Listening more than usual to this station this weekend since the "Definitive 1019" is playing. It seems that the audio sounds like a bad internet stream as compared to what it was even just a few days ago (which could be termed at least average or on par with what one expects from an FM music station, with some imperfections). I know some of our engineering/audiophile posters could jump in here & give technical details about what may be happening soundwise at 101.9 FM past & present.
Just a general comment about NYC area FM audio: it seems for a market this large that there's a lot of stations that have audio quality that could be much better. I know when I listen with better quality receivers sometimes the flaws can be masked (or occasionally heightened) by the receiver itself or with some equalizer adjustments, whereas when listening on a standard portable/mono radio, "boombox" or walkman you pretty much get what the station's putting out - and sometimes it's surprisingly bad. Is it true that certain signals have particular characteristics that no matter how the processing is tweaked, they'll always sound more or less the same unless there's an overhaul in studio/transmitter equipment? I know some stations would automatically have to sound different technically than they once did due to format changes - for example, 104.3 FM is processed a lot differently now as classic rock WAXQ "Q104" from when it was classical music WNCN; 100.3 FM is a lot different from WVNJ's "peashooter" to WHTZ's "from the top of the gorilla building".
It's a small sample, but when I travel to Southern California for one or two weeks a year & get to hear the L.A./San Diego stations, it seems that most of the major stations have pretty good processing/audio quality across the board (with maybe a couple of exceptions - it seems that "sort of AAA" 100.3 KSWD "The Sound" & AC 103.5 KOST sound very "soft"; that's probably intentional due to their formats).
Listeners & audiophiles from various markets: feel free to chime in with info/thoughts as to their stations audio processing.
Just a general comment about NYC area FM audio: it seems for a market this large that there's a lot of stations that have audio quality that could be much better. I know when I listen with better quality receivers sometimes the flaws can be masked (or occasionally heightened) by the receiver itself or with some equalizer adjustments, whereas when listening on a standard portable/mono radio, "boombox" or walkman you pretty much get what the station's putting out - and sometimes it's surprisingly bad. Is it true that certain signals have particular characteristics that no matter how the processing is tweaked, they'll always sound more or less the same unless there's an overhaul in studio/transmitter equipment? I know some stations would automatically have to sound different technically than they once did due to format changes - for example, 104.3 FM is processed a lot differently now as classic rock WAXQ "Q104" from when it was classical music WNCN; 100.3 FM is a lot different from WVNJ's "peashooter" to WHTZ's "from the top of the gorilla building".
It's a small sample, but when I travel to Southern California for one or two weeks a year & get to hear the L.A./San Diego stations, it seems that most of the major stations have pretty good processing/audio quality across the board (with maybe a couple of exceptions - it seems that "sort of AAA" 100.3 KSWD "The Sound" & AC 103.5 KOST sound very "soft"; that's probably intentional due to their formats).
Listeners & audiophiles from various markets: feel free to chime in with info/thoughts as to their stations audio processing.
;D