report when he said:

WLIT=Disco
WKSC=Spanish version of Kiss FM.
WNUA=Mainstream Jazz
WVAZ=Gospel
WGCI=Urban Oldies
WKQX=Punk/New Rock/etc
WLUP=Hard Rock (Active would be my guess)

I thought I'd check this morning to see what was out there, I noticed:

WLIT 93.9 HD2 has a liner which says, "The Party is ON, All Flashback Tunes All the Time" It seems more "JACK" like than disco. No trace of WRLL anymore. kiss it goodbye?"

Speaking of KISS, the HD2 of 103.5 is classic country, no liners of any kind.

WVAZ, 102.7 HD2 now calls itself "Inspiration 102.7 HD2" Mostly a melodic Gospel format

WNUA 9.5 still mainstream jazz on HD2

WGCI 107.5 had no HD2 this morning.

WKQX and WLUP had no HD of any kind on the air.

At least that's what's out there this morning. Subject to change at the drop of a hat!

 

[JeremyAndrews]

> I was reading Jeremy's HD2 report when he said:
>
> WLIT=Disco
> WKSC=Spanish version of Kiss FM.
> WNUA=Mainstream Jazz
> WVAZ=Gospel
> WGCI=Urban Oldies
> WKQX=Punk/New Rock/etc
> WLUP=Hard Rock (Active would be my guess)
>
> I thought I'd check this morning to see what was out there,
> I noticed:
>
> WLIT 93.9 HD2 has a liner which says, "The Party is ON, All
> Flashback Tunes All the Time" It seems more "JACK" like
> than disco. No trace of WRLL anymore. kiss it goodbye?"
>
> Speaking of KISS, the HD2 of 103.5 is classic country, no
> liners of any kind.
>
> WVAZ, 102.7 HD2 now calls itself "Inspiration 102.7 HD2"
> Mostly a melodic Gospel format
>
> WNUA 9.5 still mainstream jazz on HD2
>
> WGCI 107.5 had no HD2 this morning.
>
> WKQX and WLUP had no HD of any kind on the air.
>
> At least that's what's out there this morning. Subject to
> change at the drop of a hat!
>
The offical formats (For CC at least) are coming I think sometime within the next week or 2.

http://www.clearchannelmusic.com/hdradio

Looks like all of them will be streaming. KHKS's HD format is the one they announced for WKSC. I gave it a listen and its basically regular Kiss with some Spanish in the liners. <P ID="signature">______________

</P>

 

[WaGaGa]

How's the audio processing on the HD channels?

I've noticed a huge degradation in audio quality on WKSC. They used to have the best audio in the city (next to Oldies 104.3). Now I'd say WBBM-FM sounds the best, audio-wise.

Some engineers would tell you that as soon as you switch to HD, it's more difficult to get that classic "warm" processed sound. But B96 sounds pretty freakin' good. Big & bold, but not fatiguing.

(just wish they'd add a touch of reverb!

 

[k9ez]

> How's the audio processing on the HD channels?
>
> I've noticed a huge degradation in audio quality on WKSC.
> They used to have the best audio in the city (next to Oldies
> 104.3). Now I'd say WBBM-FM sounds the best, audio-wise.
>
> Some engineers would tell you that as soon as you switch to
> HD, it's more difficult to get that classic "warm" processed
> sound. But B96 sounds pretty freakin' good. Big & bold, but
> not fatiguing.
>
> (just wish they'd add a touch of reverb!
>


Most stations are running seperate processors for analog and HD. So if they have had a good processor, there would have been no change (that is what I did here). We kept our analog processor and added an HD proessor. There are a few stations that use one processor for both analog and HD. That is a lot of work for one processor to do.

As far as the processing for HD, I have found that it is different than processing for analog. Also I have heard that many engineers are running less processing on the HD channels so they choulsnt sound as crunched as analog.

This is still work in progress. We engineers are still learning what we need to do for the nest HD sound. Hang in there, we will find the sweet spot. Perhaps there are engineers that have nailed it already. Bless their hearts.