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Who needs HD AM when analog AM can sound like this?

Both of those sound great and I've heard that Boston tune a million times being from MA, it sounds as good or better than any time I've ever heard it on an FM receiver. That crystal radio also sounds great, I haven't owned one since I was a kid but still remember how clear they were, also many of the old console radios were wideband and sounded great.
 
If you go to www.wysl1040.com or www.stopiboc.com click on the navigation button "Why You Don't Need HD-AM" there are two audio links, one for WELM Elmira NY (1971) and CKLW Windsor-Detroit (1973.) These are undoctored reel-to-reel airchecks recorded straight off the air.

No radio listener of today would be able to distinguish these audio samples from FM in a blind listening test. Nothing extraordinary was being employed in either case, except the CKLW segment was through a home-brew discriminate audio processor built by the legendary Ed Buterbaugh (may he rest in peace.) This device was revolutionary at the time, but of course today multiband audio processors are the norm.

These airchecks make a persuasive case against not only HD but also the stillborn NRSC standard.
 
Exactly how hard or expensive would that be to replicate today? If AM is capable of performing FM quality without HD Radio then what is taking so long? : (
 
Manic_Monkey said:
Exactly how hard or expensive would that be to replicate today?
Click to expand...

About $150 for the transmitter and $50 for the receiver at first, probably $10 for the receiver in quantity. Plus type acceptance fees for the transmitter. But that's just to make it work. The legal fees associated with the change in regulations - if it could be accomplished at all - are the killer.

Dave B.
 
The FCC no longer "type-accepts" transmitters or monitors (except, weirdly, for LPFM mini-transmitters which have to be "certified.") In WYSL's case, opening up the transmission system to pass at least 14 kHz would cost precisely....ZERO. And take less than a minute.

Go to the Omnia, use your thumb to select the requisite menus, spin, select, confirm, CLICK. Instant FM quality. All 3 of our rigs will pass 14 kHz, with the Nautel 25kw rig essentially flat to 15 kHz.
 
It's criminal to me that a lack of standards and other cheapness has convinced the consumer
that AM sounds bad.

With Part 15 AM, no limitations are placed on response. :)
It is really rewarding to play with positive modulation over 100%, and see just how HUGE audio can sound
in a way that FM cannot.

(Or maybe it could, I've never tried to tweak an FM signal's audio)

I DO know that in the 70's, WITH good headphones and a well-designed wideband receiver,
the audio and processing on WLS was always better than ANY of the Chicago FM rock stations, which
certainly were loud, but never ever thundered.

To ensure that I would be able to enjoy the finest in "radio-processed and glorified audio" I built my own
AM osc/modulator first as more of a hi-fidelity source to appreciate the hi-end response on certain radios I used.
It is now a way to enjoy the music I favor, in thundering hi-fi AM mono in a "radio" presentation via automation.


Sounding better than FM, as Bob points out, actually costs nothing more.
Making what you feed in "sound better", costs as much as that needs to.
Processing is very subjective, and not necessarily expensive.

I'm tempted to leave a short aircheck, perhaps later...

Anyone who listened to CKLW, WLS, WCFL, etc in the early 70's knows exactly what I'm talking about.
Anyone who listened on expensive headphones would still remember how that sounded.
I know I still do.
 
Here is a 5 minute demo. An actual aircheck of AM1620 from Feb 8th, a few clips spliced together showing
how good AM really sounds.

There is no fiddling with the received audio, except for gain.
Received on a single germanium diode detector straight to the laptop microphone jack.


Music is from various sources old to new, digital, grungy 45s, and even one from cassette!
Background of crickets are via 1982 cassette.
Breakaway Broadcast in French Kiss, followed by a ART tube processor, to all-tube modulator.
Side order of fake plate reverb.


http://www.sendspace.com/file/whdl9n

PS. I still see room for improvement in recording....there is a DC bias on this that is damping bass response strangely.
A little more modification on the RF filter and a capacitor to block the DC out of the audio going into the laptop...
 
Semi OT, but in 1975, WINZ AM 940 Miami tried their hand at top 40ish music (a second time, I think), and even had a slogan, "The AM that sounds like an FM." If they were referring to fidelity, it was not exactly a promo for AM, was it?

cd
 
I recently listened to some airchecks of myself on a small AM station recorded in the early 1980's on a cheap home stereo system. I'm amazed at how clear the station sounded at the time. To the casual listener that could just as well have been recorded off an FM station.
 
A have an early-90s DAK boombox that has AM that's not the most selective, but it sounds so sweet on a strong AM signal. That's just a side benefit to the radio's poor design.
 
WINZ sounded good, but I think they were referring to the format.
I will take on the original question. We want stations to offer a great deal of quieting throughout their service areas.
When we went from AM to FM, the noise floor under normal driving and in-building conditions took a noise dive although a bit of artificiality was introduced. Now, in this digital age, the noise floor is at the bottom of the proverbial bottomless pit, although with all sorts of digital "things" thrown in, especially when companies try to bandwidth compress. Free from noise, I would describe it as artificial or limited perfection, but without excellence. That is it, just my opinion.
 
ai4i said:
WINZ sounded good, but I think they were referring to the format.
I will take on the original question. We want stations to offer a great deal of quieting throughout their service areas.
When we went from AM to FM, the noise floor under normal driving and in-building conditions took a noise dive although a bit of artificiality was introduced. Now, in this digital age, the noise floor is at the bottom of the proverbial bottomless pit, although with all sorts of digital "things" thrown in, especially when companies try to bandwidth compress. Free from noise, I would describe it as artificial or limited perfection, but without excellence. That is it, just my opinion.
Click to expand...

ai, I remember you told me that about WINZ. Either way, just "bringing up" FM on an AM station that plays music, IMO, is just askin' for trouble!

cd
 
Thanks for those samples. Back in 1989 I traveled through Oklahoma and during a stopover in Oklahoma city I recorded two hours of KOMA in the morning on a Sharp "Twincam" Boombox (AC bias recorder) on a Maxell UR-120 tape (no Dolby). Last year I dug it out of the shoebox and I was really impressed how this tape sounded after 21 years.

Part One - http://www.divshare.com/download/10402923-c28
Part Two - http://www.divshare.com/download/10403079-2e9

This was just a straight copy with no EQ added. I don't know what kind of processing KOMA-AM had back then, probably an AM Opitimod but they were cranking and sounding great! While dubbing it to my PC the needles on my JVC cassette deck barely moved off the 100% point.
 
cd637299 said:
Semi OT, but in 1975, WINZ AM 940 Miami tried their hand at top 40ish music (a second time, I think), and even had a slogan, "The AM that sounds like an FM." If they were referring to fidelity, it was not exactly a promo for AM, was it?

cd
Click to expand...

Like anyone could get away with saying something like that today. I was around in 1975, and absolutely no AM station sounded like FM which is one of the reasons FM was more popular for music. To even make the claim could, in my opinion, be considered delusional. Speaking of delusional, maybe a friend of mine has the right idea.. Select AM stations could go all Charlie Sheen, all the time. You could get a large cross section of young people potentially discovering AM for the first time. The trick would be when Charlie finally goes to the looney bin, what else would you put on the air?

It's fine to practice revisionist history or wax nostalgically about the good old days, huddled up to the warmth of tube radios with Ma, Pa and Johnboy, but I suspect your aging memory may be actually playing tricks.

The fact is that AM continues to lose traction, sliding ever closer toward the grave. Old timers, mainly males over 40 who listen to right-wing talk are all that's left, that's just the reality. Time to return to the 21st Century, already in progress.
 
TVradioguru said:
cd637299 said:
Semi OT, but in 1975, WINZ AM 940 Miami tried their hand at top 40ish music (a second time, I think), and even had a slogan, "The AM that sounds like an FM." If they were referring to fidelity, it was not exactly a promo for AM, was it?

cd
Click to expand...

Like anyone could get away with saying something like that today. I was around in 1975, and absolutely no AM station sounded like FM which is one of the reasons FM was more popular for music. To even make the claim could, in my opinion, be considered delusional. Speaking of delusional, maybe a friend of mine has the right idea.. Select AM stations could go all Charlie Sheen, all the time. You could get a large cross section of young people potentially discovering AM for the first time. The trick would be when Charlie finally goes to the looney bin, what else would you put on the air?

It's fine to practice revisionist history or wax nostalgically about the good old days, huddled up to the warmth of tube radios with Ma, Pa and Johnboy, but I suspect your aging memory may be actually playing tricks.

The fact is that AM continues to lose traction, sliding ever closer toward the grave. Old timers, mainly males over 40 who listen to right-wing talk are all that's left, that's just the reality. Time to return to the 21st Century, already in progress.
Click to expand...

Nearly all of the CTIA white paper on repacking the TV band is impractical, self-serving piffle. But it did make one point that I thought made sense. It started the TV band at channel 7 with channels 2-6 being annexed to radio.

At some point, the FCC is going to have to throw in the towel and concede that VHF, especially lower VHF, is unusable for DTV. But I can see a lot of AM stations migrating to this newly opened up band containing a whopping 30 MHz of spectrum and eventually turn in their AM licenses.

Having said that, I still think AM stereo sounds amazing, especially the separation, considering the FCC-imposed limitations on the AM band.
 
You should have heard C-QUAM stereo pre-NRSC, Carmine.

And while I'm sure TVradioguru will deride this as much as he does most empirical proof of AM's past superiority, there are plenty of authentic airchecks demonstrating how great AM Stereo sounded in the 1980s before the advent of political talk. As examples listen to the WOWO airchecks on youtube.

guru is right about the 1970s loudness wars, though. When discriminate multiband processing made its debut 1973-74, AM stations pursued loudness-at-all-costs with a vengeance. The processor of choice in the mid-1970s was the Modulimiter BL-40 producing 40% THD in low frequencies. It was loud, but IMO these boxes hastened the migration of music audiences to FM.
While PDs and jocks loved the loudness, they overlooked the effect on the audience, which found the brick-wall audio fatiguing.

And the uberaggressive processing and limiting cooked many a mod transformer or feedback ladder of 1950s-era plate-mod transmitters in that era. (The power-supply tilt and carrier shift caused by pushing older rigs also didn't enhance AM's sound quality back in the day.)
 
Savage said:
You should have heard C-QUAM stereo pre-NRSC, Carmine.

And while I'm sure TVradioguru will deride this as much as he does most empirical proof of AM's past superiority, there are plenty of authentic airchecks demonstrating how great AM Stereo sounded in the 1980s before the advent of political talk. As examples listen to the WOWO airchecks on youtube.

guru is right about the 1970s loudness wars, though. When discriminate multiband processing made its debut 1973-74, AM stations pursued loudness-at-all-costs with a vengeance. The processor of choice in the mid-1970s was the Modulimiter BL-40 producing 40% THD in low frequencies. It was loud, but IMO these boxes hastened the migration of music audiences to FM.
While PDs and jocks loved the loudness, they overlooked the effect on the audience, which found the brick-wall audio fatiguing.

And the uberaggressive processing and limiting cooked many a mod transformer or feedback ladder of 1950s-era plate-mod transmitters in that era. (The power-supply tilt and carrier shift caused by pushing older rigs also didn't enhance AM's sound quality back in the day.)
Click to expand...

I just took your advice, Mr. Savage, and listened to a WOWO aircheck from 1992. Yes, it sounds wonderful. Which is why it's so heart-breaking to watch C-QuAM get kicked to the curb. Unfortunately, in many instances, the kicking was done by stations that at one time had the exciters in their racks but then took them out of service.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm_iYK-ctiQ&playnext=1&list=PL6C5B8ECE6B71119E

Surprisingly, Delta Electronics still makes one model of AM stereo exciter.

http://www.deltaelectronics.com/data/ase2data.htm
 
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