They are getting desperate now !

[dumber than a box of hair]

According to the Ibiquity spec, the station can transmit at 96Kps to me. I was unable to find and actualy CD spec, but it strikes me good quality 96Kbs is thrown around as CD quality.

The Red Book spec for CD-Audio shows a bit rate of 1.4112 Mbps (megabits per second), calculated as 44,100 samples per second × 16 bits per sample × 2 channels. Putting that on a radio carrier would be just about impossible, as a practical matter.

 

[clouseau]

According to the Ibiquity spec, the station can transmit at 96Kps to me. I was unable to find and actualy CD spec, but it strikes me good quality 96Kbs is thrown around as CD quality.

The Red Book spec for CD-Audio shows a bit rate of 1.4112 Mbps (megabits per second), calculated as 44,100 samples per second × 16 bits per sample × 2 channels. Putting that on a radio carrier would be just about impossible, as a practical matter.

Glad someone knew. That's why I really don't like the whole "Marketing to Idiots" idea. (Be It MP3's, HD Radio, Real Audio, Windows Media, etc..etc..)

To me, lately, CD quality seems to be equal to FM quality of years ago. And a lot of FM quality is sliding it's way back to AM of years ago. I'm not sure we've done ourselves any favors with all this processing and compression. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I'm experiencing more and more Listener Fatigue. Not only on the radio, but on CD's as well.

Clouseau

 

[oaktree]

I just love this thread. Great comradery here.

Went to Best Buy in my market today, actually, two of them in different cities on the left coast. Yep, there they are, HD radios.

Someone forgot to tell the brainiac sales people there that HD radio doesn't just make "FM and, uh, what's the other band...oh, yeah, AM, (actual quote) sound better"

I asked for a demonstration.

"Uh, well, I can't. We don't have an antenna hooked up to them, yet."

When asked who broadcasts in HD in either of the two cities, dominated by Clear Channel clusters, he said, "Uh...nobody."

And then, "But I think they do ... some of them ... in Bakersfield or Fresno."

120 miles away as the crow flies.

No HD here, folks. And no sales sense, either.

Went to Radio Shack in my town last week. They have one HD radio and it's on sale.

"You stock an HD Radio?" I asked. "Yeah...it's cheap," the brainiac there said. "No stations here, so, we don't sell any."

I'm off to Circuit City. Maybe they'll sell me a microwave.

Thank you for Roku Soundbridge radios. Now, they're a kick!

 

[Chuck]

Thank you for Roku Soundbridge radios. Now, they're a kick!

Yes, they are. I bought one at a retail store in Dallas (Micro Center) for a fraction of the cost of my Sangean HDT-1, which was hard to buy at Fry's. Fry's has a very effective "sales prevention" department.

The HDT-1 is a very good tuner, and it's RDS display is great. There is only one HD station in my area, and so far, it does not offer HD-2 programming. On the other hand, the Roku is a really cool device. It was totally plug and play, and I listen to it frequently. The variety of stations is amazing. I hope that Sound Exchange/RIAA doesn't kill this technology.

 

[PocketRadio]

Went to Best Buy in my market today, actually, two of them in different cities on the left coast. Yep, there they are, HD radios. Someone forgot to tell the brainiac sales people there that HD radio doesn't just make "FM and, uh, what's the other band...oh, yeah, AM, (actual quote) sound better". I asked for a demonstration. "Uh, well, I can't. We don't have an antenna hooked up to them, yet."

That seems to be the general attitude of HD Radio retailers - even they know it is a joke, so they don't even bother to put up external antennas, even if they could. One thing though - they are getting free advertising.

 

[clouseau]

even they know it is a joke

More of your opinions, Misrepresented as fact. Sorry dude. It does NOT fly. Not here. Not now. Not ever. STOP!!!...

Your "Minimum wage sales geeks that don't even know about AM, understand the true reality" take is REALLY weak as well.

Clouseau

 

[wgliradio]

In a wide assortment of receivers, the response was down 10 db at 4.1 kHz, and listeners did not like AM that was broader banded when artifically created in a test environment.

Artificially created. Now there's science. Couldn't get actual off-air samples?

 

[davideduardo]

In a wide assortment of receivers, the response was down 10 db at 4.1 kHz, and listeners did not like AM that was broader banded when artifically created in a test environment.

Artificially created. Now there's science. Couldn't get actual off-air samples?

No, could not get receivers that had response to 6, 7 and 9 kHz. Stations can transmit right up to the NRSC roll off, but no production receivers found at retail (part of the test criteria) could go out that far. Every tested receiver, car,home, boom box, portable, was off around 10 db at 4.1 kHz....so to test feelings about response, the traudio had to be tailored. One of the major contributors was Bob Orban, so the methods were sound.

 

[Mike Walker]

Then they ought to test the GE SuperRadio, the RadioShack clone, or other radios with wide/narrow bandwidth. These DO go to 8khz or more in wide. I can test it myself with the lil' test generator I picked up at a hamfest. In fact, 8khz is audible on MANY of the radios I own.

 

[Mike Walker]

And the redbook cd standard makes it possible to accurately reproduce sound simultaneously at EVERY frequency between dc and 20khz, over a range of 96db. But the only actual SIGNAL that would have energy at all frequencies simultaneously across the audio band is NOISE. Real music and voice has content at a few dozen primary frequencies simultaneously, plus numerically related harmonics...a few hundred frequencies simultaneously at most. My point? To accurately reproduce REAL MUSIC OR VOICE, as opposed to broadband noise, requires much less data. GREAT efficiencies can be gained, losing nothing audible, using lossy compression. It can be shown how little is actually removed by doing what's called a "null test"...take an uncompressed recording of music and save it as a .wav file. Open it in a waveform editor, invert the phase, and save that as a compressed file in the format and at the bitrate under question. Copy and past the inverted waveform onto the original, uncompressed waveform. What's left will be what the codec removed. In the case of an efficient codec such as that used in HD Radio at 96kbps, almost nothing.

There's no reason to have repeated, obtuse debates over the "damaging effects of lossy compression", when the actual truth is fairly easy to demonstrate. One can show EXACTLY what was removed by the codec! If almost nothing was removed from a music recording, then that recording, as broadcast through the lossy codec, is in fact "cd quality".

 

[davideduardo]

Then they ought to test the GE SuperRadio, the RadioShack clone, or other radios with wide/narrow bandwidth. These DO go to 8khz or more in wide. I can test it myself with the lil' test generator I picked up at a hamfest. In fact, 8khz is audible on MANY of the radios I own.

Those are not common radios, as you well know.

 

[Chuck]

Then they ought to test the GE SuperRadio, the RadioShack clone, or other radios with wide/narrow bandwidth. These DO go to 8khz or more in wide. I can test it myself with the lil' test generator I picked up at a hamfest. In fact, 8khz is audible on MANY of the radios I own.

You’re right Mike, I have lots of radios that will do 8KHz with no problem. Not all of them are new, but they certainly are out there, even in today's market. In fact, I'll bet that the Sangean HDT-1 does pretty well on AM. I know the GE and the CC Crane will too. I think you will find that some non-GM car radios don't roll off either. Not that long ago I rented a Chrysler products car in Boston and discovered that there was an AM oldies station that actually sounded good on the factory car radio. There very definitely was high end in the signal and the radio reproduced it quite nicely.

Further lots of older radios can come close, and many can do WAY better. Even the old 5 tube AC-DC sets of the 1950's and 60's do pretty well. There are still a remarkable number of those radios that still work fine. People still use them.