[bordins]

I wonder any head-fier has listened HD Radio broadcast ? How good is the sonics ? I'm thinking to buy a decent FM tunner but may wait until big brands offer the HD Radio feature.

HD Radio Simulation at NPR.
http://www.npr.org/everywhere/digita...reloader1.html

 

[Welly Wu]

Polk Audio is going to sell its I-Sonic Entertainment System this summer 2006 for $599 USD MSRP. It is the only radio that has both analog and iBiquity HD Radio, XM Satellite Radio, and a CD/DVD-Video player. When I get my Ayre Acoustics CX-7E and I sell my ModWright LLC Pioneer Elite DV-59AVi, I might just pick it up for myself as a Christmas gift.

 

[bordins]

New car head units are now HD Radio built-in. There'll be more HD Radio receivers comming, this summer I wish.

http://www.ibiquity.com/hdradio/hdradio_hdproducts.htm

Rotel RT-1084 looks very interesting. I know that Denon and Marantz already licensed HD Radio technology a couple years ago. Last week, I auditioned Marantz ST-17 tunner. It sounds fantastics, making FM broadcast at an audiophile level. But I'm very curious to wait months until Rotel or Marantz to release their HD Radio receivers.

BTW, XM Satellite Radio just posted its massive financial loss last year. This is not a good sign.

 

[sonance]

HD Radio is not a network or pay for play type system, it's broadcast by the same stations that broadcast FM and AM, and it still has ads (up to the station of course) that you hear on FM / AM. I think that the success or faliure of XM / Sirius in the US will be independent of the gradual increase of HD radio transmissions from traditional radio stations. I haven't read much about the quality of the transmission, I don't know if its any better than the variant of aac compression that XM and Sirius use (from my understanding.) If it's called HD radio I hope it's better than CD quality (at least potentially.)

 

[Jeff]

Does anyone know what bitrates HD radio is planning on using? I'm guessing it's going to be some form of AAC, probably 128k at most. I don't think we'll be getting full "audiophile" quality. And as stations pack more channels into their bandwidth, it'll get worse from there. XM and Sirius are extreme examples, but they do sound mostly bad. Remember, Apple claims their 128k AAC files to be CD-quality, too.

 

[uzziah]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonance HD Radio is not a network or pay for play type system, it's broadcast by the same stations that broadcast FM and AM, and it still has ads (up to the station of course) that you hear on FM / AM. I think that the success or faliure of XM / Sirius in the US will be independent of the gradual increase of HD radio transmissions from traditional radio stations. I haven't read much about the quality of the transmission, I don't know if its any better than the variant of aac compression that XM and Sirius use (from my understanding.) If it's called HD radio I hope it's better than CD quality (at least potentially.)

better than cd quality? i find that impossible to believe, unless of course they're playing sacd's or the like

 

[bordins]

From NPR's HD Radio simulation, the main difference from analog FM/AM is the level of noise (S/N ratio) is very low. In terms of hifidelity of the sonics, I think a decent FM tuner can do it.

I auditioned both the new Marantz ST-7001 (having both analog and DAB receivers, sounds) and ST-17 (only analog). The ST-17 sounds obviously better than 7001's, in the same analog stations with good reception. ST-17 sounds more detailed, smoother, better both-end extensions, and excellent stereo imaging.

I can't imagine what bad sounds from XM Radio like ? Like bad CD recordings ? This should be similar to HD Radio's ?

 

[sonance]

Well of course since 99% of the music from radio stations is coming off a CD, I don't expect that to sound better than a CD - which is why I mentioned the potentially part. If the spec at least broadcasts 96khz or 192khz data, it has the potential to sound better than CD given a better than CD source.
For example the DJs talking might sound better right off the bat - not that we'd care much about this improvement, except maybe with talk radio content.
While us poor schlubs might not have or have access to much high-rez audio, radio stations might get more of this stuff going forward as the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray camps start trying to push music / audio discs, or when the station gets SACD or DVD-A (not too much of a chance of the latter.)

 

[SennFan]

It will not take much to chisel away the popularity of satellite. The fact that one has to buy equipment is a burden for already lazy consumers. I find it hard to believe that AM/FM broadcasts will rival the sound quality of CDs w the new HD format.

 

[Jeff Guidry]

I don't think the change to HD radio is intended to be quite the same as the transition to HDTV. The point is not so much to improve the sonic quality of the transmission in terms of amount of information received as it is to improve its reliability, and to reduce bandwidth so that a station can multicast on the same frequency and send additional information in the data stream (like song titles, etc.)

HD radio sounds interesting, and since I listen primarily to AM radio, it would be interesting to hear my talk radio shows in FM quality. Which leads me to speculate how AM talk shows will have to change how they present their content when enough stations go HD to make it necessary. As it stands, the shows are produced with AM station quality in mind, as there are very few FM talk stations.

 

[bordins]

I found a review XM vs. FM radio. Review/comparison here. It seems XM Radio offers sound quality as good as high bitrate MP3 songs with crystal clear background. So does HD Radio, IMHO.

I came across Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) which is similar to HD Radio, except the royalty issue. DRM is open-source. I find DRM receivers are still expensive, and it required a PC to decode the signal.

There are a number of DAB technology. A Comparitive Overview of Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) Systems and Their Compatability With The American Broadcast Landscape

http://beradio.com/iboc_update/iboc_update_020806/

I think I'll get a decent FM tunner for the time being.

 

[replytoken]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonance Well of course since 99% of the music from radio stations is coming off a CD

Not necessarily so. I believe that many FM radio stations have gone away from CD's. They use file servers, one I believe is called "Audio Vault", to send out their music. You might want to check with your local station to see what they use for their sources. One local DJ mentioned that his weekly show uses CD's, and that he has been fighting against the use of overly compressed music files.

 

[sonance]

Oh I'm not surprised to hear that radio stations don't literally press play on a CD player to play a song over the air, but I meant that the source of the music is a CD, and not some other other higher resoultion format such as SACD or DVD-A or anything else. I'm sure some shows or stations still use Vinyl (probably a very small minority) but other than that it's 44.1khz 16bit sourced audio.

 

[bhjazz]

I think they're trying to snow us...I'll bet the HD part of Hd Radio will be the fact that it is a digital broadcast and not an analog one. This means no more "ffff.....ffff" as you drive behind hills or mountains. It does mean, however, that the station could potentially disappear altogether (okay, we have tunnels here in Seattle...what can I say!)

As for file servers, you can always tell who isn't using one...those guys that say, "Ooops. Wrong tune. Hang on" then cue up the correct tune. Always a good laugh in the morning. Stein did it last week on KPLU.

 

[replytoken]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bhjazz As for file servers, you can always tell who isn't using one...those guys that say, "Ooops. Wrong tune. Hang on" then cue up the correct tune. Always a good laugh in the morning. Stein did it last week on KPLU.

Brad Dolbeer used to only play CD's on his Friday Night Flashback show on KMTT, but he's now in Portland.

But speaking of KPLU, I heard that they have now opened a second channel on their HD broadcast. As long as the HD tuners are no worse than what we have now, and that's a big if, I will look forward to more music from stations that play good music, like KPLU.