IBOC or "HD Radio" digital radio? You're listening to compressed audio with a ~90kbps bit rate.adason said:
IBOC increases the high frequency limit up to 20KHz from analog FM's 15KHz, but in the meantime it messes up the sound - lots of compression artifacts, cymbals get "smeared", etc. Some music can actually sound better, but other music can sound completely awful.
Mind you, to a person that's used to 128kbps MP3, they'll probably hear the extra treble and think "wow, that's great!"... sometimes I hate having a trained ear.
And I'm talking about FM. Don't get me started on AM...
All this talk about digital radio reminds me of the release of the CD format. Its got to be perfect Its Digital There's no noise when theres no music. Perfect!!! My how brainwashed we've become. I guess we'll just have to wait 10 or 15 years for digital radio to sound as good as analog does now.
Oh And if you think the fm digital stereo sounds bad wait till they add 3.1 more channels for 5.1 surround in your car in the same bandwidth!!! Boy that'll be perfect.
Hugh M
Oh And if you think the fm digital stereo sounds bad wait till they add 3.1 more channels for 5.1 surround in your car in the same bandwidth!!! Boy that'll be perfect.
Hugh M
we all love music....thats why we care so much how it sounds
if i hear great song i love in pathetic quality i can't stand it
i rather stop listening to it
its like you say you dont care how the food is presented to you, you just eat it to live, as long as you have plenty, even from the dirty plate
the other thing which bothers me about digital radio stations, that they are so cold, unpersonal, its just a stream of data, nothing live, just a computer behing it all
i enjoy fm radio besides great music for the human touch, the anouncer, the discussions, weather, trafic, news, everything happening right here right now...live
just my opinion
be specific, what does it indicate? perhaps that people dont like commercials?
did you have an impression from my post that i like
in the radio stations?
i do listen mostly to oldest listener supported radio station in the DC area, 89.3 fm WPFW, which has absolutely no advertisement of any kind....plus, their educational jazz programs, full of insight and knowledge are incomparable
after a couple of hours of digital stream of jazz music /or any other for that matter, i listen to classical and rock as well/ i need that live voice of anouncer in broadcast studio, no computer please
i imagine in the future there will be just a music server of ever recorded music, in some sort of compressed form, you just log in, specify what you want and there you go, hundreds of hours of your favourite digital stream
This is an interesting topic to me, because I have always been fascinated by the magic of radio. I used to listen to the Texaco broadcasts from the MET in New York. My gosh. Radio can be good - or was.
I would suggest if looking for an old FM tuner, to consider one made by NAD, pre-1990, and put an excellent antenna on it. Not a good antenna, an EXELLENT antenna. A great antenna transforms the FM stereo experience completely.
I am presently using a NAD 7600, and the tuner is simply astounding. Like the great pyramids, we seem to have stopped making great tuners.
I would suggest if looking for an old FM tuner, to consider one made by NAD, pre-1990, and put an excellent antenna on it. Not a good antenna, an EXELLENT antenna. A great antenna transforms the FM stereo experience completely.
I am presently using a NAD 7600, and the tuner is simply astounding. Like the great pyramids, we seem to have stopped making great tuners.
Why manufacture a decent FM tuners today when other content delivery methods are destined to replace FM in the home entertainment rack? Most likely it will be streaming over the web.
Read the article in Forbes during the summer? They suggest content delivery in the home will be provided by the likes of Microsoft, Dell, and HP
Oh - that hurts.
What really irritates me, is people today think FM does not sound very good, so they think obviously, that it never did. How soon they forget.
Where have all the good technicians gone? A good question. (This is my second post on this venue by the way, so I apologize for barging in like this...)
I have a friend who tells me that the age of the average professional home stereo technician in the United States is approaching retirement now. He thinks in another ten years, almost everything, regardless of expense, will be throw-away. If it breaks in warranty, it will be replaced. If it is out of warranty, the consumer will have to fix it himself or fling it into the trash.
I don't know if that is actually true, but it rings true. Maybe home theater repair will be outsourced offshore. If you want your 23.1 box fixed - it will have to be FedEx'd to a distant country to be repaired, and then FedEx'd back...
Read the article in Forbes during the summer? They suggest content delivery in the home will be provided by the likes of Microsoft, Dell, and HP
Oh - that hurts.What really irritates me, is people today think FM does not sound very good, so they think obviously, that it never did. How soon they forget.
Where have all the good technicians gone? A good question. (This is my second post on this venue by the way, so I apologize for barging in like this...)
I have a friend who tells me that the age of the average professional home stereo technician in the United States is approaching retirement now. He thinks in another ten years, almost everything, regardless of expense, will be throw-away. If it breaks in warranty, it will be replaced. If it is out of warranty, the consumer will have to fix it himself or fling it into the trash.
I don't know if that is actually true, but it rings true. Maybe home theater repair will be outsourced offshore. If you want your 23.1 box fixed - it will have to be FedEx'd to a distant country to be repaired, and then FedEx'd back...
Ron Fischler said:Read the article in Forbes during the summer? They suggest content delivery in the home will be provided by the likes of Microsoft, Dell, and HP
As a person who does not settle for less than a 256K webstream, thet will hurt - Imagine listening to Bach at 24kb/s?
Hi Ron,
Most professional audio technicians have moved to the industrial sector. I sold my audio service business because it does not make financial sense to do that work. I serviced high end home and recording devices.
The amount of knowledge and skill required to perform good work, and to keep up with new technology is worth more than the consumer sector is willing to pay. As the shop owner, purchasing and maintaining the equipment also has a high cost. We can thank the distributors of these products for the entire mess. We can also thank ourselves for voting with our dollars.
I don't think new products will be repaired so much as replaced. The rest hits the landfill. The most complicated repair will be subassy. replacement. Remember when a unit could be optimized?
-Chris
Most professional audio technicians have moved to the industrial sector. I sold my audio service business because it does not make financial sense to do that work. I serviced high end home and recording devices.
The amount of knowledge and skill required to perform good work, and to keep up with new technology is worth more than the consumer sector is willing to pay. As the shop owner, purchasing and maintaining the equipment also has a high cost. We can thank the distributors of these products for the entire mess. We can also thank ourselves for voting with our dollars.
I don't think new products will be repaired so much as replaced. The rest hits the landfill. The most complicated repair will be subassy. replacement. Remember when a unit could be optimized?
-Chris
Jackinnj has given you the best lead. Look into the big metal tuners of the 1970's from the big three Japanese makers. FM broadcasting was hugely important and largely independent then so getting a good tuner was at least as important as getting a good phonograph. The best values are the Pioneer TX-9500 series which can be had for less than $200 in operating condition. They had the best IF stage to work on of all the tuners and when tweaked with better op-amps, new electrolytics, matched 10.7MHz filters and a little cleaning, they were the best performng, bar none, according to one source who owns just about every tuner on the planet including the state of the art L02. In their stock form they are solidly in the top 20 tuners of all time and the Magnum Dynalab is only slightly better than it. The Kenwood tuners were very similar to the Pioneers and their top of the line units are even more sensitive than the Pioneer offerings but they don't reject bad signals as well. Since Clear Channel got the FCC to loosen bandwidth regulations they and companies like them put out a signal which makes Kenwoods less happy in denser markets. Any serious tuner has no less than "four gangs", and if you want an explanation for what that means or how its defined, then you'll have to ask someone else.
The Sansui TU-9XXX series are among the best regarded so Netlist wins the award for the best recommendation but prices for these boxes are rarely under $1000 and a large part of their excellence is in their excellent parts matching, particularly in their IF filters.
To put this all in perspective, jockohomo gives you the salt you're going to need when shopping for a tasty tuner. Very few cities broadcast anything worth listening to
The Sansui TU-9XXX series are among the best regarded so Netlist wins the award for the best recommendation but prices for these boxes are rarely under $1000 and a large part of their excellence is in their excellent parts matching, particularly in their IF filters.
To put this all in perspective, jockohomo gives you the salt you're going to need when shopping for a tasty tuner. Very few cities broadcast anything worth listening to
yldouright said:
Not just the big 3... the best tuners i sold* in the 70s were Onkyos -- even their budget receivers had good tuners (i've a TX220 that cost me $10
). The T-4055 is my favorite, the T-9 (if aligned well) is also excellent, i'm quite happy with my T-4040.*(we also sold Pioneer, Kenwood, Sony, Nalamichi, Revox)
I just sold a TX-9500 (got $53 on eBay) and it was very good. Not as good sounding as the Onkyo but better at pulling the station in. Most of the tuners i sell on eBay usually go for about $20 (and i don't put any up that aren't reasonable) so there is some excellent value out there.
dave
Hi there.......for sevceral years in electronics.......my homemade FM tuner was one I specifically designed for HiFi quality at the end of the 70's era.......the HA series i'cs which it was based on are still around, but all I needed to do was to replace all the electrolytic caps which were drying out with new ones. A cheap refurbishment now offers excellent results.
rich
rich
planet10
A TX9500 for $53 is an amazing deal!!! Looks like I should start trolling Ebay again because as I stated earlier, this IS the tuner to tweak. The top of the line Onkyo's were good tuners and sounded better probably because of their newer electronics but from a build/design standpoint (ie: shielding, simplicity and elegence of design, etc.) the TX9x00 series would be my choice. Let me know if any more of these show up on your door
A TX9500 for $53 is an amazing deal!!! Looks like I should start trolling Ebay again because as I stated earlier, this IS the tuner to tweak. The top of the line Onkyo's were good tuners and sounded better probably because of their newer electronics but from a build/design standpoint (ie: shielding, simplicity and elegence of design, etc.) the TX9x00 series would be my choice. Let me know if any more of these show up on your door
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